Drawing on stories from diverse women who have been single for many years, Trimberger explodes the idea that fulfillment comes only through coupling with a soulmate. Instead she presents an exciting new identity for women in the twenty-first century: the new single woman�a woman who is content with her single life.

These gripping personal accounts of how single women's lives evolve over time, combined with Trimberger's incisive analysis, blend to provide a much-needed cultural roadmap for every single woman who is striving to create a satisfying and meaningful life. Trimberger's all-inclusive, paradigm-shifting notion is one that ultimately strengthens and enriches both single women and couples.

�Trimberger explores with openness and grace the experience of single women in a soul-mate culture.? �Arlie Russell Hochschild

�This fascinating study is the perfect antidote to the onslaught of books telling women to marry or be miserable. The women Trimberger depicts have complex and interesting lives enriched by . . . children, family, lovers, and most of all friends. Must reading for the single, the coupled, and everyone in between.? �Katha Pollitt

�A much-needed breath of fresh air. Women have been in bondage to the dream of the �soulmate? for far too long, and Kay Trimberger gives us the inspiration and insight to get on with our lives.? �Barbara Ehrenreich

�This is an invaluable study . . . I applaud the entire project.? �Vivian Gornick

�Can you hear it? That grinding noise? It's the paradigm shifting ever so slightly . . . The New Single Woman is all about this shift . . . [the book] is edifying for single women of a certain age and possibly inspiring to young women who are fretting that unless they marry, they are fated to die alone�and lonely.? �Jane Ganahl, San Francisco Chronicle

Sociologist E. Kay Trimberger is professor emerita of women's and gender studies at Sonoma State University and is on the advisory board of the American Association for Single People. The author of Intimate Warriors, she lives in Berkeley, California.