I'd Rather Laugh: How to be Happy Even When Life Has Other Plans for You Book

Linda Richman, self-described typical Jewish girl from Long Island and the most popular speaker at the world-renowned Canyon Ranch Spa, presents a tears and laughter guidebook guaranteed to help readers withstand lifes hard knocks. The first four decades of Linda Richmans life were rife with tragedy: She lost her father at eight and her mother to depression soon after; later, she lost her husband to compulsive gambling; her son to a car accident; and spent 11 years battling agoraphobia. But now, Linda shares her life story and how she learned that when all is said and done, the only cure that works, and the one that takes the most courage, is laughter. Combining wry, self-deprecating humor with hard-knocks wisdom, Linda makes it her mission to get everyone to shake off the blues and make their way back into the world. Because she knows from experience that when life makes you crythats the best time to laugh. Through the unexpected celebrity thrust upon her by Mike Myers (Myers is Lindas son-in-law and based the Saturday Night Live Coffee Talk character on her), Linda is connected to many major celebrities, including Deepak Chopra, Katie Couric, Barbra Streisand, and Rosie ODonnell, who has promised to put her on her show when the book is published. As a lecturer at the renowned Canyon Ranch Spas in Tucson, Arizona, and Lenox, Massachusetts, Linda speaks to hundreds of people a week about having the courage to laugh through their pain. Lindas wisdom is refreshingly down-to-earth and reads like the advice from an old friend. Her grounded personality, more than her incidental celebrity, drives the book.