I graduated from the School of Hard Knocks summa cum laude a long time ago but believe in continuos education. And what more convenient way to keep learning than through a series of self-help books recently released in the U.K.
Mind you, there is no more ridiculed literary genre than the self-help book. It wasn’t always like this. For two thousand years in the history of the west, the self-help book stood as a pinnacle of literary achievement. The Ancients were particularly adept practitioners. Epicurus wrote some three-hundred self-help books on almost every topic, including On Love, On Justice and On Human Life. The Stoic philosopher Seneca wrote volumes advising his fellow Romans to cope with anger (the still very readable On Anger), how to deal with the death of a child (Consolation to Marcia) and how to overcome political and financial disgrace (Letter to Lucilius). It is no injustice to describe Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations as one of the finest works of self-help ever written, as relevant to someone facing a financial meltdown as the disintegration of an empire.
The assumption behind this long tradition was that the words of others can benefit us not only by giving us practical advice, but also – and more subtly – by recasting our private confusions and grief into eloquent communal sentences. We feel at once less alone and less afraid.
With the growing secularisation of society, it is presumed that the modern individual should manage the business of living and dying by relying on sheer common sense, a good accountant, a sympathetic doctor and hearty doses of faith in science. As citizens of the future we aren’t supposed to need lectures on how to stay calm and free of anxiety.
But we need self-help books like never before, and that is why The School of Life has launched a series of six intelligent, rigorous, well-written titles:
How To Find Fulfilling Work by Roman Krznaric
How To Stay Sane by Philippa Perry
How To Worry Less About Money by John Armstrong
How To Change the World by John Paul Flintoff
How To Thrive in the Digital Age by Tom Chatfield
How To Think More About Sex by Alain de Botton
I have ordered all except the first one. I mean, I have had so many fulfilling jobs - about 55 - I can scarcely believe myself I had them all. I also wondered if I really wanted the last title in the series but since it was written by one of my favourite writers and present-day philosophers, Alain de Botton, I chucked it into www.bookdepository.co.uk's shopping basket as well.
P.S. Of course, I know which one you'd be most interested in so, to cut to the chase, here's your direct link.
