New Age authors are from Uranus

by Feòrag

Polly Vernon has a look at the massive market in self-help and mind, body and spirit books in today's Observer:

On reaching her flat, she disappeared into the kitchen to make drinks, and he started absentmindedly checking out the contents of her living room, at which point he discovered that her bookshelves were monopolised by upwards of 50 titles from the self-help genre. I'm OK - You're OK. Feel The Fear and Do It Anyway. Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. The Road Less Travelled. Women Who Love Too Much. Chicken Soup for the Soul. A Course in Miracles. Etcetera. He looked at the books for a millisecond and drew what he insists was the obvious conclusion. He was trapped in the home of a nutter.

Last year, sales of such books generated £38m in the UK alone, and that figure has been steadily increasing, though it includes kook diet books read by those who cannot accept that all they need to do is eat less and be more active. And what of the future - surely this is the best genre to know that?

Alongside the Goddess revival, Danuta Kean predicts a major move towards interest in psychic powers and mediums. Apparently, she says, anything that the Living Channel is endorsing heavily is a very good indicator of forthcoming trends in self-help. The ageing baby-boomers are investing heavily in books that prepare them for old age, to guard against failing mental faculties. And for the younger demographic of readers, teenagers and early twentysomethings, the trend in Wicca persists, fuelled, Kean suspects, by Philip Pullman, Harry Potter, Sabrina, The Teenage Witch and Buffy.

Feel the fear... and read it anyway - The Observer, 26th October 2003.