RUBIN, Harriet 1952-

PERSONAL:

Born 1952.

ADDRESSES:

Home—New York, NY, and Eugene, OR. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Simon & Schuster, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020. E-mail—hrubin@aol.com.

CAREER:

Author, editor, journalist, freelance writer, and consultant. Founder of Currency Books, 1989. Member of board of editors, USA Today, Washington, DC.

WRITINGS:

The Princessa: Machiavelli for Women, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1997.

Soloing: Realizing Your Life's Ambition, HarperBusiness (New York, NY), 1999.

Dante in Love: The World's Greatest Poem and How It Made History, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2004.

Contributor to publications such as New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly, Inc., and a variety of women's magazines. Contributing editor to Fast Company.

SIDELIGHTS:

As a book editor and publishing executive, Harriet Rubin founded the Currency imprint at Doubleday. An Inc. contributor stated that by age forty-three Rubin had created "one of the most successful business-book programs of our time." After a successful publishing career spanning more than twenty years, Rubin realized that the corporate environment no longer had anything to offer her. In July of 1997 she left an established position to "go solo," to re-create her life and define her own type of work outside the confining walls of corporate America.

Rubin chronicled the first months of her solo journey in a series of articles in Inc, where she shared excerpts from the diary she kept while working through the initial panic, and eventual exhilaration of her solo lifestyle. In Soloing: Realizing Your Life's Ambition she expands further on her diary entries, discussing both practical and philosophical issues facing the potential soloist. "By reinventing themselves and utilising the power of freedom, 'soloists' can achieve a greatness unthought of by their old corporate selves," commented Dr. Chris Evans in Management Today. Rubin describes a number of indicators that suggest a corporate employee may be ready for a solo act, and also discusses such critical issues as finding clients, increasing visibility, making it as simple as possible for people to locate and purchase services, and working quickly and professionally on projects.

The Princessa: Machiavelli for Women was Rubin's first major book project after embarking on her solo career. "The business books Harriet Rubin publishes under the Currency imprint for Doubleday are often written by maverick authors offering contrarian views," commented Carol Wheeler in Executive Female. "Rubin's own book is very much in that innovative tradition." In the book, Rubin notes that it is considered complimentary to call a man a prince but derogatory when a woman is called a princess. Rubin defines a princessa as "a commanding presence exuding authority," who triumphs not by applying aggressive male tactics "but by drawing on her feminine strengths of wisdom, power-sharing, and strategic maneuvering," noted a reviewer in Publishers Weekly. Rubin "wants to provoke women into changing how they see themselves and others," remarked Anne Fisher in Fortune. "Only then, Rubin says, can they begin to use and expand the power they already have."

The Princessa borrows its structure from The Prince, Machiavelli's sixteenth-century guidebook for achieving and retaining power. Rubin, however, advises that women avoid playing the power game the same way that men do. "Don't play by rules that aren't your own, she counsels," observed Susan Salter Reynolds in the Los Angeles Times. Rubin urges women to use the weapons at their disposal: clothing that enhances and projects power, emphasis on female physical attributes that appeal to men, and even the use of tears when necessary. Though the principles outlined by Rubin "are so basic as to seem trite, they bear repeating for those who have never learned to study the mechanics of power," remarked Deirdre R. Schwiesow in USA Today.

A Booklist reviewer called the book "a well-written text harmoniously balancing philosophy and actuality." Fisher commented that The Princessa "is the kind of book that echoes in the mind after you put it down, and women trying to rethink their careers and their lives might glean some useful insights from it." Fisher concluded that "in the end, it's all about tempering compassion with courage and clear-sightedness." Schwiesow observed that "Rubin's insights are brilliant in their simplicity and effectiveness, which makes The Princessa a book sure to be underlined, dogeared and re-read for inspiration and aid."

Dante in Love: The World's Greatest Poem and How It Made History offers a scholarly examination of The Divine Comedy and the circumstances surrounding its creation, including Dante's years of exile and travel as well as his love for Beatrice. Rubin evinces an "infectious blend of accessibility, erudition, and practical wisdom" throughout the book, commented a Publishers Weekly reviewer. Dante was banished from Florence in 1302 because of a factional feud, but it was the poet's enduring love for Beatrice, a Florentine girl who died more than a decade before his banishment, that inspired him to write his famous poetry. "The real love here is Rubin's passion for Dante," commented Nicholas Hengen in Wilson Quarterly. "Combined with her erudition and wit, this love makes Rubin a trustworthy Virgil to guide us through Dante's exile."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Atlanta Journal-Constitution, May 16, 2004, David Kirby, review of Dante in Love: The World's Greatest Poem and How It Changed History, p. L7.

Booklist, March 15, 1997, Barbara Jacobs, review of The Princessa: Machiavelli for Women, p. 1211; November 1, 1999, David Rouse, review of Soloing: Realizing Your Life's Ambition, p. 494.

Boston Globe, May 26, 1997, Diane White, review of The Princessa, section C, p. 8.

Executive Female, May-June, 1997, Carol Wheeler, review of The Princessa, p. 63.

Fortune, April 14, 1997, Anne Fisher, review of The Princessa, p. 162.

Inc., November 1, 1998, Harriet Rubin, "From the Journals of Harriet Rubin"; November, 1999, "FYI," p. 9.

Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2004, review of Dante in Love, p. 169.

Library Journal, March 15, 1997, Janet Clapp, review of The Princessa, p. 79; May 1, 2004, Jaime Anderson, review of Dante in Love, p. 108.

Los Angeles Times, March 21, 1997, Susan Salter Reynolds, review of The Princessa, p. 8.

Management Today, February, 2000, Dr. Chris Evans, review of Soloing, p. 44.

Publishers Weekly, February 24, 1997, Judy Quinn, review of The Princessa, p. 24; March 24, 1997, review of The Princessa, p. 71; March 22, 2004, review of Dante in Love, p. 78.

Sales & Marketing Management, February, 2000, Andy Cohen, review of Soloing, p. 22.

USA Today, April 17, 1997, Deirdre R. Schwiesow, review of The Princessa, p. D6.

Wilson Quarterly, summer, 2004, Nicholas Hengen, review of Dante in Love, p. 122.*