Reviews and Feature Articles About Curse

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HOT BOOK PICKS: LAUGH-OUT-LOUD EDITION This amusing memoir follows a 34-year-old through a sexual dry spell filled with blind dates, bike rides and races across the globe and finally (yes!) Mr. Right. See the article.

Summer's on the wane, and even ardent readers may have missed a few of the season's most talked-about tomes. Here, a look at titles that are making a splash. THE CURSE OF THE SINGLES TABLE: Subtitled A True Story of 1001 Nights Without Sex, this airy memoir by L.A. writer Suzanne Schlosberg ("the Cal Ripken of celibacy" to her friends) ends happily. What happens on Night No. 1002? We're not telling. See the article.

Laugh off a sexual dry spell the way Suzanne Schlosberg does in The Curse of the Singles Table: A True Story of 1001 Nights Without Sex. Her sly optimism pays off in the end.

Anyone who's ever gone solo to a wedding and been stuck at the dreaded "singles table" will adore this gutsy and hilarious take on singlehood. Undaunted by "The Streak" — a dry spell that lasted 1,358 days — Suzanne shifts into overdrive to find Mr. Right, or at least Mr. Remote Possibility, and starts analyzing her Internet dates with the zealousness of an FBI profiler. Curse is an insightful and hopeful tale with a unique twist on the chick-lit genre: It's all true.

Two 30-something sisters from Los Angeles, Jennifer Lehr and Suzanne Schlosberg have published memoirs of sexual dysfunction, undoubtedly creating migraines in the heads of their Jewish parents. Lehr's ILL-EQUIPPED FOR A LIFE OF SEX is a fairly humorless and depressing account of her sexual problems with her future husband, who doesn't want to make love as often or as urgently as she does. Schlosberg's THE CURSE OF THE SINGLES TABLE is much funnier, recounting the author's almost three-year bout of celibacy.

Think you could write a book about your lousy love life? Suzanne Schlosberg did just that, recounting the tale of her three-year, eight-month, and 23-day-long dry spell in "The Curse of the Singles Table: A True Story of 1001 Nights Without Sex," just released from Warner Books. Not that Schlosberg intentionally set out to become the "Cal Ripken of celibacy," as her friends took to calling her. It just sort of happened. There was a break-up, followed by a string of bad dates, followed by a bit of reassessment and then more bad dates and suddenly, the weeks turned into months into years - and the years turned into something that Schlosberg began to refer to as The Streak. Only this one didn't prompt cheers from adoring fans. "Do I look like Freddy Krueger?" she wrote in the first chapter of her book. "Do I dress like Barbara Bush? Am I too picky? Too bitchy? Do I have really bad foot fungus?" In a word, no. A 34-year-old fitness expert and die-hard cyclist, Schlosberg was healthy, hearty, funny and fine and more than willing to go the distance not only with Mr. Right, but even Mister Remote Possibility. Problem was, she couldn't find him. See the full article.

Schlosberg tackles husband-hunting in this often side-splitting, occasionally poignant memoir. Humiliated by being seated at the dreaded "Singles Table" at weddings and pressured by crossing the "Great Divide" from "single" to "still single," Schlosberg embarks on a quest, not necessarily for "Mr. Right," but at least "Mr. Remote Possibility." She tries a jaunt to a Kenyan game park, a week at Club Med and a millennial New Year's Eve celebration in Jackpot, Nev. When her travels fail to do little more than help her avoid family gatherings fraught with awkward questions about wedding dates, she moves on to experimenting with feng shui and volunteering for Habitat for Humanity, chimpanzee research and wheelchair athletes. She even submits her photo to hotornot.com, but draws the line at psychotherapy. Succumbing to the inevitable online dating experience, Schlosberg develops an efficient but ineffectual system of screening candidates, which she then tries out at the eight-minute Starbucks Speed Date. To celebrate her 1,001 days without sex, she sets off for the Arctic Ride of Pain, a mountain-bike trip to Deadhorse, Alaska, unexpectedly finding herself stranded in the dying town of Provideniya, Russia, where, finally giving up hope, her spirits improve. It's only then, of course, that Schlosberg finally meets her future husband, bringing her story to a sentimental but satisfying conclusion. Singles in their 30s will get the most out of this book, but anyone can appreciate Schlosberg's wacky humor.

There was no joy in Mudville; Suzanne Schlosberg had struck out. Not at baseball — at dating. Specifically, she went more than three years without sex, although not for lack of trying. But under the theory that even a disastrous experience makes a good story, she's collected her experiences with wry wit in The Curse of the Singles Table: A True Story of 1001 Nights Without Sex. (Actually, it was 1,358 nights, but that isn't as fun a number.) Thrill to adventures such as "Old Maid of Honor" and "The E-Male of My Dreams," and rejoice at the happy ending.

Once Sex and the City became a phenomenon, publishers began hurling this sort of frank, clever sex-advice lit at every single-looking woman in sight. Hopping on the trend with her memoir, Suzanne Schlosberg makes it clear that she's getting far less action than Carrie Bradshaw. Schlosberg traces her journey from "B.C.E. (Before the Celibacy Era)" to the final Age of Enlightenment. She meets some crazy, colorful characters along the way. The variety of inane dating tactics she employs to meet the perfect man will make many women laugh and shudder with recognition.

Schlosberg puts in perspective a sensitive topic — exile to the singles table at a major social event — for those women older than 30 who have experience of it. She is an expert on the subject, with 1001 sexless nights under her belt, so to speak. She calls her dubious achievment The Streak, and this is the hilarious story of how she strove to end it. In it, Schlosberg becomes an Everywoman, and her journey will resonate with heteresoexual women everywhere whose loving relatives are certain they are cursed to die old maids. From its beginning with her search for the nation's most date-friendly town to the pitfalls of Internet dating to the well-intentioned blind date to a disastrous week at Club Med and on to a happy conclusion, Schlosberg's sex travelogue is funny and real, warm and engaging.

Author Suzanne Schlosberg came to Powell's Books to sing the praises of celibacy and promote her new book, "The Curse of the Singles Table: A True Story of 1001 Nights Without Sex." Actually, Schlosberg didn't sing so much as complain (albeit humorously) about her long losing streak of — to borrow a term from Elaine from "Seinfeld" — "unspongeworthy" dates. And Schlosberg actually didn't complain very long because (plot spoiler!) her book does, in fact, have a happy ending. Schlosberg's dry spell took hold through no fault of her own. She tried to end what she now lovingly calls, her "streak." Man, did she try. She chatted up hundreds of men from Match.com and dated many but found not one worth waking up to. Foreseeing no relief, Schlosberg resigned herself to her partnerless predicament and began writing about it, becoming a sort of anti-Candace Bushnell. ("No Sex and the City.") Apparently, this is a big issue. A big women's issue. Powell's Pearl Room was packed with women of all ages, sizes and degrees of pretty. They hung on the author's every word, nodded heads frequently in agreement and clicked their tongues in sad solidarity. (The only guys in view — a few boyfriends or husbands — clung hard to their partners' hands, as if saying, "Uh-uh — not a problem for us, not now.") When Schlosberg mentioned how she found her husband, the crowd, collectively and in anticipation, leaned forward. "My male friends were no help during the streak," Schlosberg said. "They just don't get it!"

Ostensibly, Bend author Suzanne Schlosberg's "The Curse of the Singles Table" is about the more than 1,000 days she endured during her long carnal dry spell. She writes of her undesired celibacy with wit and a never-say-die attitude in the 257-page paperback published by Warner Books. But it's also about a lot more than her stabs at ending what she calls "The Streak." Click here to read the entire feature article.

Suzanne Schlosberg wants the world to know that she doesn't have chlamydia. Nor is she the kind of woman who's gingerly described as having "a great personality," though, to judge from Schlosberg's rather funny memoir, The Curse of the Singles Table: A True Story of 1001 Nights Without Sex, she probably does. Curse is Schlosberg's medidation on an unfortunate predicament that many might think impossible: an attractive, successful 30-something female going the better part of three years — here labeled the Streak — without even a little bit of how's-your-father. Schlosberg, an L.A.-based fitness writer, details the periods when, yes, she was getting some, thank you very much, as well as the looooong dry spell in between. Throughout, she writes about her intrusive, marriage-obsessed family (including a grandfather who once helpfully pointed out, "You know, 31 is older than 30") and her extensive escapist travels, such as a questionable tour volunteering around the world ("What if, due to my shoddy workmanship, some Fijian bungalow collapsed, killing a family of eight?"). Mostly, though, Schlosberg relates her scientific approach to dating, having dutifully put herself out there by signing up for community activities, athletic events, and eventually match.com. (After all, Schlosberg is a freelancer who works from home, often in pajamas, with only her TV and the Internet for company, and besides, it's hard to meet men in a big city. Ahem.) Find out how a seemingly reasonable quest for "mutual desirability" and "the tiniest spark" could turn into a sexual Sahara when Schlosberg reads at Olsson's Books & Records.

Most single women in Los Angeles go through dry spells — a few weeks without a date, a couple months without a boyfriend, a season without some action. But how many Southland women go years without a man's touch and confess to it publicly? In her new book "The Curse of the Singles Table, A True Story of 1001 Nights Without Sex," Santa Monica resident Suzanne Schlosberg talks about her long winter and spring and summer and fall, and winter again, and spring again and, well, her long, lonely time. "There was no end in sight," said Schlosberg, who spent more than three and a half years going on dozens of first dates, but almost never a second. "The streak started to take on a life of its own." Click here to read the entire feature article.

Suzanne Schlosberg doesn't deserve to be known only as the woman who went 1,358 days without sex. True, it did make for a great book, but The Curse of the Singles Table is so much more. Reading Schlosberg is like sitting in a bar listening to a best friend tell you about his day — or in Schlosberg's case, her last 1,358 days. Bottom line: The book is one of the funniest I've read this year. Schlosberg is lovable, her family is a hoot, her ex-lovers are losers, of course, and her adventures are unique. See the accompanying feature article.

Move over, Bridget Jones, there's another woman who has risen to the cuase of single 30-something women everywhere. . . What could be whiney, self-indulgent fare is quite funny in Schlosberg's hands. Most single women will relate to her trials and tribulations in her search for a decent guy. Her book is really less about not getting laid and more about what it takes to not settle for somethingl ess than ideal.

The book isn't a novel or necessarily an autobiography, though it certainly is a novel way to tell one's own story. The subtitle reveals much: "A True Story of 1001 Nights Without Sex." "I started counting the streak somewhere in the mid-600s I think," Schlosberg says. "And the streak had this sort of cult following among my friends, who said, 'you have to write this up.'" Forget narrative form, conflict or character development, this suddenly successful book is the simple creation of a "Streak" that in its pure, truest form, is simply funny. Click here to read the entire column.

Attn: Red Haired Man at the Securities & Exchange Commission. Suzanne Schlosberg doesn't know your last name, but she doesn't care. She thinks you're cute, you stopped showing up at the gym, and she hasn't had a good date in a long time. If you are available, can you reply to this letter? If you think Suzanne sounds desperate, you are right. After all, how long can a girl go? The Curse of the Singles Table is the funniest book I have read in a long time. Suzanne, forever being banished to the "singles table" at weddings, manages to rack up an impressive 1001 days without sex, or what she refers to it as, "The Streak." But her abstinence is our entertainment. In this quest to end The Streak we follow her through her adventures, seeing ourselves in some of the nutty things she does, and laughing along the way. From Suzanne's hilarious family, the ever-present "are you going to get married before I'm dead" grandmother, the happily engaged sister planning her wedding, to feng shui consultations and entries in the "Are You Hot or Not" website, you feel like her best friend, because she tells you everything. I doubt very few people would reveal themselves as Suzanne has. But you'll thank her, because she'll make you feel better over just about anything you have ever done to get a man.

As a bike racer and veteran of two cross-country cycling treks, Suzanne Schlosberg has no shortage of stamina. But in her hilarious new book, The Curse of the Singles Table: A True Story of 1001 Nights Without Sex, Schlosberg chronicles her ultimate feat of endurance: surviving singlehood - and her epic dry spell, a.k.a. the Streak. "At age 34," she writes, "I am the Cal Ripken of celibacy." She's also, as far as we know, the first chick-lit author who's an athlete. Curse is as funny as Bridget Jones's Diary, but with a refreshing twist. When her pursuit of Mr. Right goes disastrously wrong, Schlosberg doesn't bum a cigarette or a Bloody Mary; she hops on her bike. Upon reaching the 1,000-day mark of the Streak ("my own personal New Millennium"), she commemorates the occasion with a 450-mile Alaskan mountain-bike trek called the Arctic Ocean Ride of Pain. "It seemed to strike the perfect tone," she writes. So does the book: It's honest and bold, with as many insights as gut-busting laughs.

Other Chicks Weigh In

LIAN DOLAN, Satellite Sisters, ABC Radio Networks: I thought sex was funny, but after reading Curse, I realize that celibacy is much funnier. This book made me laugh out loud through every bad date, every humiliating moment in front of family and friends, every new man-meeting strategy gone awry. Frankly, I was disappointed when the Streak ended. I mean, I'm happy for the writer who's finally getting a little, but not for readers like me. Suzanne Schlosberg's story will ring true with singletons everywhere. This book is hilarious, honest, and hopeful — a tough combination that the writer pulls off beautifully.

CINDY CHUPAK, Writer/Executive Producer of Sex and the City and author of The Between Boyfriends Book: Just when you were wondering if all the great dating stories had been told, a fresh voice like Suzanne Schlosberg reminds you that there is always more humor to be mined. The Curse of the Singles Table is a clear, honest, funny account of one woman's unintentional celibacy streak that will make you laugh out loud whether you're having sex or not.

WENDY MARKHAM, Author of Slightly Single and the upcoming Hello, It's Me: Warning: Do not read this book in a quiet waiting room! By chapter two, I embarrassed myself trying to mask my giggles with conspicuous snort-coughs, ultimately succumbing to all-out hysteria. Suzanne Schlosberg's sparkling debut deserves an A+ and a hearty LOL. Hands-down the funniest chick lit I've ever read!

LYNN HARRIS, Author of Miss Media and Breakup Girl to the Rescue! As someone who went dogsledding and camping — in Minnesota, in December — after a massive breakup, boy can I relate to a gal who honors a celibacy streak with a little jaunt to the Arctic Circle. But even if freezing's not your thing, you'll see yourself on every page of this inviting book. Both respectful of singlehood and really, really, really over it, Suzanne Schlosberg weathers her discontent — and yes, defrosts her cold spell — with wit and warmth.