Currently reading

I'm still reading People with a Purpose by Trevor Barnes about Teach Yourself books over the last 70 years. In total contrast I've also started reading Awakening by S J Bolton - whose Sacrifice I thought excellent some months ago.

People with a Purpose is brilliant for showing how ideas and attitudes have changed over the last 70 years. For example equal pay for equal work was just a pipe dream and considered a little stupid at that in the 1940s. On the other hand Teach Yourself Mothercraft stated quite plainly that bringing up children should be a joint effort involving both husband and wife which in the 1940s was perhaps ahead of its time.

Awakening is scary if you have a dislike of snakes. If you have a phobia then you'd be better not to read it at all. This author does suspense as well as anyone I've ever read. More when I've finished it.

People with a purpose

I've just started reading a fascinating little book called People with a Purpose by Trevor Barnes. It was written to celebrate the 70th anniversary recently of the Teach Yourself series. It consists of a very amusing commentary on books in the series from its inception in 1938.

First in the series was Teach Yourself to Cook in 1938. Shortly after there was Teach Yourself Flying - which was recommended to people wanting to join the RAF during World War II. It included a section on acrobatics and how to do them but included a comment about this sort of thing only appealing to young men. I don't believe there is a modern equivalent of Teach Yourself Flying!

In the early days there was one called Teach Yourself how to Live which was perhaps the forerunner of the modern phenomenon of popular psychology. War time titles reflected the restrictions on all aspects of daily life and Teach Yourself Dressmaking featured ways of recycling old clothes.

I'm finding it really interesting especially seeing how the style of writing has changed over 70 years and of course the subjects covered.

A Question

What do you do if you buy a book called Teach Yourself Self-Motivation and then can't rustle up the self-motivation to read it?

What sort of people would buy such a book? (Apart from me that is) Do you need to have at least a small amount of that quality to actually buy the thing in the first place?

I love self help books because I figure if I just get one good tip out of each of them they've been worthwhile - and they usually sell well second hand on Amazon or EBay so they don't need to clutter up my shelves unless I really think they're useful.

I'm sure you have to be an optimist to even think about writing a book about self-motivation.