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Martha, Inc.: The Incredible Story of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. Christopher Byron. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2002.
Martha Stewart-Just Desserts: The Unauthorized Biography. Jerry Oppenheimer. New York: William Morrow, 1997.
In the last eight years, six books have been published that scathingly critique domestic doyenne Martha Stewart's ambition and empire. These include the two titles that are the focus of this review Martha, Inc. : The Incredible Story of Martha Stewart Living and Martha Stewart-Just Desserts: The Unauthorized Biography, as well as Tom Connor's bestselling trilogy of parodies: Is Martha Stuart Living? (1995), Martha Stuart Is Better Than You at Entertaining (1996), and Martha Stuart's Excruciatingly Perfect Weddings (1998). There is no end in sight; Connor's latest title, Martha, Really and Cruelly: The Completely Unauthorized Autobiography', appeared in 2003. Martha Stewart has also been ruthlessly scrutinized on television, including a recent two-hour special on Prime Time Thursday by Diane Sawyer, and the made-for-relevision movie based upon Byron's book, Martha Inc: The Story of Martha Stewart, in May 2003.
The rash of negativism that surrounds Martha Stewart in the publishing world seems curiously absent when it comes to investing in her enterprises-whether that means buying shares of stock in her company or subscribing to her magazine-a point with which neither Christopher Byron nor Jerry Oppenheimer contends. When Martha Stewart took her company public in 1999, a few years after the first negative press began, the share price of stock in her corporation rose ninety-seven percent during the first day's trading. In spite of the public's taste for massacring Martha, she remains one of the most successful businesswomen of all time, and her magazine and books continue to make a profit and bestseller lists. Today, despite her involvement in the ImClone scandal (which came to light in December 2001), in which Martha reportedly sold her shares of stock...