If someone would write a self-help book to your spefications, what would you want?

I wouldn’t write one. If things aren’t working out for me I’d rather see a person, regardless of if they’re a friend or if I’m paying them, than to read a book that makes generalisations about me and hopes I fit a specific model.

Perhaps “specification” spelled properly?

correct spelling would take all of the fun out of things…

@whatthefluther: You mean spelt. But let’s not get all hung up on it… :)

i believe “spelled” is the correct form. “spelt” is a kind of grain.

@richardhenry: I know you reside in the UK, yet from some of your fluther responses (i.e., the fluther story ramblings of the University of Tennessee Vols and all that orange nonsense) I envisioned you an American living abroad. Until now, of course. Are you really a Brit that was educated here, or have I mixed you up with someone else? Spelt is OK on that side of the pond, but not here.

@whatthefluther: Really? I didn’t know you didn’t use spelt in the US. ‘Spelled’ sounds really strange to me. I’m a Brit, born and living in Britain.

Oh, and I didn’t write those references in the story… although I can’t blame you for not checking, it was about a million responses long!

As far as self help books, you should take everything with a grain of salt. However, as in every media books, newspapers, TV news, etc, only believe 50% of it. Life is a laboratory so if the book says if you try this and that this will happen, then by all means try it and see how reliable is that info. I’ve found several books to be reliable and I have adopted a lot of the stuff is taught in these books. I have read tons of books and I know what is most likely to be true and what is fiction. Generalizations are all bad, we can’t ass-u-me anything.

@richardhenry…It was a delight revisiting “The Fluther Story” and please accept my apology for confusing you with another one of the authors. Besides being an ancient wheat grain, as PnL correctly noted, “spelt” is a “chiefly British past and past participle of spell.” And, as “spelled” does you, “spelt” sounds strange to me. Is “spelled” an acceptable word in your dictionary and is it noted as “chiefly American?” Thank you very much. Best regards…whatthefluther

I would want to have a book that was easy to read (even if it was somehow done with pictures), relatively inexpensive, and practical. I would want the book to offer some kind of solution to poverty. If I found a book like that I would spend a bit of my own money and start mailing it to random people all over the world.

So, in other words, I would want the self-help book to be about very basic survival and uplift rather than feeling “okay” about oneself which (to me seems like) it is a much higher level need.

I think a book entitled “Removed by Fluther Moderators” would be a great book, however ‘moderators’ is spelled, or spelt. The by-line would be, “How to give answers on Fluther that won’t get removed by the Almighty moderators.’

@evelyns_pet_zebra Not being a spammer is a good start. ;)

The self-help book in question would have to be pretty extensive to even begin to tap the scrambled fathoms of my brain.

What’s a spefication?

it would include, how to stop being lazy, how to be more organized, how to get along with in-laws, how to deal with guilt issues, and how to stop getting into self hate patterns, and how to help one’s parents get out of self hate patterns.