How to Be Golden by Paula Bernstein (Love Is All Around: And Other Lessons We've Learned from The Mary Tyler Moore Show) is an enjoyable tribute to beloved TV icon Betty White. It's a tasty and fast-paced biography, supplemented with pop quizzes, advice (her exercise regime: "I have a two-story house and a very bad memory, so I'm up and down those stairs"), notable quotes ("The older you get, the better you get. Unless you're a banana") and trivia (White played Rose Nylund on four different TV series: Golden Girls, Golden Palace, Empty Nest and Nurses).
White is a true television pioneer, with an entertainment career spanning over nine decades. How to Be Golden is publishing three months before White's 100th birthday. In 1949, she became a regular on the TV variety show Hollywood on Television and took over hosting duties in 1952; that live show ran six days a week in a five-and-a-half-hour time slot. Also in 1952, she formed a production company to create and star in the sitcom Life with Elizabeth. With that sitcom, she earned her first Emmy Award. White was 51 when she joined The Mary Tyler Moore Show, little dreaming that she'd still star in two more long-running sitcoms (Golden Girls, Hot in Cleveland). White won her seventh Emmy when she hosted Saturday Night Live at age 88.
This breezy tribute focuses on White's career rather than personal life. Her 18-year marriage to Allen Ludden is covered in eight paragraphs. Fans will delight in the buoyant writing, fun facts and pleasing book design layout. --Kevin Howell, independent reviewer and marketing consultant