Prepare for "The 1990s Redux" with These Self-Help Books
By SM Shrake on Jan 26, 2008 in Lists, SM Shrake | View Comments
I recently went down to my storage unit and got out a box labeled “1990s Memories” to get myself prepared to go on a trip back to the ’90s, and I found this list I wrote back then called “Self-Help Books Someone Should Write.” Remember self-help?
Remember the backlash against it? I must’ve written this during the backlash. After I had discovered and befriended my inner child, who ended up being a total asshole.
There were a lot of projected titles in the list, but still not enough, so I added some. So before the ’00s become the ’90s again and all lines between past and present are irrevocably blurred, see if you can guess which ones are new.
Communication
- “First Off, I’m Crazy”: How to Talk to New People You Meet
- Controlling Others for Dummies
- Daily Altercations
- How to Gain Stalkers by Being Nice to People
- Party Lies: 100 Elaborate Whoppers to Tell People When You’re Drunk
Personal Growth
- The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Persuading Yourself to Get Out of Bed in the Afternoon
- Smile-Free... for Life!
- Choose the Right Personality for Every Occasion
- Find Your “True” Age (Hint: Subtract Your Birth Year from This Year)
Friends and Family Relationships
- Friendbusters
- Dare to De-Friend
- 100 Great Grudges and How to Hold Them... for Life!
- Speak When Spoken To: A Stern Warning to Children in the New Millennium
- What to Do When Your Family Is Stupid Looking
Love and Romance
- Date-Free Weekend Nights... for Life!
- Fall in Love... with Rejection!
- Fall in Love... with Rejection... Again!
Coping Skills
- It’s Your Own Fault You’re Alive
- The “Accidental” Overdose Handbook
- Real Men Suffer in Silence
- When Everyone You Love or Even Like Is Dead: A Guide to Coping with Old Age
General/Miscellaneous
- The Mood-a-Minute Guide
- The Empathy Myth: How Compassion Is Poisoning Our Culture
- Put Your OCD to Work for the Environment
- Show Me the Substance and I’ll Abuse It: One Man’s Inspiring Tale of Addiction
- “Carry My Baggage for Me”: Embracing Others’ Mental Problems
- Fun Is Dead
I found your site on google blog search and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. Just added your RSS feed to my feed reader. Look forward to reading more from you.
Karen Halls
Karen Halls | Jan 26, 2008 | Reply
I read the “Mood -a-Minute Guide” is was awesome and made me so happy to be alive, wait, it really made me sad… um no… it made me inspired to go… shut up, shut up, I hate you.
Jeff Lyons | Jan 27, 2008 | Reply
Ahem. I believe I asked you people to guess which book titles I added in 2008. Hint: I will DE-FRIEND you all if you don’t get with the program.
Scott Shrake | Jan 29, 2008 | Reply
i’ve got it! i’ve got it!
..friend busters?
k. | Feb 5, 2008 | Reply
Close! “De-friend” is a term that’s only come about since the advent of MySpace, Friendster, and Facebook in the mid-’00s. So that’s the one.
(Actually I wrote them all two weekends ago. The ’90s memory box thing was just a ruse.)
Scott Shrake | Feb 5, 2008 | Reply