Sometimes life gives us oranges; sometimes it hands us lemons. Comedian and View regular Joy Behar knows the lemonade route, but she's also thought of other options, including juggling. In When You Need a Lift, she not only adds a twist of lemon to her extra-large espresso; she taps her famous friends for stories on overcoming adversity. Among those contributing to this pick-me-up are Tom Hanks, Barbara Bush, James Earl Jones, Olympia Dukakis, Bob Dole, Richard Lewis, and Mariel Hemingway.

Surveying over 100 famous friends, Behar, a cohost of ABC's The View, offers their personal strategies for beating the blues. Comfort food is the most proffered solution; exercise and getting into nature are also highly recommended. There seems to be some agreement that when nothing else works, "doing something kind for someone else" is the best solution. Only one person mentions that depression can be a serious illness needing professional help. While this compilation is not bad advice, anyone surveying 100 friends would probably get the same kind of response. Too much of a hybrid to be either good comedy or good self-help, this program, read by Renée Raudman and David Drummond, is recommended as an optional purchase for public libraries serving voracious celebrity watchers; it is not recommended for self-help collections. [Behar is the New York Times best-selling author of Sheetzucacapoopoo and Joy Shtick.-Ed.]
—Kathleen Sullivan