Customer Reviews

Oracle at the Supermarket: The American Preoccupation with Self-Help Books

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I've done research on self-help for years, and for my money, this book, even to this day, is probably the best history of the modern self-help book available. Most books are hypercritical of self-help writing, much of which is warranted, but Starker's book is balanced in showing why these books have risen both from a marketing standpoint, but also because they have very much hit upon a demand. My work has centered around not just the problems inherent in such books (poor oversight, poor documentation, poor validation, sexism, blocking of activism, etc) but also the reasons that these books have become more and more read over time. In the end, I take a much more positive view of self-help than most of academia. Because of that, I've noticed it's hard to get a decent history of the modern self-help text because of constant relentless pounding for the myriad of shortcomings of the genre. After reading many of such works, you come away with so many negative messages about the genre, that you're left wondering why anyone buys them other than corporate greed and slick marketing. But my work sees that as very narrowsighted. Starker's book is well balanced, not shying away from some of the ickyness that has accompanied the rise of the modern self-help book, but also accounting for major parts of it's historical rise in context, from the 12 step programs of self-help to the emergence of the baby boomer generation and their search for meaning. As well, I appreciated his discussion of the early self-help book that was religious in nature as well as his honest comparison/contrast of the benefits and costs of self-help books versus other forms of mental health these days. Again, I'm shocked to say that this book was written in 1988 and hasn't really been bested in the 20+ years since it came out. If you're looking for a laundry list of the many valid problems associated with the self-help genre, read one of the many recent books on the topic. If you want a book the puts the whole enterprise into context, you must have this book.

Nothing wrong with positive feng shui, eating healthy, seeing a naturopath, seeking counselling for emotional stress, but the trick is BALANCE .... instead of making self-help your lifestyle. There are people out there who go OVERBOARD and don't use their inner gut instinct to make choices and decisions but instead rely on Dr. Phil, or Dr.Laura, or Oprah shows, etc. In the process they overspend LOTS of money paying for answers from various sources. Again ... BALANCE ... and the North American pre-occupation is probably stemmed from perfectionism ... which as human beings is impossible. No one is perfect. Self-help culture sometimes stems from a need to constantly fix oneself. The distinction between healing and becoming whole versus addiction is self-help lies in the relentless compulsivity that reduces one's inner authority to zero. I stress here ...it is about BALANCE ... and this book hones in on just how out-of-balance the oracle at the supermarket is. It is no surprise that those who have made the most of their life with the fewest regrets are people who kept their own wise counsel.