First published in Column Eight on the 20th October, 1993
When I read those self-help How-To books something curious
happens. I agree all along the line with what the author says, but as for doing
something about the problem, a lazy streak takes over and mumbles, ‘Some other
time.’
Only some How-To books, of course, demand a change in our
lifestyle or character. The majority are in the How
To Boil an Egg, or How
To Repair Electrical Fuses and Flexible Cords Safely, mode.
NZ Books in Print shows only 24 titles starting with How To.
But the Public Library’s computer lists some 4000! Plainly there’s a great deal
of interest in teaching yourself How To Do Something – or at least a great deal
of recognition by publishers that How To titles sell.
The variety is cosmic. How
To Be a Space Scientist in Your Own Home, or How
To Colonize. How
To Abandon Ship, How
To Be an Alien, and (really useful), How
To Count Like a Martian. If physicists continue to redefine time and space
and tell us that someday we’ll start going backwards, it may be useful to read How
To Avoid the Future.
As a male I can learn How
To Be a Real Man, or a Family Man, or a Gifted Parent, or How
To Be a King, or How To Be Popular with My Pet. (For people with dogs, that
should be How To Be Pupular.)
A modern woman can read How
To Be an Assertive, Not Aggressive, Woman: a total guide to self-assertiveness
in life, in love and on the job. Or else she can learn How
To Be Chic, Fabulous and Live Forever.
On the other hand she, or her husband, can learn How
To Clean Everything (a book I think would have a very short life in all but
the most particular households). It may be better to read How
To Decorate a Dump.
While we’re on domesticity, we can learn How
To Cook a Wolf – useful if we’re travelling in North America – or How
To Deep-Freeze a Mammoth (something we may need if Nobel prizewinning
scientists continue to produce genetic material from dead insects.) It may then
be useful to read How
To Tell a Proton From a Crouton.
Gardeners, you can learn How
To Enjoy Your Weeds, How To Make a Cloud, a Holepunch (to make rain in the
aforesaid clouds, no doubt), or How
To Make Snop Snappers and other fine things.
Motorists, you can learn How
To Be a Motorist (!), How
To Avoid Automobile Accidents, and even How
To Get Off Speeding Tickets.
In case someone has borrowed that book first, you may have
to read How
To Hold Up a Bank, or alternatively, How To Rob a Bank Without Violence.
After that it may be worth reading How
To Survive Your Life, or if that’s not so difficult, How
To Survive Christmas. At the worst, try How To Eat a Hotdog on the Main
St of Thames.
If reading itself is a problem, you can tackle How To Read a Book.
And if that’s approaching the matter too broadly, try How To
Read a Page (if the worst comes to the worst, and neither of these is where
you need to begin, there’s always How To See.)
The scope is enormous: I can learn How
To Juggle, How To Spy, How To Be
Poor, How To Conquer (it seems a bit late for that), or How
To Banish Cellulite Forever. I can even learn How
To Be a Pom, which should be useful with my in-laws.
Do you like to look on the negative side of life? Read
How To Make Yourself Miserable for the Rest of the Century.
And if all this learning is too much for you, try How
To Do Nothing with Nobody All By Yourself.
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| One of the many covers of this obviously popular book. |
Coming back to this column in 2026, I was interested to find that a number of these books were still in print, and those that weren’t were at least visible and described on sites like Goodreads, where they’re still read. A number of the titles, of course, are of books for kids, containing imaginative and playful ideas.
One book, How to Enjoy Your Weeds, which took me a bit of
tracking down, is out of print. But in light of the fact that this year, in our
garden, we’ve spent an inordinate amount of time pulling out weeds (the
excess weeds due to more rain than usual, I think), I could do with reading it.
I might find something more useful to do with them than disposing of them. I’ve
tried storing them in closed bins, but the stink is high when they’re released,
and I’m still not sure they’re great for my compost. We’ve shaken the life out
of them in order to retain the soil that clings to them, and we left them in
large bags to be collected by the Garden Waste people. But still I cling to the
idea that they must be good for something, since God made so many of them!
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