Book Titles

Some books you have to read cover to cover to grasp. How­ever, if you are walk­ing among the self-help book­shelves in a major book­store, you will notice that with some books the title is the essence of the whole book. You read the title, skim through the pages, and find that the sim­ple title/idea needed lit­tle elab­o­ra­tion. Self-help books do not have to be much more than com­mon sense to do a lot of good. Maybe that is why they are so popular.

Here are a few titles that have played in my head for years: Who Is The Mat­ter With You? (Yes, every­one has prob­lem peo­ple in their lives that prob­a­bly drive them nuts. Fig­ure out who they are and deal with them.) What You Think Of Me Is None Of My Busi­ness (We really do not have to con­trol the opin­ions of oth­ers. To try to do so is exhaust­ing.) You Have The Right To Say No With­out Feel­ing Guilty (This is the book for peo­ple pleasers and those enslaved by the petty demands of others.)

I like the “Dummy Books” — Car Repair for Dum­mies, Home Repair For Dum­mies, Com­put­ers for Dum­mies, and a whole list of sim­i­lar titles. The Bible could be listed as: Life For Dum­mies. These titles are about the hon­est admis­sion that you are a begin­ner at some­thing and need some sim­ple instruc­tions. Gen­e­sis One makes for a good chap­ter. You have to start some­where. Check out the Ten Com­mand­ments part or The Ser­mon on the Mount. Now there is some good advice for us spir­i­tual dummies!

John Pow­ell wrote: Why Am I Afraid To Tell You Who I Am? It made its rounds thirty or so years ago. It asks a sim­ple ques­tion and spends a cou­ple of hun­dred pages just to get to the one-sentence answer: We are afraid to tell each other who we are, because we are afraid of rejec­tion. He wrote other books, but he will most be known for this one.

Any­one with com­mon sense and a lit­tle nerve can write a self-help book. If I wrote a title-tells-all self-help book, I think I would call it: Get Real Or Get Out (How to deal with the end­less masks, lies, and pseudo-psyches of our era.)

It seems strange that Jesus never wrote a book. He just lived one. Maybe the best says-it-all title is what peo­ple think of when they hear your name.