Hi, and welcome to our newest spot, one which people don't admit reading but which you find a lot of people discussing: How-To, Self Help/ Interest Books.

I find to my shock, I'm reading a lot of them, read one very short one on Feng Shui and loved it and have sent off for Feng Shui for Dummies, it's very interesting: the principles are fascinating and make a lot of sense.

But right now I'm reading Living a Life That Matters: Resolving the Conflict Between Conscience and Success by Rabbi Harold Kushner (the same man who wrote When Bad Things Happen to Good People). It's a wonder.

He begins telling about the people he has counseled who were dying and what their main concerns are. He found it was our craving for significance, living a life that mattered to somebody. Here's the blurb on the flap:

We sometimes do great things, and sometimes terrible things, to reassure ourselves that we matter to the world. We sometimes confuse fame, power, and wealth with true achievement. But finally we need to think of ourselves as good people and we are troubled when we compromise our integrity in the pursuit of what we think of as success.

He relates the story of Jacob and Esau with a new twist on Jacob's wrestling all night long, I'm not too far into the book but so far he's right on, the book has been excerpted by AARP in their magazine and also by Family Circle, it's very good and thought provoking. I'd like to see us discuss it in the Books someday.

I've just finished Get Anyone to Do Anything by David J Lieberman, PhD, and it's good, too. It's not about, despite the cover, manipulating others, but the result of psychological studies of human motivation and some suggestions (some of them very pat) about what to do in the face of those results. It's really interesting, I was going to give it to the Book Exchange but I think I'll reread it, he's got some fascinating points.

I always hated psychology, never saw the need for it but I'm changing my mind.

Are you reading any kind of book we might discuss here? How about the new Prayer of Jabez? Do you have any problems with the "territories" part of it?

What are you reading?

ginny

Did you ever wish you were able to read like watching one of those TV screens that have a small view of a show on another channel in the corner of your screen so that simultaniously you were able to watch two stations at one time. Right now I have so many books I want to read NOW!

I have several novels I want to read and several books on the Taliban and the Islamic religion and than I am also reading Tony Wainwright and Mike Celizic's Moments of Truth real stories of life-changing inspiration It give excerpts of how folks like John McCain, Chris Everet and Celine Dion triumphed over tragedy.

Also half through a book entitiled, Golfcrossed out and replacing the word Golf written in red is Life Is Not a Game of Perfect Finding your real talent and making it work for you by Dr. Bob Rotella. A lot of tips about what others have done to become successful. What really is success and the concept that success is process. The title caught my eye because I always beleived in order to achieve success I had to be perfect and once some imperfect action crept into my journey I would abandan my dream. And then if I ever reclaimed my journey to that dream I constantly berated myself for my past failure.

And then the real winner that I heard about on an Oprah show - The Dark Side of the Light Chasers by Debbie Ford. Reclaiming Your Power, Creativity, Brilliance and Dreams. I love books that give a series of questions at the end of each chapter so that you can relate what you are reading to your own reality.

I've always had a love-hate relationship with self-help books. I absolutely detest self-help books that carelessly proclaim various attributes or characteristics of women and men, usually "differences" between them. A few bestsellers have helped perpetuate dangerous stereotypes. I promise not to slide off onto a side road here (for that long, anyway), but will say.....considering the frightening and unchanging percentages of women (here and worldwide) who are beaten badly enough to be seen at an emergency room (or, around the world, killed), then I wish, wish, wish that editors/publishers would do a better job checking seemingly insignificant characteristics attributed to men and women in so-called self-help books. Differences in power, real and perceived, will continue to endanger women, so, in this one area (self-help books), it actually matters that authors get it right. For example, if it's a medical or psychological or social matter, an author should use the best resources....the National Institute of Health, the American Medical Association or the American Psychological Association. Many hundreds of approved studies are completed each year, so there is a wealth of accurate information available, though it rarely finds its way into POPULAR self-help books.

Not all of the omissions of accurate information OR inclusion of inaccurate information are dangerous, though. Off the top of my head, I'd say the critical areas would include development of children, troubled children, marriage, and several categories about women. Increasingly about men, as well.

Ok, that's the end of that, scouts honor. Eons ago, when I was divorcing, I think piles of self-help books helped me tremendously. At the time, I couldn't have known what was well written or not. Looking back, I know I read some of each, but I felt I was doing something and it felt terrific to find out I had options! Hey, other people had lived through that hell and were still alive to tell about it!!! Many chapters of books are still with me from that time.

Quite a few years later, one particular book, a rewrite of a dissertation into a popular self-help book, had a profound effect on me. It was a 500-600 page book (not so successfully watered down, was it) and while reading it, I made the giant leap in my head of seeing myself in graduate school. I still love that book and have never been able to explain exactly why.

A movie that Jack Nicholson was in (won oscar for best picture, the name???) came out about the same time as I was reading that book. Nicholson was sent to a mental institution, created havoc for the administrators, but treated the seriously mentally ill patients as if they were NORMAL....which they responded to by BEHAVING NORMALLY. Which is in the same ballpark as EXPECTING a second-grader to do well, treating her as if she is able to do well, and chances are, she will do very well.

Which is in the same ballpark as the study that positively relates speed of recovery in a hospital (after surgery) with the care of KIND AND ATTENTIVE NURSES, and not to specific care from a doctor. We humans are so easy. What is the link/theme in my 3 (stream of consciousness) examples? Kindness? Empathy? Expectations? Love?

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My recent self-help favorites are pocket-sized, 2-page chapter length, dynamos. Don't Sweat the Small Stuff and It's All Small Stuff. Also, the repetitive "simplicity" books. Simplify Your Life. I love those short, punchy chapters. I also love the concept, can't get enough of it. My favorite chapters in those similar books are always the "throw it out" chapters. After years of loving those kinds of chapters, it finally dawned on me that I need to read a "don't buy it in the first place" chapter.

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Here you go, Barbara. You wanted a window in window to read 2 books at once? I jotted down author and book today from C-span2, Book TV....James Gleick Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything. The author has observed the speed with which tv commercials and even tv shows' scenes are flashed at us....one second each, then on to the next one second scene. He wondered if sponsors think we all have attention deficit disorder, that we might turn away if one image lasted a full 5 seconds. Also, the author presented the details of the next version of combined television/vcr that would copy ANYTHING at any time, no limit.....also, if the phone rings and we want to answer it while the vcr tapes a LIVE program, then at the click of a button, we RESUME watching it "live," because the vcr handles the lag time. The new television that will be for sale shortly will be at our command to watch ANYTHING at OUR time we pick, not at the time it officially ran.

The next part was so funny. Gleick looked at the audience and asked, you know how we get behind and feel guilty about emails that need to be answered? And how we get behind in the 2 or 3 books we're reading? And phone calls that we need to return? He said....now we will come home and look at the list of taped NBC nightly news from last night and the night before that.... The audience interupted him with laughter. They "got it" that we will feel guilty/stressed about how far behind we are watching tapes of what we REALLY wanted to see.

His overall point, repeated at intervals, is that there is information coming at us from every direction. Is this too much, he would ask. Isn't this what we wanted, he would ask. He pointed out that from the computer and from a gazillion news and information television channels, we will have limitless information available. I was beginning to feel stressed, just hearing his words. It also felt good, though, from the understood, rhetorical point (I think).....it's too much!! Do you really want to read 2 books at once, Barbara? I know you don't, but what ARE you saying? You wish you had more time to just read? That there is so much to pick from, that you find too many must-reads?

Sometimes, I feel swept up in book choices that I might not have made on my own. That's mostly a GOOD thing, isn't it, I ask myself. I wonder if I'm losing my own rhythm of reading, but I'm not sure what that is. I am particularly bad at remembering to answer emails and I THINK I miss writing longhand letters. So, what's stopping me? I don't know.

This would be a good place to end this post, since I'm talking to myself.

betty

OH Betty I have always and I mean always - since I was 10 years old - have had at least 5 books going at once. When I was a kid there wos one near my bed, another over the sink while I did the dishes, another under the back porch so that while I watched my younger brother and sister I could really be reading, and another in the small back room off the kitchen where we used the back door so that I could grab it on my out, heck I even read on the way to the store for the daily bread, milk and my Father's Liverwurst and finally another in my school desk that would be read hidden behind whatever text the class was supposed to be reading.

Now the seclections are piled around me on a huge coffee table, on a footstool and on the sofa that I sit reading. Never did well reading in bed but usually there is something meditative that I get into for a few minutes before my day starts.

Looks like my grands - my daughter's two boys have picked up some of this same pent for reading - Cade the younger does like his soccer and skate board, but bless his heart, Ty is buried in a book or at the piano. Of course both boys read three class levels ahead of the class they are in - and so 5th grade Ty reads Conrad, Crane, Tolkien and Vonnegut and second grade Cade reads Kipling's Just So stories, Judy Blume and of course Ty's hand-me-down Harry Potter books.

I get such a kick out of seeing this in them in that it is now OK to be caught reading, where as I had to sneak it into my life. In fact I still feel rather decadent reading during daytime hours unless there is a storm keeping us inside. I still hear my mother's voice in my head "Bobby where are you? Hurry up, pay attention, you'll loose your eyesight --" Funny I never read with my eyes - I always seemed to read with my head.

My problem now with wanting to read so many books is that nearly every paragraph of everything I read prompts so many questions that I just need to satisfy - this has become I guess an obsession - I can feel my brain going like a race car out of my head spinning toward finding out what is this or what does this mean or how did this come to be and who else does this or thinks this.

Its that wanting to round up and personaly brand all this information that makes me wish I had the capacity to read it all at once. I find that what ever I read the answers are never in one book or one article. I must read many on the subject to get a more balanced understanding. So with this mad race to understand, things like eating and sleeping and work, other then what I need to do to satisfy the job at hand, is set aside.

Here lately I am forcing myself to go for a walk and now that I have found this really neat spot along Bull Creek I am finally breaking free of black and white and red/read all over.

Oh, bless your heart, Barbara (and bless my heart).....that will teach me to be more specific. ha ha ha ha ha I meant literally read 2 books at the same time, just as you asked, ha ha ha, with a window of one at the top of the page of another!!!! Now, please tell me you haven't gone that far!!

I have often been guilty of watching a television special while a current book lay open in front of me....and catching up on Books and Lit posts during commercials. I also, thank goodness, during the last 2 weeks, have MADE myself stop all incoming noises, distractions, stimulation, and, now don't laugh, sung slow songs to my cat. That's the solution to the problem I spelled out somewhere else....all his frantic meowing for me to come peer into the FULL catfood bowl.

Without thinking, one day, I did instinctively what I did when my son was an infant and couldn't be consoled. I sang to this kitty and within a minute or so, he flopped down on the floor, stretched out and fell asleep. We went through this once or twice a day for a while. The frantic meowing doesn't happen as much, now. I loved it, loved it the other day when he stretched out on the floor and looked at me like he was waiting for something. The instant I started singing quietly, he closed his eyes and rested his face on a paw. Given that the singing does something calming for me, as well, I think we're fine now.

Any other reactions to that book Faster: the Acceleration of Just About Everything?

Ginny, what self-help books are you thinking about for discussion?

Oh well this is actually a TEST? You know those commercials about This is a Test this is only a Test? WE were hoping that people who read Feng Shui and Jabez, etc., etc. would come in here and discuss them but we have not publicized this discussion and were hoping to see how many people actually SEE it? And I'm glad to find you are here.

I really think there is something IN this Feng Shui. I don't mean that a person should go nuts but it's amazing how some rooms seem harmonious and some just jar the senses.

We've just gotten rid of a huge old sectional sofa in our room? I took it to the landfill and Wednesday the new stuff will arrive. I thought all this time that the sectional made the room look bigger? Forget that. The sectional, once removed from the room, apparently ruined the room, it looks like a ballroom and now when people come in, they are all compliments( like the room hasn't been there these last 21 years)..

That tells me something, and since I canNOT decorate and have no earthly idea about size or perspective, I'm studying the flow of a room as outlined in the book so I won't mess it up again and have a jangled life (or, heaven forfend, poison arrows!!)

On trying to read with distractions, do people get ADD as they age? I can't read a word any more if a television is on, simply can't. Maybe I had ADD all along and did not know it?

Are you reading any intersting self help books? There's a great one on birth order and another one on the Sun Signs I used to love by Linda Goodman and it was amazing how true her descriptions were!

ginny

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. Great God!I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn:
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

--William Wordsworth

I'm here and trying to think of what to say; I'm not one who reads many self-help or how-to books. First I thought I might throw out the question that asks if anyone has a good how-to book to recommend.

Do you have a good how-to or self-help book to recommend to us?

Then I remembered that somewhere in all those piles of books I have lying around I have a book called How to Write Science Fiction. At one time I was going to be a 'writer' and I was going to write science fiction and fantasy. And I did so. I wrote a fantasy and even sent it out to a few publishers but had no success having it published. Unfortunately I lost the manuscript in a move during which we lost a lot of family heirlooms and memorabilia. Now the only place I write is in my dreams.

I have a lot of cookbooks and when you think of it, those are how-to books too.

I just thought of another book that fits this category...but I'll keep it in reserve for another post

Noticed that you like Puccini, and wanted to ask if you have ever heard a recording called "The Puccini Album" by John Bayless. It's Puccini's music interpreted for the piano, and it has to be one of the MOST beautiful things I've ever heard. I first heard parts of it on a public radio station where they were doing an interview with Mr. Bayless, and I turned my steering wheel right to the first freeway off-ramp and found the nearest music store to buy it.

As for self-help books, I read a lot of them. My ex husband used to call them a "pop psychology library". I think over the years you do learn new insights into things and connect dots from one book to another, but as I've grown more sophisticated and discerning I have also noted that many of them give out pretty poor information. When I read one of those I just roll my eyes and put it away or dump it. Since I'm a painter I tend to read a lot of how-to books on the various painting techniques, and even though I never follow the instructions, it's surprising how much information I've picked up subconsciously, techniques that actually work and have improved my own painting techniques. I also adore well illustrated cook books even though I HATE to cook. Some of the best are by an author named Susan Branch who does beautiful watercolor paintings as illustrations, and some others by an English gal named Leslie Forbes who illustrates hers in colored pencil. Some of the other books by my night table are "The Undercliff" by Elaine Franks (she's a British naturalist and her illustrations are breathtaking), "The Zen of Seeing and Drawing" by Frederick Frank, "What Do Women Want?" by Luise Eichenbaum and Susie Orbach, "Mars and Venus in the Bedroom" by John Gray, "Monastic Practices" by Charles Cummings, "The Dance of Anger" by Harriet G. Lerner, and "How to Think like Leonardo da Vinci" by Michael J. Gelb. I know, an eclectic and even strange list, especially the Mars and Venus right next ot the one on monastic practice, but I know just what you all mean about wanting to read two or three books at the same time. There don't seem to be enough hours in the day or years in a life to read all I want to still read. Anyhow, wanted to mention that if anyone is interested in learning how to draw, and how to really see, and slow life down to really look at things, Frederick Frank is WONDERFUL for that. He was a doctor at one time with Albert Schweizer in Africa, and got started drawing because the natives were fearful of the camera, and he's been drawing ever since, the most beautifully sensitive line drawings with instructions on how to go about it.

No I had not heard of "The Puccini Album" by John Bayless. I've put it on my list for the next time I'm shopping. Thanks for the tip.

And yes, I agree Susan Branch is a delight to the eye but then so is Tasha Tudar another watercolorist who paints with charm.

I never did this before but, you know how we buy a gift for someone that is really an item we love for ourselves and we see giving this wonder as giving a piece of our unselfish self - well there is this one book that I just couldn't unselfishly part with - A trail Through Leaves The Journal as a Path to Place by Hannah Hinchmana, Wyoming artist writer naturalist. The book is part journal, part 'How-To', filled with sketches and her musings as a result of her sketches and many walks. Rather than pour over this book I have been slowly reading a page here and there admiring her word sketches as much as her fine little pencil sketches and watercolor sketches.

All of a sudden I've had enough of all the many books I've been slarping up for the past six months about Islam, Taliban, Orientalism, the creation of the Modern Middle East, the Hidden World of Islamic Woman, Who's Who in the Middle East, the culture and history of Egypt and India...I need to air out my head...I've come to the conclusion that the report on TV the other night nabbed it - they likened the Historical and current Moslum culture similar to the game played on horseback in Afghanistan, where each player does what ever he can to grab/steal the headless dead calf only to hold onto it in victory for a short time as someone else successfully makes the grab - all taking place in this turmal of dust, animals, men wrapped in loose fitting cloth flying in the frey with nary a women in sight.

And so as a complete change of pace I've purchased a set of all 9 Beethoven Symphonies on CD and a video set of Murry Perahia playing Beethoven's 5 Piano Concertos, along with a teaching guide by Professor Robert Grenberg of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Did y'all know Beethoven had a fantasy that he was the illegitimate son of the King of Prussia and the piano was only invented in 1790 and that not only was Haydn a contemporary but, I never put it together before, that Mozart was also a contemporary. The Symphony No. 1 was in homage to both Haydn and Mozart.

I do not own any music by Haydn but do have several Mozart Symphonies on some older audio-tape that I listened to in the car. Listening to Mozart and than Beethoven it is easy now to understand how difficult it was for the audiance to understand or appreciate his music.

Hi all! My interest lies in gardening and specifically garden design. Thus I have a number of 'how-to' books on the subject: one is the Reader's Digest Guide to Practical Home Landscaping; another is The Garden Design Book by John Brookes.

My favourite one is another one by John Brookes called The Small Garden, which is specifically on the design of a small garden. It is filled with lovely illustrations of over thirty-five gardens and goes into detail about the practical side of design. The various sections in the book are: Your Design-All Things Considered, Shaping the Garden-the basic framework, Extending the house into the garden, Successful small gardens, Designing with plants, and Living in the garden. This is a lovely book filled with ideas for the garden of any gardener. I love looking in it!

Yes, I have that one too, and have it next to my bed once in a while just for the joy of looking at it. Gardening books too, especially seed catalogs that come out this time of year. It's amazing how much learning there is in a seed catalog, and they are usually so beautifully photographed. As for Beethoven's music, yup, familiar with most of it, including the symphonies and the piano concerto. My two favorites are "The Patorale" and his 9th symphony. When I need a pick-me-up I tend to play Mozart or Chopin. Either one can make the beginning of the day cheerful and fun and help me feel good for the rest of the day. LOL. Barbara, if you enjoyed Trail Through the Leaves, try the one I mentioned above called "The Undercliff". Another naturalist with a wonderful talent for sketches and painting.

Also know what you mean about being tired of the Middle East. After 11/9 it seemed like I was reading a lot about Islam and the history over there, trying to figure out how all this anguish came to be. But I finally put it aside again and went on to more positive reading. Seems to me that history just has its tides and its ups and downs and that there isn't a whole lot any one of us can do about it all. And that part of the world has been in turmoil for so long that it isn't going to change any time soon. In the meantime we have to continue our individual lives, and I prefer filling it with positive notes and as much beauty as I can now that I think I've read enough to have at least some basic understanding of what's going on over there and why. As for the women and their lack of freedoms, there's a lot of controversy about that even over there--with some who like it that way and some who don't. It's too bad they can't just settle it by allowing each woman a choice, but I guess with religious beliefs (and especially with Islam since it mixes politics with religion like no other) it will always be controversial. I got to the point where I figure that's all their business and they have to deal with it, but the moment my country is attacked it becomes everyone's business and we have a right to be on the defensive. I just don't like the way we sometimes mix defense with trying to change social issues in other parts of the world because I don't think it can be done and just causes more resentment, but I do believe in self-defense when lines are crossed. Oh well, JMHO.

Hi All,

I love all books and seem to be drawn to biographies. I like to read how people have over come difficult events in their lives. I read the book by the woman doctor in the antartic who came down with brest cancer. It just blows my mind how she handled that . I think I would have been a basket case.

My SIL is an avid reader and has oodles of books. I don't get into many discussions with him because he remembers what he reads along with facts and details unlike me who can't remember yesterday Hi HI. Well he gave me the book "Who moved my Cheese" and I was wondering if anyone here read it and what you got out of it?

I read it and thought for a while it was the best thing since applesauce until I realized it was like the show survivor - only even those who are successful survivors realize knowing, understanding and befriending a group is crucial to today's society. No group association suggested in 'Who Moved My Cheese' - it all about me me me.

Hi, Nanabet: Yes, as Barbara indicated, several of us here read and discussed Who Moved My Cheese back in the summer of 2000. If you'd like to read that discussion, it's in the Archives here.

I'll put a link to it : CLick here to go to Who Moved My Cheese book discussion

š jane›

Jane , Thank you for the link to the CHEESE discussion. I didn't pick pickup on the no team effort. What I thought was, life is a rat race and you can't rest on your laurels.... also someone is always looking to eat your cheese. Hi HI

Nanabet: Those items you mention are the things I recall, too. I also felt it meant that the "goal" or the "prize" or whatever you want to call it, is not static...that it can and often does change ..ie, "move." I thought the book was ok, but there wasn't much, if anything, new in it.

Did you find much new?

š jane›

Jane , NO I didn't find much new, and thought it was pretty simplistic too.

I am one of the coauthors of Chicken Soup for the Grandparent's Soul which came out March 15, 2002 and is already #10 on the NY Times bestseller list in its category.

My wife Meladee and I spent three years reading over 6,000 stories in order to select the 100 absolute best stories for this, our second book in the series.

We think that it's tender and touching and has some very funny stories.

We'd love to engage in a dialogue with our readers about this book, about writing, editing, being published. We'd love to discuss YOUR own stories, memoirs, etc. You can contact us by visiting our website, www.grandparentsoul.com and follow the links there.

Remember that little gem! LOL! Old self help books never die - they just get thrown in the Goodwill bin! Another one that was on the best seller list for over a year, was one called, "Co-dependent No More". Whoever the author was, (don't recall), he or she must have made a small fortune at that time. I read the book, and decided either I was codependent, or my daughter was, or both? I don't remember, and it didn't do me any good anyway.

A book that I really like, and still refer to occasionally, is "Men, Women, and Relationships", by John Gray. It's one of his many "Mars/Venus", books. I have read some of them, and find them to be very true, as to the differences in the sexes - reactions to situations, etc. A few years ago, I went to a book signing of his and there were only a few of us there. He was very friendly and likeable, with a good sense of humor. He personality is definitely reflected in his books.

My favorite of the self help authors right now, is Dr Phil McGraw, of Oprah fame. I bought his most recent book - "Self Matters", and have been trying to get into it, but have been distracted with other things, and havn't really given it my full attention.. He has a "folksy" quality about his personality, and a common sense philosophy that I like.