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/lit/ - Literature

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3170374 No.3170374 [Reply] [Original]

Are there any self-help books that you would consider /lit/ material?

>> No.3170401

Even back then gay people looked gay.. Huh..

This depends on your definition of self-help book. I mean, initially philosophy was a study of how to 'live your best life'.

I try to think of any modern books in this vein that have some /lit/ worth, but I'm coming up black.

Maybe that Friends and Influence book. I remember it had a discussion of the difference between character and personality, substance and surface. But that was just 5 pages of the entire thing.

>> No.3170405
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3170405

this

>> No.3170416

Machiavelli.

>>3170405
How is that self-help?

>> No.3170423

>>3170416

It was Homer Hickam's guide to rocket science

>> No.3170444

>>3170401

Nah. Everyone who wasn't Stalin looked like a pansy back then.

>> No.3170490

Well, that depends on your criteria for /lit/ status, but I can't think of anything - and I've read or at least skimmed through a lot of self-help books.

I think there's some beauty in the better-written astrology books. Based as it is on ancient Greek ideas, there's some wonderful stuff that's been written about it, and the interpretations of planetary alignments etc. can be lovely. How self-help are those?

>> No.3170506

>>3170416
>Machiavelli

This is probably the closest.

>>3170444
>Everyone looked gay

Nah, they all looked put-together. It's just because the working class put less effort into their appearance nowadays that we think that looks gay.

>>3170490

Astrology books rock. Some of them, anyway. I'm not sure they count as self-help.

>> No.3170530

Epictetus is pretty good

>> No.3170553

>>3170374
Stephen King, On Writing?

>> No.3170588

Self-help books very existence should tell you that they dont work.
If they actually worked they wouldn't exist anymore.

>> No.3170596

>>3170588
That's like saying if medicine worked hospitals wouldn't exist anymore.

Someone's always going to be sick.

>> No.3171232

>>3170374

Hand an sich legen - Jean Améry

It helped me to cope with the suicide of my only friend.

>> No.3171249

The Ode Less Travelled by Stephen Fry (on Prosody and Poetry)

>> No.3171267

Why has no one mentioned Marcus Aurelius's Meditations yet?

It's the best guide to life.