Help Me! - Hardcover

Power, Marianne

  • 3.89 out of 5 stars
    6,728 ratings by Goodreads
 
9780802129062: Help Me!
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0802129064 ISBN 13: 9780802129062
Publisher: Grove Press, 2019

Synopsis

Already an international phenomenon sold to 23 publishers around the world, Marianne Power’s Help Me! is the hilarious, thought-provoking, and unfailingly honest account of one woman’s year-long, often madcap, quest to find out if self help books really can change your life

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author

Marianne Power is a writer and journalist who lives in London. She has written for The Daily Mail, The Irish Independent, Good Housekeeping, and Glamour, among others. Help Me! is her first book.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers

I started small on January 2nd – with a spot of parallel parking. Not exactly dramatic, but I hadn’t tried it since my driver’s test when I was seventeen.

At home my bold step into the world of fear-fighting was not greeted with excitement.

‘I just did a parallel park!’ I told mum, swinging the car keys on my fingers like a man of the road, an easy rider. She looked up from the sink full of dishes.

‘Does your book tell you to park?’

‘No, it’s just about doing scary things. Confronting your fears. And parking is scary.’

Mum looked bewildered. She didn’t find parking scary. She could fit a truck on a postage stamp and would make no big deal about it.

When she was my age she had three children and a house to run, she was not ‘challenging’ herself by parking or jumping into icy ponds.

She did not have time for self-discovery or, as she puts it, ‘I was not brought up to contemplate my toenails.’ Funnily enough, self-help wasn’t big on the farm in rural Ireland, where she grew up, the eldest daughter of seven brothers and sisters. 

When I had told her about my idea at Christmas, she opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again. Then she opened it. And closed it.

‘Most people would say your life is already very good, Marianne.’

‘I know it is but what’s wrong with wanting to be a bit happier?’

‘Nobody can be happy all the time. It’s just not the way life is.’

‘Well that’s miserable.’

‘No, it’s not. It’s realistic. Maybe you would feel better if, instead of always looking for more, you were grateful for what you have.’



"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

Publisher
Grove Press
Publication date
2019
Language
English
ISBN 10 
0802129064
ISBN 13 
9780802129062
Binding
Hardcover
Number of pages
384
Rating
  • 3.89 out of 5 stars
    6,728 ratings by Goodreads

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9781509888559: Help Me!: One Woman's Quest to Find Out if Self-Help Really Can Change Her Life

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  1509888551 ISBN 13:  9781509888559
Publisher: Picador, 2018
Hardcover