Undiscovered
By Debra Winger
208 pages. Simon & Schuster.

Acting is a high-wire act, as is life itself. So it's fitting that tightrope artist Philippe Petit illustrated Debra Winger's Undiscovered (Simon & Schuster), a memoir of risky self-transformation. During her purposely unstellar 17 years in rural New York with her family, her dogs, and the occasional uninvited bear, she's learned a thing or two about survival and loss. "The trick," she writes about the end of passion, "is to stave off the panic and the need for quick answers and action. Those are reserved for the floor of the stock exchange."