BOOKS | Self-help books for the back-to-school season.

Forget Bridget Jones and her hook-a-man manuals. Let die the Susan Powter days of your mother. Self-help books have finally jumped into the new millennium. No longer quite so embarrassing, boring, or rigid, self-improvement has finally become chic.

Since September marks the start of a “new year” for so many out there [read: literal children going back to school], there’s no better time to look into the world of personal reinvention. Here, some new-style self-improvement books to get you started:

Dress Your Best, 2005

Dress Your Best by Clinton Kelly and Stacy London

A take off of the TLC television series that sees the frumpy and freaky worked over by two fashion experts, this book focuses on the fact that how you look matters, whether you’re looking for a job, a partner, or a better life, and that you can easily drop ten pounds and ten years by dressing “your best”. Though largely focussed on women, there’s also a men’s section that tackles everything from being short to having a belly [jesus fucking christ].

All in all, it’s a handy reference book that’s clear, easy to understand, and graphic enough to leave on your coffee table. Its only dubious quality is its use of the word “curvy” to describe women who are a size 4. [WOW.]

Hardly Working at College, 2005.

Hardly Working at College: The Overachieving Underperformer’s Guide to Graduating Without Cracking a Book, by Chris Morran

With this book, Morran dispenses surprisingly practical advice on – as the publisher says – “how to sleep, slack, and swill your way to good grades and a college diploma.”

Most who’ve gone post-secondary will agree that there’s truth in here. [Will they, though?] For example, you don’t always have to read so much as skim to get by, and you can always act like you’ve read an assignment when you haven’t. And while this book is geared toward the co-ed aged reader, its tips can be easily applied in adult life. After all, college is supposed to prepare you for the real world.

Read it to brush up on bullshitting.

Worst Enemy, Best Teacher, 2005

Worst Enemy, Best Teacher: How to Survive and Thrive with Opponents, Competitors, and the People Who Drive You Crazy, by Deidre Combs

This book delves into a problem that plagues almost everyone, but is relatively intangible, and then tries to fix it practically.

Author Combs breaks down threats into categories, separating conflicts that threaten physical harm, for example, from those that are more intellectual, and the result is a zen-ish manual that tries to convey that there is wisdom to be gained from your opponents – which you probably know already, but which tends not to matter when you’re trapped in a rage blackout.

We’ve all got a little hater in us. Worst Enemy is about turning your hate to your advantage. (Which sounds a lot more diabolical than it really is.)

A version of this piece published in Dose on September 12, 2005. Clip below. More books and authors stuff is here. Read a note about my life as a young journalist, just below the clip.

Published in Dose, September 12, 2005.

2018: I don’t think I read a single one of these books.

And my bosses not only knew this, they encouraged it. Week after week, with the exception of weeks when I pushed my own agenda and insisted on writing about a book I actually cared about (like this one), Dose asked for round ups, listicles, and groupings. My bosses thought our “readership” was too vapid to actually read, I guess. Yet they wanted to keep running a book column? Long blocks of text? Big no-no. Focusing or reviewing just one book in less than 400 words? Not a good idea.

And between trying to write my five daily stories, I couldn’t possibly have read all of the books I was being sent. I was the only book contact! Boxes of books arrived at my door weekly. I expressed concern about this many times, particularly to an editor a half-step above me named Celine. She explicitly told me to “read as much as possible” but also, to rely on press releases and to take the advice of the publishing marketing contacts as much as possible. Get quotes from the press releases, she said.

So someone at Dose would decide a terrible piece like this was necessary, I’d slot in a few picks, despite the fact that I hadn’t read the books and therefore couldn’t review them.

Then I’d flip through the texts and read the press releases to get a basic idea of things. And finally, I’d vomit out content like this as quickly as possible.

This was, beyond a doubt, lazy journalism at best. Something else at worst. But I really want to emphasize that it was not just sanctioned, but encouraged, all of which is interesting when you consider that in about a month, I would be fired (sorry, my contract would simply not be renewed, but it amounts to the same thing) and stuff like this would be part of the reason I was given, with the fact that I was following explicit instructions conveniently forgotten.