Help!: How to Become Slightly Happier and Get a Bit More Done by Oliver Burkeman | Review
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Nicholas Lezard on the self-help book to end all self-help books
It was only halfway through this book that I realised I have, if you stretch the definition slightly, now chosen three self-help books for this column in a row. Is this because I am in urgent need of help? No; I am, barring glitches over which I have no control and overlooking the wretched state of the world, perfectly happy with the way things are going. The problem, I realised, is sheer probability. This book was plucked from a teetering pile of self-help books languishing, or probably even breeding, on the literary editor’s desk. (Of one particularly heavily advertised guru, she told me: „Choose this one as your pick of the week and you won’t be writing for us again.”)
But this one is different. You may be familiar with Oliver Burkeman’s work, as he writes the „This Column Will Change [...]