Promise Me: How a Sisters Love Launched the Global Movement to End Breast Cancer

In this compelling memoir, the 64-year-old founder of Susan G. Komen for the Cure mixes details from her soap opera–like life with facts about breast cancer. Nancy Goodman of Peoria, Illinois, morphs from a chubby Jewish girl (in second grade, she tips the scale at more than 100 pounds) to a nearly six-foot glamazon. After breast cancer kills her beautiful 36-year-old sister, Suzy, Nancy starts the world’s largest breast-cancer charity in her memory. At age 37, she discovers a lump in her own chest. Nancy gets by with a little help from her second husband, Norman Brinker, the casual-dining gazillionaire and a member of the Susan G. Komen board from its inception in 1982 until his death last year. Cowritten with Joni Rodgers (author of the cancer memoir Bald in the Land of Big Hair, 2001), the book does take some liberties, and Nancy drops names (she spent time with Betty Ford and was a U.S. ambassador for George H. W. Bush and chief of protocol for George W.) and settles some scores. But readers will find much to admire. --Karen Springen