Sherri Shepherd, co-host of ABC's Emmy Award-winning talk show 'The View,' entertains and alternately pains readers in her must-read memoir about life's hard lessons. In 'Permission Slips: Every Woman's Guide to Giving Herself a Break,' Shepherd doles out forgiveness to herself and every woman who strives to achieve perfection but slips up sometimes.

In between taping her new Lifetime sitcom, 'Sherri,' and co-hosting 'The View,' Shepherd took time out recently to speak to AOL Black Voices about life and her new book.

Black Voices: How did you come up with 'Permission Slips,' which is a great idea by the way?

Sherri Shepherd: We, as women, take on so much in our lives that we need to give ourselves permission to let it go. That's where it came from. Sometimes we need to write ourselves a permission slip.

Who knew a simple phone call could make such a difference?

December of 2007 was a bad month for wrestler Hulk Hogan. His son Nick was experiencing the grim aftermath of a near-fatal car wreck, and he had just gone through a nasty, public divorce with wife Linda. That's why, he reveals in his new book, 'My Life Outside the Ring,' he came home from the strip club one night, downed a cocktail of Xanax and was reaching for a gun.

But it was a phone call from his 'Gladiators' co-star, boxer Laila Ali, he wrote, that would prevent him from going through with it. She was concerned about his welfare after noticing he seemed "distracted" on the set.

Closing in on his fiftieth birthday, Harold was on fire as he sat at The Hot Spot Lounge on Chicago's south side wondering whether he should make a move on the sexy 25-year-old bartender with the wicked tattoo etched across her lower back.

"Yeah, leave that damn girl alone, old man, he tried to warn himself,'' Omar Tyree writes in a short story "The Bartender'' from his latest release, 'Dirty Old Men: And Other Stories' by Zane Presents. "But it was too late; he began to tell himself that he wasn't that old. Under the bar where he sat, he had living proof that he could still run with the younger dogs in the alley.''

Others tried before Amazon, but it was the online giant's Kindle that really introduced people to a new way of reading. And now the electronic reader that its owners love (or love to hate) has some competition: the Barnes and Noble Nook.

'Alibi,' Teri Woods' crime thriller, hit bookstores recently to relatively rave reviews. All that remained was a party to celebrate her success. She picked the tony Greenhouse club in SoHo where she and nearly 200 friends planned to mark the occasion last Thursday.

But things turned sour when nearly all of her guests were turned away at the door because of the color of their skin, some partygoers alleged yesterday, according to the New York Daily News.

The cruel reminder of the Jim Crow era prompted the partygoers to file a $1 billion class-action suit, which says they were denied entry because they were black, the Daily News says. But a lawyer for club owner Barry Mullineux struck back yesterday, vehemently denying the charges in an e-mail statement to AOL Black Voices.

Most people know James Brown as the spirited NFL broadcaster whose spot on commentary is delivered with the dexterity of an athlete. That is because he had a distinguished high school and college basketball career.

At Harvard University, he burnished his dream of becoming an NBA star. But that aspiration quickly disappeared when he twice failed to meet the standards during training camp after the draft. Most stories would end there, but not for James Brown. Brown, fondly known as J.B., recalls his story of failure and reinvention in his new book, 'Role of a Lifetime: Reflections on Faith, Family, and Significant Living,' which is part memoir and part self-help, and written with Nathan Whitaker, a bestselling author.

"I believe I rested on my laurels,'' he said in an interview with AOL Black Voices. "I didn't show fortitude. But it led to a lifelong work ethic---never be complacent. If I wanted something badly I would do it excellently for the Lord. That's the way I have approached things since then.''

To enter to win a copy of 'Scared Silent: The Mildred Muhammad Story' from Black Voices -- please go to the following email address and leave your name, DOB, email and mailing address -- please leave a comment below as well. Good luck! editorial@blackvoices.com

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For three weeks in 2002, the "DC Sniper" terrorized the Washington DC metro area with random shootings that killed 10 people and seriously injured three.

After an intense manhunt, John Allen Muhammad, 48, and a then 17-year-old Lee Boyd Malvo were arrested and later convicted of the crimes. Malvo received a life sentence. Muhammad is slated to be executed by the state of Virginia on Nov. 10, 2009.

What many do not know is that this reign of terror was allegedly a ruse by Muhammad to murder his ex-wife, Mildred Muhammad, and to get custody of his children.

In the prologue to her book, 'Scared Silent: When The One You Love Becomes the One You Fear' (Atria Books, $23.00)' Mildred writes,

"For months I had looked over my shoulder for two people: John, my ex-husband who had promised to kill me, and 'the D.C. sniper,' who had terrorized the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area where I lived by randomly killing people. Now I was forced to reconcile that there was only one man."

Though she always felt threatened by John Muhammad, because she bore no physical scars, Mildred said that her pleas for help fell on deaf ears.

"I tried to get someone to listen to me that he was going to kill me," she told Black Voices, "but because I didn't have the physical scars to prove that I was a victim, I didn't get the help that I felt that I needed. Eighty percent of domestic violence is not physical. So you have a lot of people walking around wounded because nobody feels their pain."

With October being Domestic Violence Awareness month and her book being released on Oct. 13, Mildred Muhammad sat down with BV. She has a special message for the Black Voices community, which she says helped her during her time of need.