Meditation Books Address Women’s Issues

The latest arrivals on the ever-expanding shelves of minimeditation books tackle tough territory: divorce, menopause and widowhood.

In her “Days of Healing, Days of Change” series, author Ellen Sue Stern explores loss - and potential gains - in three installments: “Starting Over,” “In My Prime” and “Living With Loss” (Dell, $8.95 each).

“These three books deal with special times when there’s lots of change, and women are re-evaluating themselves in terms of identity and self-worth,” says Stern. “It’s a crossroads of experience.”

Intended as spiritual guides, each book offers 365 thought-provoking quotes - one a day for a year from a wide range of sources, including Maya Angelou, the Talmud and Anna Quindlen - along with Stern’s thoughts and an affirmation or resolution arising from them.

“My goal is to provide a source of encouragement and inspiration for women going through difficult challenges,” says Stern, whose seven meditations books (including previous volumes on marriage, pregnancy, motherhood and stress) have largely paralleled her own life as a wife, mother and, later, a divorced person.

While she shuns sugar-coating, Stern does use humor to temper tragedy, quoting, among others, the oft-married Zsa Zsa Gabor, who once declared, “I never hated a man enough to give him his diamonds back.”