Getting Back on the Right Foot

Shoes Never Lie, by Mimi Pond (Berkeley: $4.95 paperback).

This is a fun, silly book, obviously created to make you laugh. It also occasionally offers splendid insight into the nonverbal messages of shoes.

On the subject of business shoes, Pond advises: “Find the most exquisitely designed (preferably expensive), simple black pumps you can. Remember, you don’t want your feet to yawn ‘middle management.’ They will escape no one’s notice. Get ready for that move to the corner office.”

In contrast, Pond places “Little Miss Priss” shoes in the non-power category (along with marabou mules, rumba shoes, party shoes and Daisy Duck shoes), but she points out that each has its place. Describing the appeal of “Little Miss Priss” (low heels with bows) shoes, for example, she writes: “Gazing at these innocent babies, everyone will set your mental age at about 12. Good for wearing to meet prospective landlords and bank-loan officers. The original Nice Girl shoe.”

While some of her humor is clearly strained, there’s enough real passion here to demonstrate that Pond truly does understand what she calls “the psychic call of shoes.”