Rating: 
Summary: Fantastic Compendium
Review: This is a fantastic compendium of ideas, elegantly presented and superbly described and selected by the author. If you want to get the best insights into how to change your life, it is all here. Butler-Bowdon will whet your appetite and I confidently predict that you will buy one of the books he summarises, and then another, and then another ... because his judgment is so good.One of the great things is that you can browse in this book for five minutes, and are bound to come up with an idea you can use right away to improve your personal life. Do it, and then dip back into the book later. A book to keep with you, especially for those times when life really is difficult. But inspiring too at any time. It has really helped me, and can help you too. Go read!
Rating:
Summary: Truly a rare treasure.
Review: This is the only book I've ever read that made me jealous. I'm the author of the book Self-Help Stuff That Works, published in 1999, and I've never come across its equal (at least in my own biased opinion) until now. Many times while reading this book I felt jealous. Tom Butler-Bowdon has done things I wish I had done. And he writes with a powerful clarity I admire.
Sometimes an author can say what another author has said, but say it clearer and better than the original author. Tom has done that in these pages. He often gets across the message of the original book with far more clarity and punch than the original ever had.
Each classic has its own chapter and each chapter is wonderfully short. There is never a dull moment. The book has a lot of nice features too: pithy quotes from the original book, a summary of the main point of each classic, and recommended books in a similar vein. At the end of each chapter is a short biography of the author. While reading this book I could feel that the author was really making sure I got my money's worth (and he succeeded).
I have already read most of the fifty books, and it was wonderful to have the meat of those books extracted and laid bare. With Tom's book in my possession, I can now review one of these classics quickly and easily. Repetition is vital to learning, and yet I often don't re-read books because it is so time-consuming, even though I know I could be helped by a review of the material. Now I can review them without investing a lot of time.
Tom clearly didn't choose these fifty books based on popularity. This is an excellent selection. The fifty classics are well-chosen and represent a balanced coverage of the field. Tom includes many of my favorite books of all time: Flow, Feeling Good, How to Win Friends, The Art of Happiness, Self-Reliance, Learned Optimism, Man's Search For Meaning, and on and on. This book also introduced me to some material I would never have picked up off the shelf, but I'm glad I have been introduced to it. I loved the chapter on Beothius.
You could think of this book as Cliffs Notes for self-help books. Reading it would be a great way to shop for just the right book to read next.
It was great to find the Bhagavad Gita in this context (that is, as a self-help book, which is truly one of the things it is). Reading Tom's explanation of the overall thrust of the Bhagavad Gita helped me understand it better than I ever have.
The author does not talk down to the reader, doesn't write at a fourth grade level, and yet this is clear and easy reading. And even so, the writing is penetrating, insightful, and intelligent. If you want to learn how to change your thoughts, how to find your best direction in life and accomplish it, how to become happier, how to change your perspective, if you want to explore yourself and make a difference in the world, you'll find more than enough juicy nuggets here to satisfy.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely first class introduction to self-help
Review: Tom Butler-Bowdon has put together a superb collection of short reviews of self-help books here. Although I had read many of the featured authors already, there is such a broad range in the chosen 50 that I suspect most other seasoned self-help readers would benefit as I did. For beginners and those curious about the self-help publishing phenomenon, this could indeed be "the only self-help book you will ever need" as they say! The brief summaries of each book and writer are balanced, intelligent and insightful. The "in a nutshell" comments are invariably accurate e.g. "When you are aligned with your higher self and your life purpose, miraculous things happen" for "Real Magic" by Wayne Dyer. Butler-Bowdon also presents the case for and against each book and writer, being more obviously critical of some than others, but remaining open and balanced with his objective assessments. The inclusion of the Bible, the Bhagavad-Gita and Benjamin Franklin's autobiography stretches the "self-help" genre beyond obvious modern writers and adds depth. 50 more books are recommended at the end. Excellent, thanks Tom!
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