The Self-Help Compulsion

Samuel Beckett as a guru for business executives? James Joyce as a guide to living a good life? The notion of notoriously experimental authors sharing a shelf with self-help books might seem far-fetched, yet a hidden history of rivalry, influence, and imitation links these two worlds. In The Self-Help Compulsion , Beth Blum reveals the profound entanglement of modern literature and commercial advice from the late nineteenth century to the present day. Blum explores popular reading practices in w