Cartoon by Erik Bergstrom
Still, as Beth Blum has pointed out in âThe Self-Help Compulsionâ (2020), reading books for life advice is an ancient practice. Aristotleâs âNicomachean Ethicsâ can be read as a guide to virtuous living. (Like many of McHughâs writers, Aristotle was only summing up the characteristics of people generally counted as virtuous in his time and placeâthat is, the eastern Mediterranean in the fourth century B.C. You want to be thought virtuous? Be like them.) Blum calls Boethiusâ âThe Consolation of Philosophy,â which was written in the sixth century, âbibliotherapy
avant la lettre,â an idea that Alain de Botton, the leading contemporary bibliotherapist, acknowledges in the title of his 2000 book, âThe Consolations of Philosophy.â People donât generally describe the Bible as a how-to book, but it partly isâas is the Quran.
Image Credit: Submitted/Charlie Hodge May 28, 2021 - 6:30 AM After being a journalist for more than 30 years and a Kelowna city councillor for more than a dozen, the last thing Charlie Hodge ever expected to be doing was write a semi-fictional ghost story. But five years ago, he opened himself up to a whole new way of writing after being approached by Dan McGauley, a former owner of Blaylock’s Mansion near Nelson, asking him to ghostwrite a book about the mansion’s history. “I’m not interested,” Hodge told McGauley at the time. “Why would I take all the time and energy to write a book and have someone else put their name on it?”
Billy Collins was attracting fans long before he was named Poet Laureate of the United States. His readings are always packed and his books have outsold all.