Tom Butler-Bowdon has done readers a big favor--or, actually, at least fifty favors. This remarkable unabridged (nine-CD) audiobook allows you to recline, close your eyes, and listen with pleasure to narrator Jack Garrett's effective rendition of the complete text edition of 50 Self-Help Classics: 50 Inspirational Books to Transform Your Life, from Timeless Sages to Contemporary Gurus. And I can't imagine a more agreeable way to discover potentially life-changing approaches or authors than via this overview of these widely acclaimed titles (and their creators).

Mind, this "overview" is not a compilation of the 50 original works themselves; instead, it's somewhat akin to a "Cliffs Notes" treatment of said works, at least regarding the most fundamental information conveyed. However, unlike a Cliffs Notes author's generally dry, factual approach, Tom Butler-Bowdon infuses enough of his own enthusiasm and insight to elevate 50 Self-Help Classics, in its own right, to the level of nonfictional literary entertainment. Once you've experienced the entire audio presentation, you'll know enough about each of the 50 self-help works/authors to make a well-educated guess whether a given original title would merit your further time and attention.

To cite but one example of how Butler-Bowdon's tone--despite the occasional, overlookable blemish--is (thankfully) unabashedly less objective or cut-and-dried than that of your average Cliffs Notes author, consider the opening lines of his discussion of The Dhammapada (Buddha's teachings):

"Tired of modern self-help books? The Dhammapada is an ancient source of wisdom, and one of the truly great works of spiritual literature. It is also the perfect introduction to Buddhist thought, being an inspirational compendium of all the major themes in the sacred canon of Theravada Buddhism."


Format.

Thanks to the digital format of these audio recordings, it's easy to skip certain authors/titles and to focus on others. By and large (excepting four discrete, "introductory" tracks on Disc #1), each track on these CD's pertains to a given "chapter," (i.e., a given self-help title and, where applicable, its author). You can listen to the tracks in any sequence you like without significantly affecting or compromising the overall experience.

The content of each CD is divided into five or six chapters. Generally, each chapter's duration is about 12 to 15 minutes and, again, pertains to a single author (and their most famous or significant "self-help" work). In a tiny minority of cases (e.g., the Bhagavad-Gita), the original author is anonymous, and so only the work per se is discussed. Otherwise, each track's presentational format comprises two segments (separated only by an audible pause), as follows:

1. Main discussion. First, the author's full name and the title of their self-help work is spoken, along with the original year of publication. Then Butler-Bowdon (via narrator Jack Garrett) provides background helping the listener/reader quickly to place the given title within a historical and/or literary ("self-help") context. And, above all, by the time you finish listening to this (typically 10 to 13-minute) segment, you'll have imbibed the work's central idea.

2. Biographical/concluding remarks. After a short pause, with this concluding segment Butler-Bowdon provides a brief (typically slightly less than two-minute) follow-up discussion of the given self-help author. Sometimes the latter's date of birth is provided [and, in applicable instances, their date of (and age at) death is likewise noted at the tail-end]. The author's professional background is generally noted. Typically (where applicable), several other of the author's published titles are mentioned.

Thus, each chapter's (track's) simple, two-part presentational format is part of what makes 50 Self-help Classics so enjoyably effective. The attentive listener can thereby easily mentally categorize the respectively discussed authors and titles. A tiny few of the 50 works are ancient scriptures that Butler-Bowdon deems worthy of the "self-help" moniker; other works are from one to several centuries old; but the vast majority are widely acclaimed 20th-century classics of the ("self-help") genre, a fact that Butler-Bowdon freely acknowledges during one of his brief introductory discussions on Disc #1.


Narration.

Narrator Jack Garrett was criticized by an AudioFile "Editorial Reviewer" [cited at Amazon.com], who felt that Garrett's "sensibilities are a great match for the elegance and importance of this self-help overview" but that "his pacing seems slow, and there are too many vocal gaps that interfere with the flow of the presentation."

However, for my part, I'd rather have Garrett's measured pace as opposed to the relatively rushed rendition that that AudioFile reviewer evidently had in mind. Generally, Garrett's tone resides agreeably in a range between too sedate and too ebullient. He continually and tastefully conveys touches of Butler-Bowden's evident enthusiasm wherever that seems appropriate; but his pleasingly balanced delivery never becomes cloying, much less over-the-top.

I'd grade Garrett's overall performance a borderline "B+" or "A-". In fact, his narration is a key factor in my having relished this audiobook so much!


The 50 Self-help Titles Discussed on this 9-CD Edition:

DISC #1:
(First four tracks comprise introductory discussion.)

1. James Allen: As a Man Thinketh (1902)
2. S. Andreas & C. Faulkner (eds.): NLP: The New Technology of Achievement (1994)
3. Marcus Aurelius Meditations (2nd Century)
4. Martha Beck: Finding Your Own North Star (2001)
5. The Bhagavad-Gita

DISC #2:
6. The Bible
7. Robert Bly: Iron John (1990)
8. Boethius: The Consolation of Philosophy (6th Century)
9. Alain de Botton: How Proust Can Change Your Life (1997)
10. William Bridges: Transitions: Making Sense of Life's Changes (1980)
11. David D Burns: Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy (1980)

DISC #3:
12. Joseph Campbell (with Bill Moyers): The Power of Myth (1987)
13. Richard Carlson: Don't Sweat The Small Stuff (1997)
14. Dale Carnegie: How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936)
15. Deepak Chopra: The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success (1994)
16. Paulo Coelho: The Alchemist (1993)
17. Stephen Covey: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (1989)

DISC #4:
18. Mihaly Cziksentmihalyi: Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (1990)
19. The Dalai Lama & Howard Cutler: The Art of Happiness (1998)
20. The Dhammapada (Buddha's teachings)
21. Wayne Dyer: Real Magic (1992)
22. Ralph Waldo Emerson: Self-Reliance (1841)
23. Clarissa Pinkola Estes: Women Who Run With The Wolves (1992)

DISC #5:
24. Viktor Frankl: Man's Search For Meaning (1959)
25. Benjamin Franklin: Autobiography (1790)
26. Shakti Gawain: Creative Visualization (1978)
27. Daniel Goleman: Emotional Intelligence (1995)
28. John Gray: Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus (1992)
29. Louise Hay: You Can Heal Your Life (1984)

DISC #6:
30. James Hillman: The Soul's Code: In Search of Character and Calling (1996)
31. Susan Jeffers: Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway (1987)
32. Richard Koch: The 80/20 Principle (1998)
33. Ellen Langer: Mindfulness: Choice and Control in Everyday Life (1989)
34. Lao-Tzu: Tao-te Ching (The Way of Power)
35. Maxwell Maltz: Psycho-Cybernetics (1960)

DISC #7:
36. Abraham Maslow: Motivation and Personality (1954)
37. Phil C. McGraw: Life Strategies: Doing What Works, Doing What Matters (1999)
38. Thomas Moore: Care of the Soul (1992)
39. Joseph Murphy: The Power of Your Subconscious Mind (1963)
40. Norman Vincent Peale: The Power of Positive Thinking (1952)

DISC #8:
41. Carol Pearson: The Hero Within (1986)
42. M. Scott Peck: The Road Less Traveled (1978)
43. Ayn Rand: Atlas Shrugged (1957)
44. Anthony Robbins: Awaken The Giant Within (1991)
45. Florence Scovell-Shinn: The Game of Life and How To Play It (1925)

DISC #9:
46. Martin Seligman: Learned Optimism (1991)
47. Samuel Smiles: Self-Help (1859)
48. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: The Phenomenon of Man (1955)
49. Henry David Thoreau: Walden (1854)
50. Marianne Williamson: A Return To Love (1994)


The upshot:

Recently listening to Butler-Bowdon's respective discussions of the above 50 titles has inspired me to start investigating certain authors of whom I'd previously been ignorant. [For example, I'll soon be getting better acquainted with Joseph Murphy's The Power of Your Subconscious Mind.] And even in those instances where I wasn't altogether attracted to certain authors or works, at least I came away with an enhanced appreciation of their importance in the canon of "self-help" literature.

I'd be remiss not to mention that, in addition to 50 Self-Help Classics, Tom Butler-Bowdon has published the following books (all of which are likewise available in audio editions) serving as analogous "overviews" to famous literary works: 50 Psychology Classics; 50 Spiritual Classics; 50 Success Classics; and 50 Prosperity Classics.

But, arguably, of all Butler-Bowden's comparable "literary-overview" titles, 50 Self-Help Classics is the most significant, given that its unusually widely ranging content should appeal to the largest cross-section of readers/listeners.

Over the years you've likely heard of certain famous "self-help" titles or authors but never quite got around to reading them. Well, regardless of how busy you are, now you have no excuse not to imbibe the gist of such literature. Butler-Bowden has admirably distilled the most salient aspects of each author or title and judiciously filtered them through his own sensibilities and astute mind. The end result is the most significant "overview" of the self-help literary genre ever to appear in book, or audio, form. This CD edition of 50 Self-Help Classics is not only informative but also captivating and worthy of repeated plays. Moreover, chances are good that Butler-Bowden's discussion will serve you as a springboard to further explorations of several of the original works or authors.