What to Do When I'm Gone: A Mother's Wisdom to Her Daughter by Suzy Hopkins & Hallie Bateman

Title: What to Do When I'm Gone: A Mother's Wisdom to Her Daughter

Author: Suzy Hopkins & Hallie Bateman

Genre: Self Help, Inspirational, Illustrated Book

Even if you have not lost your mother, or if you have lost another loved one, this book might be a good read. Filled with colorful painted illustrations by daughter Hallie Bateman, and following a page-a-day advice format by mother, Suzy Hopkins, there is a variety of life-affirming and warm advice for anyone going to a struggle and needing uplifting. I will be trying out the chicken and dumplings recipe!

- Elizabeth

Check out What to Do When I'm Gone: A Mother's Wisdom to Her Daughter @ the library.

Bright-Sided by Barbara Ehrenreich

Barbara Ehrenreich uses common sense, critical thinking and a sharp sense of humor to analyze the positive thinking philosophy that influences so much of American society.  Tracing positive thinking back to a nineteenth century backlash against the dourness of Calvin-based religion, she examines the philosophy of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Transcendentalism and the Christian Science of Mary Baker Eddy.  Moving into the twentieth century, she scrutinizes the self-help books of authors like Norman Vincent Peale and Dale Carnegie, also the belief that attitude can deter the progress of serious disease and the prosperity theology of preachers like Joel Osteen. Finally, she traces our country’s current problems to the wide-spread reliance of politicians, CEOs and managers on feelings and intuition instead of the analysis of hard facts their counterparts used in the past. She concludes that positive thinking is not a benign philosophy which improves our attitude, but rather the purposeful turning of a destructive blind eye to signs of trouble we should be heeding. 

Check out Bright-Sided @ the library!

How To Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid

The author of How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia proclaims his book to be a self-help book, although, in his own opinion, “…unless you’re writing one, a self-help book is an oxymoron. You read a self-help book so someone who isn't yourself can help you…”  And indeed, this pull-yourself-up-by- your-own-bootstraps book is of no help to anyone but the writer who is “you.” In a country that resembles Pakistan, “you” should (among other things) move to the city, get an education, avoid idealists, work for yourself, befriend a bureaucrat and have an exit strategy. In actual fact, “you” should be smart, lucky and corrupt. “You” should be male and the third child in your family. “You” should take many low-skilled jobs as a way of working “your” way up the economic ladder. Going from a job as a “non-expired-labeled expired-goods” salesman to having your own “bottled hydration” business, in which “you” sell boiled tap water in recycled bottles, enables “you” to make your fortune. To achieve success, “you” must withstand poverty, mistreatment, poor schools, rejections, extortion, threats, embezzlement, abandonment and illness. The book takes “you” from early childhood to frail old age and, despite its subject matter, is very funny and “you” are a very likeable character. 

Check out How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid!

The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking by Oliver Burkeman

Why are there so many self-help books published every year? The author argues that they do not work. He believes that the stress of positive thinking is actually making us unhappy, and coincidentally making some people rich. Wealth, relationships, material possessions, and financial success are not the way to happiness. The author looks to other paths which include embracing insecurity and uncertainty as a way to ultimately find, maybe not happiness, but perhaps a little peace.  The Antidote questions our society’s values of selfishness and greed and would like us to reflect on what truly is important.