Weideger, Paula 1939-

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WEIDEGER, Paula 1939-

PERSONAL: Born July 6, 1939, in New York, NY; daughter of Michael (a businessman) and Lillian (Topper) Weideger. Education: Attended Antioch College, 1956-58; New York University, B.A., 1968, M.A., 1971.

ADDRESSES: Home—London, England. Agent—Claire Smith, Harold Ober Associates, 22 East 49th St., New York, NY 10017.

CAREER: Center for Reproductive and Sexual Health, New York, NY, counselor, 1972; Women's Medical Center, New York, NY, lecturer in women's health, 1972-74; Healthright, Inc., New York, NY, staff associate, 1973; State University of New York College at New Paltz, instructor in women's studies, beginning 1975; writer.

MEMBER: Women's Ink, Passports for Pets.

AWARDS, HONORS: Fellowship, Macdowell Colony, 1973.

WRITINGS:

(With Geraldine Thorsten) Travel with Your Pet, illustrations by Ernie Pintoff, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1973.

Menstruation and Menopause: The Physiology and Psychology, the Myth and the Reality, Knopf (New York, NY), 1976, revised edition, Dell (New York, NY), 1977.

Female Cycles, Women's Press (London, England), 1978.

History's Mistress: A New Interpretation of a Nineteenth-Century Ethnographic Classic, Viking (New York, NY), 1986.

Gilding the Acorn: Behind the Façade of the National Trust, Statesman and Nation Publishing (London, England), 1994.

Venetian Dreaming (memoir), Pocket Books (New York, NY), 2002.

Researcher, Scientific American, 1959-61; editor, Excerpta Medica, 1971.

SIDELIGHTS: Paula Weideger is a versatile writer whose publications include a study of women's issues, an investigative report, and a memoir. In 1976 she published Menstruation and Menopause: The Physiology and Psychology, the Myth and the Reality, and in 1994 she issued Gilding the Acorn: Behind the Façade of the National Trust, an examination into the practices of England's institution for the preservation of places holding historical interest or worth. In Gilding the Acorn, Weideger relates some of the National Trust's more controversial practices, and she illuminates what Alun Howkins, writing in New Statesman and Society, described as the institution's "distinct tendency to be lenient to the great and good and less caring for its smaller tenants and employees." Howkins called Gilding the Acorn "an extraordinary and naive account" and claimed that it constitutes "a series of loosely joined chapters with catchy titles." He added, however, that "there is something here, no matter how absurdly put."

Weideger is also the author of Venetian Dreaming, an account of her year spent as an apartment dweller in Venice. In the book Weideger relates difficulties ranging from the mere maintenance of her apartment—described in Publishers Weekly as "rundown"—to the linking of her computer to the Internet. In addition, she recounts the difficulties she encountered in communicating with others and finding her way about the labyrinthine city. The Publishers Weekly reviewer concluded that Venetian Dreams "appeals as a personal glimpse of one of Italy's most unusual cities," and a Kirkus Reviews critic affirmed that "on the level of the quotidian, Weideger's work transports and entertains."