20 Times A Lady - Karyn Bosnak (2006)

"The average person has 10.5 sexual partners in their lifetime." For Delilah Darling, she has well exceeded the numbers - almost two times as high as the national average. She decides to set things right, by imposing a limit - to sleep with only 20 males, meaning she has only got one more chance left - for her future husband. But after losing her job at Elisabeth Sterling Design and making the big mistake of sleeping with her loathsome boss Roger, Delilah has used up all her chances. Determined to get a last shot at happiness, she comes up with a plan to track down all 20 guys she has slept with, with the help of her actor neighbour Colin. A hilarious and fun read about second chances in love. Columbia has acquired the movie rights for this novel, with Mark Mylod (Entourage) directing the movie, and Anna Faris playing the role of Delilah. It has been renamed What's Your Number? (XT)

Save Karyn: One Shopaholic's Journey to Debt and Back (2003)

In 2002, after Karyn Bosnak accrued more than $20,000 dollars in debt and lost her job as a producer at a big cable network, she started a website asking others for help in "banishing debt from (her) life". It started out as a silly but creative project with a few humorous emails from her ad on Craigslist (that was taken down shortly after she posted it), tips on how to live frugally via the Daily Buck, a thank you page to all those who were kind of enough to send her a dollar or two (or hundred as some did) and later, a Me-Mail page in which Karyn included all the mail (and hate mail) written to her and her responses to them. Over the course of 20 weeks, the site evolved to contain valuable and insightful messages in how to be kind, live life more fully or pay it forward. Karyn's low-budget website gained so much notoriety, she was interviewed by various newspapers, magazines, radio personalities and even, Matt Lauder on NBC's the Today Show. By the end, Sony Pictures provided an all-expense paid trip for Karyn to fly from Brooklyn to Hollywood where she discussed bringing her story to the big screen and of course, publishers made a deal with her to get the whole story in print. And, above all - you may not believe this part - it worked! In 20 weeks, her goal of gaining $1 from 20,000 people (or $2 from 10,000 people or $5 from 4000 people) worked and Karyn became debt-free for the first time in her life!! This (mostly) autobiographical tale is the hilarious recount of the entire saga, from living most of her life in Chicago to racking up $20 grand in debt in New York City to how she ultimately learned a valuable lesson about the evil of credit cards and how she gained more insight into herself at age 29 through the kindness and generosity of strangers all of the world via the internet than in any other endeavour in her life thus far. To anyone who's ever been in debt, had an obsessive shopping habit or just enjoys an uplifting read, this is the book for you. (CH)

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