
Helping Me Help Myself
One Skeptic, Ten Self-Help Gurus, and a Year on the Brink of the Comfort Zone
Beth Lisick(Author)
William Morrow Paperbacks (Publisher)
Published on 20. January 2009
Book
Paperback/Softback
288 pages
978-0-06-171073-5 (ISBN)
Description
The first step to getting help is admitting you have a problem, but what if your problem is with self-help? Grappling with her lifelong phobia of anything slick, cheesy, or remotely claiming to provide self-empowerment, Beth Lisick wakes up on New Year's Day 2006 with an unprecedented feeling. She is finally able to admit to herself that she's grown tired of embracing the same old set of nagging problems year after year. She has no savings account. Her house feels unorganized and chaotic. She and her husband never hang out together. The last time she exercised regularly was as a member of her high school track team eighteen years ago.Beth consults the multimillion-dollar-earning pros and national experts, not only reading their bestselling books, but also attending their seminars and classes. In Chicago, she gets proactive firsthand with "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People". In Atlanta, she tries to get a handle on exactly why 'women are from Venus,' and in a highly comedic bout on the high seas of the Caribbean, she gamely sweats to the oldies on a weeklong Cruise to Lose with Richard Simmons.
Throughout this yearlong experiment, Beth tries extremely hard to maintain her wry sense of humor and easygoing nature, even as she starts to fall prey to some of the experts' ideas; ideas she thought she'd spent her whole life rejecting. Beth doesn't think of herself as the typical self-help victim. But is she?
Throughout this yearlong experiment, Beth tries extremely hard to maintain her wry sense of humor and easygoing nature, even as she starts to fall prey to some of the experts' ideas; ideas she thought she'd spent her whole life rejecting. Beth doesn't think of herself as the typical self-help victim. But is she?
Reviews / Votes
"Lisick has created a hilarious, knowing tale of a year of willing ridiculousness." -- San Francisco Chronicle "A witty, disarmingly earnest account of the year [Lisick] spent test-driving renowned self-help franchises." -- Entertainment Weekly not only hilarious but enlightening... Readers will be inspired: If a woman in a banana suit can clean her closet and pay off her credit card debt, surely you can, too." -- People "sweetly neurotic, funny and occasionally insightful." -- Los Angeles Times "wildly funny" and "a cross between David Sedaris and Susan Orlean." -- Seattle Times "Beth Lisick's latest book is a wildly fun read that falls somewhere in between memoir and a Cliffs Notes guide to the self-help genre." -- Bust Magazine "A delightful, Plimptonesque exercise in immersive journalism...sharp, irreverent and endearingly screwed-up." -- Kirkus ReviewsMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Publishing group
HarperCollins Publishers Inc
Dimensions
Height: 203 mm
Width: 133 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
366 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-06-171073-5 (9780061710735)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Beth Lisick
Helping Me Help Myself
One Skeptic, Ten Self-Help Gurus, and a Year on the Brink of the Comfort Zone
E-Book
03/2009
1st Edition
HarperCollins
from
€10.99
Available for download
Previous edition
Beth Lisick
Helping ME Help Myself
One Skeptic, Ten Self-help Gurus, and a Year on the Brink of the Comfort Zone
Book
01/2008
HarperCollins
€38.59
Article exhausted; check for reprint
Person
Beth Lisick, author of the New York Times bestseller Everybody into the Pool, is also a performer and an odd-jobs enthusiast. She has contributed to public radio's This American Life and is the cofounder of the monthly Porchlight storytelling series in San Francisco.