The stages of life, according to the NY Times bestsellers

  Tula Karras, a friend of Alpha Mummy who lives in New York, noticed a pattern to the lineup of most popular books in the New York Times Paperback Advice Bestseller list. The specificity of this category is intriguing in its own right (where is the "Paperbacks You Love to Read but Don't Want People to See the Cover"?). But Tula noticed that not only are the advice bestsellers helpful, the order in which they appear can serve as a kind of blueprint of modern life.

To wit (her additions in bold):

1. A NEW EARTH, by Eckhart Tolle. A spiritual teacher prescribes letting go of the ego to help end conflict and suffering.
A college-grad, freshly transplanted from the insulated “anything’s possible” campus culture to the real world of New York City, you are still idealistic enough to think that you can enact selfless change and be happy without a 5-figure monthly income.

2. THE POWER OF NOW, by Eckhart Tolle. A guide to personal growth and spiritual enlightenment.
A working youth, now a few years out of college, you realize that you can’t necessarily change the world to match your idealistic vision, but you can change yourself.

3. SKINNY BITCH, by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin. Vegan diet advice from the world of modeling. (Illustration from book pictured above)
The late 20s—your metabolism is slowing, you’re not making any money in your middling job, and you’re too jaded to want to change the world or to become spiritually enlightened. Better: Lose weight, court your inner bitch, and land a rich dude.

4. WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU’RE EXPECTING, by Heidi Murkoff and Sharon Mazel. Advice for parents-to-be.
Early 30s, you’ve snagged your sugar daddy and his sperm has swum the swim to your egg. You’re gonna be a momma!

5. MARTHA STEWART’S COOKIES, by Martha Stewart Living Magazine. The magazine’s editors share 175 recipes and variations.
Holy ****, why did no one tell you how hard parenting is? You need the motherlode of carbs—cookies — to eat your way out of depression and bribe your toddlers.

6. GETTING THINGS DONE, by David Allen. A productivity consultant on how to keep stress at bay through personal organization and time management. You’ve come out of your cookie coma, the kids are in school, and you’re ready to get your ducks in a row, even if it’s all just an illusion.

7. THE FIVE LOVE LANGUAGES, by Gary Chapman. How to communicate love in a way a spouse will understand. Your baking skills? Check. Your filing system? Check. Your career? Check. Your kids? Check. Wait, what are you forgetting ... Oh yeah, you have a husband, but barely.

8. YOU CAN HEAL YOUR LIFE, by Louise L. Hay. A counselor’s prescriptions for regaining confidence through mind-body self-healing. Screw fulfillment through your family; you’re going to find it inside your third eye.

9. MAKING THE CUT, by Jillian Michaels. Fitness and diet advice from a trainer on “The Biggest Loser” on NBC. Meditation is great, except that all that sitting on your arse has made it grown exponentially. Plus, you’re turning 40 and are obsessed with looking 30 again. If those highly micromanaged, in-the-spotlight TV "losers" with 24-hour-access to personal trainers and nutritionists can do it, you can do it on your own. With a book.

10. SKINNY BITCH IN THE KITCH, by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin. Vegan recipes from the authors of “Skinny Bitch. Haven't we been here before? No, wait, this time you don't want to be skinny. This time you want to be healthy and save the world, starting with your dinner plate. If you happen to eat as few calories as an in-treatment anorexic and drop a stone while you're at it, well, it's all for a good cause.

Comments

[Lazy Mummy]

Agreed, Delilah.

Frankly (and this is probably going to offend people too), I'd rather see a McCain presidency than a Hillary one, even though she'd be more likely to protect abortion/right to choose rights. I disagree with many of McCain's policies (he's wrong on the war, on right to choose/right to life, hardline on many social values) but what I like & respect about him is that he's pretty consistent in his opinions & far less likely than HC to say something just to appeal to a sector of the electorate.

As for the woman issue, sure, being the first woman is a big deal to some sectors of the populace; to the people I mostly mix with, they don't judge on gender or race & couldn't care less about that. Their judgement is based more on values than on traditional gender or race "wars" (and I think the "war" word is so "boomer" - people I mostly live & work with grew up with feminism & multiculturalism & don't see these issues as black & white, or as central political issues).

[Delilah]

I've just finished reading "Dreams from my Father", a book which Obama published in 1995 about his experiences of race and identity. Speaking as someone who has also lived in Africa, Indonesia, and America with a mixed-culture (if not mixed-race) background I found it an intelligent book that approached a difficult subject with honesty and insight. If he's half as wise as the book suggests he's got my vote. There may be some answers for Helena in "The Audacity of Hope", which I think he wrote with his presidential campaign in mind (I haven't read it yet, deliberately wanted to avoid current campaign propaganda).

LazyMummy sums up everything I think about Hillary. God help us if she gets in.

[helena]

What I can't stand is politicians who canvas for votes without telling voters what they'll be doing when/if they get to power. All that Obama 'time for change' rubbish he spouts. WHAT CHANGE?? NAME SOME.

It just makes it blatantly clear that what they really want is the power - that's all. 'Vote for me because I want to be President'.

They're just as bad over here. There are big, no brainer issues that if any politician had the guts to address them the way they need to be addressed, would shoe them into power in a second. Population levels, pollution levels, education, NHS, benefit-dependency.

But they are all scared ****less from saying anything their 'policy advisers' and PR slimes go white round the gills at.

As for HC, the phrase 'deep-level corruption' comes to mind. I admire her for turning her ugly duckling dork look into something sleek and cosmetic, but that's all.She's too 'needy for power' - really off putting.

[Jane2]

Thanks for that interesting reply LM. Regarding HC, whatever her own personal merits or demerits, I feel that she is a siege tool. She's preparing the way for a future female President, but unlikely to get the prize herself.
Somewhat like the business mantra that the person who first brings a product to the market doesn't get the benefit, it's the next person who builds on the foundation who reaps the reward.
Going back to Locke and the US constitution, the present fuel and food crises are bringing forward the spectre of pre-Locke Hobbesian tendencies coming back into the political arena. Basic instincts over-riding civilised values.

[Lazy Mummy]

Jane2, agree about women & status. I don't normally get into political discussions on blogs, but since you asked...

As for Hillary, I'm not a fan. Then again, I'm not expected to be, based on my demographics: comfortably-off middle class professional, under 40. If I were American, I'd be Gen X but as I'm an immigrant (British born, bred & raised), I don't think the label applies.

Why I dislike Hillary: she's a massive hypocrite and probably quite corrupt to boot. She & Bill are just into power for the sake of power these days. She's horribly divisive: she'd rather split the vote & disillusion all the young teens & 20-somethings who've been disenfranchised than give way to Obama (who clearly still has the popular lead). And her positions on international affairs are worrying. AND I really dislike (and this is a showstopper for me) the thought of the presidency ping-ponging between two families for any more years.

I don't think Obama is a silver bullet but I like the fact that he's mixed-race, mixed-culture, Hawaiian as that reflects the US in which I live far more than Hillary's blue collar stump speeches do.

Oh - and based on Myers-Briggs profiles, Obama appeals to me more than Hillary does (there was an interesting article in Slate outlining the 3 candidates' profiles a while back).

[Jane2]

I'm a bit bored with all the posts about books we've read, it's more of a list than a debate. I'm much more interested in this discussion about happiness/ consumerism, and the hierarchy of needs.
It's always struck me that women's concerns are near the bottom of the hierarchy of needs, in all societies. Give or take the odd pair of shoes or handbag, women don't have the need for flaunting their status with Aston Martins, helicopters, tanks, guns...
Taking care of people and being grounded in the minutiae of daily life stops women from developing power complexes like those exhibited by Hitler, Stalin, Robert Mugabe.
If women ruled the world, what would it be like?
What do you ladies from across the pond think of Hillary Clinton?

[Delilah]

Actually, although Jefferson suggested the "pursuit of happiness" in substitution for "property" (not money - the importance was that only property-owners were to be allowed to vote) - the substitution seems to have been an deliberate introduction of the Greek Epicurian concept of happiness as an end it itself, the virtue of self-sufficiency, not the means to an end. Jefferson probably cribbed it from the British political philosopher John Locke (one of his intellectual heroes), who wrote that "the necessity of pursuing happiness is the foundation of liberty" - which Locke explains is because "true and solid" happiness frees us from enslavement to our desires. Quite the opposite of consumerism.
Have a look at http://hnn.us/articles/46460.html

[Jane2]

Lm, thanks for your welcoming words. This is certainly a most interesting debate. Regarding happiness, I never knew that the word as used in the US constitution meant "money".
Obviously no-one can be anything remotely like happy if they are hungry, cold, worried about the basic safety of their families... Is why we rightly feel that much of what passes for "happiness" as peddled by the consumer culture is tosh. Today's news about the world food crisis brings this home to me.

[Lazy Mummy]

Thanks, Annamac!

Agreed, J, that's awful for your friend, though also, agreed, that I hope the credit crisis is the start of a little more common sense in some areas.

[Annamac]

The hierarchy of needs was Abraham Maslow, as I recall. J, what a grim situation for your friend to be in.

[J]

LM you are right and I am taking a certain guilty pleasure in the credit crunch if it addresses that materialism. Though not very much pleasure as I have one old school friend who has always lived on a knife edge, has been unable to work recently due to the death of a child and is at real risk of bankruptcy..

[Lazy Mummy]

Back to Gipsy's comment about Americans & self-help & the right to the pursuit of happiness, embedded in the Constitution...Back when the constitution was written, what they actually meant by pursuit of happiness was "pursuit of money". Interesting and illuminating, isn't it?

Of course, when you look at the hierarchy of needs (who came up with that?) at a very basic level, material goods equal happiness (safe place to live, food, clean water, clothing) but beyond that, well, no, I don't think it really does, but so many people have been fooled into thinking otherwise. And yes, as I've posted elsewhere, I like cute shoes as much as (actually probably a lot more than) the next woman (and lots of books too) but I have noticed the push for material goods/materialism is so much more endemic and relentless here in the US than in Europe (really). I do wonder if that all stems from that individualistic, pursuit of $/happiness ethos which really is different on a very fundamental level from the more traditional collective (or class-based) ethos of much of Europe.

(I also observe that living in this culture has changed my views on many things, like $$, because when you know there's no system to fall back on, you are far more concerned with being able to provide for yourself & your family).

Jane2 - great to have you here; please stick around!

[Caylee Parson]

You missed a brilliant one in between dieting (late 20s) and babies (early 30s). The wedding!

Stacey Lewis wrote a hilarious book called 'Taking the Plunge' last year. It is based on her real wedding, which makes it all the more incredible. How she survived, I do not know - lol.

[Kieransmum]

"old clothes," yes.
"old" - no, thirteen days younger than me.
Thin - I'm not sure it would be wise to comment!
Never loses temper - well, almost never :-)

[Baggofbones]

"tall, thin, in gorgeous old tweeds, speaking in a gently thoughtful way, and never shouting."

Oh! Well, we do tall and thin with old clothes.

KM: no need to apologise, but thank you all the same. If I am happy offer opinions in public, others have a perfect right to reply, and it is always interesting to have one's beliefs challenged. You're right that I'm not very interested in the finance thing, and also right that I should probably be more interested.

So far as the children are concerned, that's another interesting one. I have (thus far) resisted the temptation to advise my daughter to marry a rich man. Our poor children don't really stand a chance of realising that people have to earn money, given that we're both at home, appearing to do very little!

As to whether my husband plays a role in our decisions regarding (eg) the children's schooling - well, there's another interesting one. He would say that he does, but I am quite adept at making him think that my ideas were his all along - so I'm not sure about that one!!

[Gipsy]

I gave up reading magazines like Marie Claire because, well sad to say it wasn't a road to Damascus moment of enlightenment but I simply grew out of their demographic. Same as stopping reading 17 or Jackie or - and I've never had a devotion to a magazine like this one - Misty. I just got past the age where they were relevant.

Even back when I knew that those magazines were all how to get a man, how to keep him when you've got him, how to get over him when he's gone, I still loved pouring over every issue. I loved the glossiness, I loved the adverts, I loved the style pages and working out what little things I could do with an impossibly small budget that would make me feel absolutely bloomin fantastic. Strange to say, but they gave me the confidence to wear and do things I wouldn't have, like this huge gigantic black floppy hat I wore everywhere one winter in 1990.

However, they also made me hugely depressed. One time in my late teens I turned a page to see Christie Brinkley in a bikini looking so jaw droppingly fantastic that I knew I would never, ever, in a million years look that good and feeling crap because of it.

On balance, I think that I'm a lot happier with my self image since I stopped reading them!

[mmmm]

I also gave up completely reading women's magazines when I was 19, which was 18 years ago, and I think I've probably saved myself a lot of unhappiness! I'm not especially puritanical about other people reading them, I know they can be enjoyed on a fluffy/guilty pleasures level without necessarily taking them to heart (though on the other hand don't underestimate the insidious effect on subconcious!) but the thing is that once you do stop reading them, if even only a few months later you glance at one in a doctor's waiting room, they just seem like something from another planet, and utterly pointless. Plus they're expensive! I grew up in a very male dominated family, not many women around, so in my teens I gorged on all the girly stuff I could possibly read just to feel part of the whole 'womanhood' but thank heavens I got out of it at such an early age. I can't even remember why now - I think I read some article where they completely overplayed their hand in terms of scaring/bossing around women and I just thought that's it, they don't get another penny from me.

[mumoftwo]

Totally agree, AnnaMac, I gave up reading women's magazines (Cosmo, Company) a long while ago for the same reason, I just don't want to be advised on how to lose five pounds before my summer holiday, learn six top tips for being assertive, before going home to attempt to unleash my inner goddess all in an afternoon. I also found that when reading them, I constantly thought how out of fashion I was; now I don't read them, I appear to be a lot more fashionable without changing anything. That's not to say I've never found a self-help book helpful, I read 'Feel the fear and do it anyway' at age 17 when I was having a typically teenage difficult time and the take-home message (everyone else is bricking it too, so you might as well get out there and have a go) was a really helpful one which I've stuck with since.

[Annamac]

In my 20s I possessed an enormous collection of self-help books. Curiously, my life seemed to take a turn for the better around the time I took all of them to a charity shop and then gave up trying to turn myself into something I wasn't.

[Gipsy]

Going back to self help books - I always thought that was a genre I wasn't at all interested in. But another blog post mentioning the Lakeland catalogue made me realise that while I don't go in for the 'I'm OK you're OK' type of books, maybe I've just substituted them with Lakeland style catalogues (an LED flashlight and a cuboard tidy = organised and prepared life). Except that those products never quite work out the way you want them to (my fault though, using cupboard tidy means re-organising cupboards means cupboard tidy is still in box waiting great and glories day where I have a stretch of time to re-organise cupboard, which I never have because my life isn't well enough organised...)

[J]

Jane2 quite right though ironically I work in a Uni so all our OHs are indeed going to be elderly academics..."tall, thin, in gorgeous old tweeds, speaking in a gently thoughtful way, and never shouting." hmmm.... not all of them :).

I was more thinking of the people who get support from all around them, all the time, by the equivalent of fluttering their lashes. The sort of girl who would have rung your OH and not only asked him to finish the decorating, but got him to go to B&Q with her and probably pay for it as well.
The kind of girl who doesnt just lean on her man, but on her colleagues as well.

BoB this is not aimed at you, I am interested in the general issue, actually as I said before I think that your set-up sounds rational. But I bet you also know some women who always seem to get looked after.

[Kieransmum]

Yes, Jane2, point taken. Re-reading my post I think you are right, I was a little overforceful! Sorry BOB, if I haven't chased you off. Mea culpa, in my defence I might point out that I wrote the post with two children both wanting my attention so didn't read it through again before posting!
Interestingly, I am expecting to find out that BOB actually lives in our street and our husbands work/worked at the same university!

[Jane2]

Going back to the White Knight thing. Apart from the lottery of whether you actually meet one, there is the lottery of what the WK is like. The point being that with power comes control: the strong man who helps also expects to be deferred to and looked up to. Now that is all very well if the WK is an elderly retired academic... you can just imagine him, tall, thin, in gorgeous old tweeds, speaking in a gently thoughtful way, and never shouting. Now just imagine your WK is a door-to-door salesman or self-employed builder. Would you want him exacting his reward for coming to your rescue?

[Jane2]

Gosh, KM, you're a bit hard on BoB. I had actually begun to think that you and BoB were one and the same person, (both academics, both SAHMs both buy-to-letters as well as backing each other up on many occasions). And taking a different pseudonym for the fun of it. I now see that this is unlikely to be true.
BoB is quite sweet, really, and all.

[Kieransmum]

Bob. So. You do the children and your husband does the accounts. Fine. But I can't believe he is as ignorant as you are.
Does he know what schools your children attend, and why you chose them? Or is that a decision you took without his knowledge?
Yet you don't discuss finances, presumably because you don't enjoy it/find it interesting.

I have to be honest, I think that is unwise. It's nothing to do with playing to your strengths and weaknesses. It's everything to do with being prepared for the worst should it happen. And you never know, just as presumably your husband has the ocassional opinion on his children's welfare, you might occasionally have something to contribute to the finances. You don't need to run the accounts, but you should be up to date with them.

Finally, how are you going to give your children financial advice? White knights are your choice, but I'd be sorry if they had to be a daughter's (or indeed, son's) only option because that's all they got from their mother in the way of financial education.