A Brief Guide to Self-Help Classics: From How to Win Friends and Influence People to The Chimp Paradox

by James M. Russell

From Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People, published in 1936, which has sold over 30 million copies to date, to the mind management programme of Professor Steve Peters' The Chimp Paradox, a concise and insightful guide to seventy of the most influential self-help books ever published An entertaining, accessible companion, for readers of self-help books and sceptics alike. The titles include classics on achieving success, confidence and happiness, mindfulness, how to change your life, self-control, overcoming anxiety and self-esteem issues and stress relief. The chronological arrangement of the titles reveals the intriguing story of how early self-improvement titles were succeeded by increasingly personality-based, materialistic titles and shows how breakout classics often influenced other titles for decades to come. Each book is summarised to convey a brief idea of what it has to offer the interested reader, while a 'Speed Read' for each book delivers a quick sense of what each writer is like to read and a highly compressed summary of the main points of the book in question. This is a work of reference to dip into, that acknowledges that some of the most powerful insights into ourselves can be found in texts that aren't perceived as being 'self-help' books, and that wisdom and consolation can be found in the strangest places.

Genres: Self Help, Personal Development, Nonfiction

270 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 17, 2019

About the author

James M. Russell has a philosophy degree from the University of Cambridge, a post-graduate qualification in critical theory, and has taught at the Open University in the UK. He currently works as a freelance writer, designer and editor. He is the author of A Brief Guide to Philosophical Classics, A Brief Guide to Spiritual Classics and A Traveller's Guide to Infinity. He lives in north London with his wife, daughter and two cats.

Reviews

[Jeffrey Ning · Rating 2 out of 5]

Better off reading 65 self-help books than relying on the author’s summaries. James M. Russel did inject his personal views of the each book rather than being objective of the premises to give us a brief guide.

[reinysa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Haven’t finished this book and I don’t feel like doing so anytime soon—don’t get me wrong, I’ve had a lot of realizations because of this book but I feel like it just gets repetitive at times even though it’s supposed to be from different authors about different topics from different books. It wasn’t really a life-changing book. Just a book that will get you to realize a few things but won’t really leave a deep impact.

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very entertaining and funny.

[Steve747 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty lightweight book that can be skimmed. I noted a couple of reviewed books to read and thus not totally a waste of time.

[Terez Tocheva · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was alright. Easy to skim over & I noted a few books I'd like to read based on the author's reviews. Beyond that, it's nothing extraordinary.