s love letter to the women in his life, from childhood to last week. These are women who have educated, mentored, inspired and even loved him, changing his life in many ways because of their special talents and practical solutions for life's problems, great and small. It has been their empathy, compassion, and understanding, their kindness and humor that have made him better, more successful and happier than he could ever be. All this- comes so naturally to women.

Every woman applauded in this book has a different profession, from childcare to advertising, from finance and the law to acting, fundraising, medicine and more.

And it's all practical advice, not preaching from on high. Spooner, a prize winning author of bestselling novels and non-fiction, has also contributed over decades to many magazines and newspapers, including The Atlantic, Cosmopolitan, Town and Country, Time, as well as columns in Boston Magazine and The Improper Bostonian.

Advice and counsel is his specialty, layered with humor and a sense that the world is mad.

Men will be inspired by these women's words and deeds rolled out in Wake Up. No surprise to the women out there who read it as well, and nod their heads.