Self-Help Nation: The Long Overdue, Entirely Justified, Delightfully Hostile Guide to the Snake-Oil Peddlers Who Are Sapping Our Nation’s Soul
Product Description
Every year, Americans waste millions of dollars on books that promise to fix all their problems. We buy each new one, believing its promises despite the failures of all the previous tomes, continuing to hope for that nonexistent magic bullet. Tom Tiede, a former syndicated columnist and the recipient of numerous journalism awards, just might be able to cure us of this addiction. In Self-Help Nation, Tiede skewers the authors of self-help books, whom he compares to modern-day snake-oil peddlers exploiting our weaknesses. As he slashes his way merrily through his least favorite books, Tiede posits a larger cultural argument about why we as a nation have fallen prey to the self-help juggernaut. Waging an eloquent attack on the salaciousness and irresponsibility of the media, the self-absorption of the Baby Boom generation, our fascination with celebrity, and other cultural afflictions, Tiede offers insightful commentary on what we’ve lost in our hyperaccelerated culture and calls for a return to the timeless American value of self-reliance. In urging us to trust ourselves, Tiede is perhaps writing just another self-help book, a sure sign of the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into. Regardless, Self-Help Nation is a delight to read-wickedly funny, refreshingly candid, and ultimately profound.
I kid you not, this is the opening paragraph of SELF-HELP NATION:
“Among other endeavors, none of which I can recommend, I have in my several lives been the proprietor of a bookstore, where little of very much interest takes place, save the irregular observation of disparate men and women, also a few children, engaged in the exaggerated belief that, as it’s been said, there is power and profit in losing oneself in other people’s minds.”
Besides being poorly written (yes, that was one sentence!) — his first paragraph is slamming those of us who love books and actually DO find “power and profit” in the words of others.
Of course, I find it ironic that he opens with this inciting paragraph while hoping you lose your mind — IN HIS BOOK! It’s kind of like a book of recipes using the opportunity of the first paragraph to write about how silly it is that people actually go to recipe books to discover new ideas for dinner. Brother! This is a skipper – one of the worst I’ve read in a long, long time.
Rating: 1 / 5
This book is absolute garbage and totally bias. He rants about how bad all these self-help authors are without doing research on the authors themselves and on the people who read self-help books. As in any other field of literature or art, there are good works and bad works. If he would have analyzed authors like Maxwell Maltz, Brian Tracy or Jim Rohn he wouldn’t have written this book at all. Moreover, his writing style and arguments are horrible. Please don’t buy or read this book. I would suggest to check it out at a library or bookstore if you must read it. It’s a good comedy. He is just upset because there are people who contiously read self-help books and can’t improve their lives. Nobody said self-improvement is easy. It requires a lot of focus and discipline but in the end it is totally worth it. There will always be people who can’t learn to improve their lives no matter how many self-help books they read. They are stuck internally and can’t grasp the basics of what they read or they forget it too quickly and go back to their old ways. That’s all I have to say because I don’t want to waste any more time writing about how bad this book is.
Rating: 1 / 5
…makes for a great subtitle, but it’s really an oxymoron, as this book proves. I picked up this book because I distrust the self-help genre, and this sounded like a fun way to have my prejudices confirmed.
It’s not fun. You feel like you’ve paid good money to listen to your grouchy old uncle complain for hours on end. He comes off as nasty and self-righteous. An analysis of why people turn to these books would be interesting, this book-length scolding is not.
Don’t read self-help books, but don’t read this one either. It’s a good idea, but Tiede simply does not pull it off.
Rating: 2 / 5
Despite the Tom Tiede’s smiling face on the dust jacket of the copy of this book I got from the library, his book is an unkind, trivializing, and ultimately bitter dismissal of a genre of work that he only partly understands.
Yes, there are many more self-help books than we really need. Yes, authors make more money on them than is reasonable. Yes, looking carefully at the self-help industry is a good idea.
But do we need this book? Should he be making money on it? Has he taken a careful look?
No, no, and no.
The author does show some insight into particular self-help writers, and like I said the industry needs examination, but he has a hard time expressing his insight without insults and smug scorn.
I think Tiede gives his reason for writing this book in the last chapter: bitterness at feeling no longer at home in his chosen profession, journalism, and at the rejection of the work he tried to do with the newspaper he ran. It’s a pity that he chose to express his bitterness this way.
Rating: 1 / 5
As if Dr. Laura and relationship gurus know everything there is to know about the human condition…. Very few people have NOT thought about the premise of this book. But finally, finally, finally someone points out how ridiculous that entire genre really is. Kudos.
Rating: 5 / 5