Wake Up: A Lifetime of Lessons from Smart Women

Wake Up is John Spooner’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 & 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.

If God had started with Spooner instead of Adam, men since would have been better listeners. Thankfully we have John now, so men can learn and women can enjoy some of the great lessons we’ve given them along the way. Men need this book. Women will love it.

—TÉA LEONI, actress, star of Madame Secretary and countless films from Spanglish to Bad Boys

John Spooner is a wise man—wise enough to credit those people who helped him attain his sagacity, and wise enough to applaud the fact that most of those people are female. In a brilliant inverse of mansplaining, Spooner celebrates the insights of the many women in his life. Bravo!

—SUSAN ORLEAN, bestselling author and New Yorker contributor

John Spooner says men have a lot to learn from women about “growing up” and after decades of listening, he’s ready to tell other men what women all his life have taught him. Wake Up is shrewd and smartly-written. A guide for men—perfect for these times—but also for us women.

—LESLEY STAHL, broadcasting legend, co-host of CBS 60 Minutes

John Spooner is a great storyteller. He is also a great listener. He goes beyond what people say to what they mean … and perhaps most specially, how they feel. John has set out to uncover the wisdom of women. And he finds it, not in pronouncements or speeches, but in simple stories of real women in real life dealing with real life issues. He has a remarkable ear. And we are all better off for his insight.

—SHELLY LAZARUS, former chair of Ogilvy and Mather Worldwide, and on many lists of “Most Powerful Women” in the world