The Mona Lisa Stratagem: The Art of Women, Age, and Power

By Jenny L. Cote

Around the time a woman reaches 45, there is one enemy with the power to threaten her confidence, steal her beauty, make her feel invisible, and turn even the pleasures of life against her. That enemy is Time. Most women feel that an essential part of them dies when their youth is gone, yet the reality is women can grow more beautiful, experience new pleasures, and accomplish their best work later in life. Now, taking inspiration from a masterpiece of female beauty, mystery, and immortality, Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa, Harriet Rubin reveals a powerful stratagem for finding happiness and fulfillment in midlife and beyond. Interweaving stories of iconic women throughout history, Rubin codifies ten tactics--including how to be noticed, how to create circles of influence with you at the center, and how to express talents that have been ripening over decades. In the process, she uncovers the key to mature power, the highest art of leadership.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0446577650
• ISBN13: 9780446577656
• Release Date: May 2007
• Publisher: Warner Books (NY)
• Length: 242 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.5" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

Wisdom is the gift of acceptance

Harriet Rubin empowers the woman within. Who we are on the outside doesn't always reflect who we are on the inside. Harriet gives us many role models who have achieved inner richness. Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Georgia O'Keefe come to the forefront. When one reaches this moment in her life, one doesn't look for acceptance from others because one has already accepted oneself with all one's blemishes and all of one's beauty...

For Remarkable Women (and those who love them)

If you've known or loved remarkable women, or if you are a remarkable woman grappling with the march of time, I believe you'll enjoy this book. What reading "The Mona Lisa Stratagem" did for me was it unpacked the code behind what I found so attractive in certain older women who I love, admire, or whose lead I find myself anxious to follow. In "The Mona Lisa Stratagem" glass ceilings are turned to ice and melted by an inner...