Post-Christmas, early January, and the shops are just bulging with publications that promise a whole new, shinier, downright perkier you. Books such as Elizabeth Somer's The Origin Diet: How Living in Tune With Your Evolutionary Roots Will Reduce Disease, Boost Vitality, Add Healthy Years to Your Life and Help You Live Longer, Feel Healthier and Lose Weight. Crikey O'Riley, is there nothing this book can't do? It even makes a good doorstop.
And then there's The Sugar Addict's Total Recovery Program by Kathleen DesMaisons PhD,which guides you out of the "fog" of sugar addiction. DesMaisons provides recipes, meal plans and practical tips to steer you clear of the teeth-rotting, mood-swinging demon. You've heard it all before, and probably on Oprah, but Kathleen deserves a mention if only because her last bestseller was entitled Potatoes Not Prozac.
Just a quick squint at the contents pages of The Diet Cure by Julia Ross is enough to make you spurn the Special K. "Are You Suffering Because of Low Calorie Dieting?", "Is Depleted Brain Chemistry the Problem?" Absolutely, Julia, how right you are. Now pass me the foie gras. On the other hand, Jay Cooper would attribute it all to body type. His new publication, The Body Code Diet and Fitness Programme , sorts the wheat from the chaff, the men from the boys, and the rest of us into "Communicators", "Warriors", "Nurturers" and "Visionaries" who all require special diets and exercise regimes to suit. Together we can master our metabolisms.
There are three main sections in Stephanie Winston's book Getting Out From Under: Redefining Your Priorities in an Overwhelming World . Part one helps you to gain time in your life immediately; it's the add-water-and-stir solution. Part two helps you to "Examine Your Personal Universe" for which you will need a hand-held mirror and a pair of tweezers. Winston suggests that you formulate a solar-system approach to your life, to help you decide what is really important, and what is Pluto, and in part three, you learn to build on your new-found self-knowledge. I cannot believe I just said that.
Organizing From the Inside Out: The Foolproof System for Organizing Your Home, Your Office and Your Life is by Julie Morgenstern, a board director of the National Association of Professional Organizers in the US. Julie tells us that it is not our fault if we are disorganised; we simply never learnt how to be organised. But Julie Morgenstern is here to teach us. With her digestible "analyze, strategize, attack" formula. Thank God for the Atlantic Ocean.
The Journey To You - A Shamen's Path to Empowerment by Ross Heaven. Heaven by name, heavenly by nature, Ross is a practising Shaman with unwavering eyes and the hint of a mullet. He is here to teach us of the ancient practice of Shamanism, and the fact that "YOU have control of this world, indeed that YOU are the sole creator of the world you occupy - and that YOU have the power to change it". Which may come as something of a shock.
The Longevity Code: Your Personal Prescription for a Longer, Sweeter Life by Zorba Paster MD, for whom the anagrammatic possibilities are endless, relies on a bevy of self-tests, anecdotes and probably Venn diagrams, to assess our "Five Spheres of Wellness". Elsewhere there are 76 "boosters" to make our lives peachy - "Take care of your teeth and gums," for example, and "Don't live in a violent environment." Pearls of wisdom, apparently gleaned from the fortune cookie school of psychology.
How to Have Magnificent Sex: The Seven Dimensions of a Vital Sexual Connection is the new book by Lana Holstein MD, who has spent 25 years proclaiming that a sex life is a "birthright". And now, ladies and gentlemen, Lana has honed her theory into seven essential points: understanding the body, exploring the senses, recharging desire, opening the heart, boosting intimacy, baring the soul and embracing the spirit. You can maybe add these to your "To do" list when you are redefining your priorities in an overwhelming world. At the end of each Dimension, Holstein provides suggestions for you folk to try at home - with the curtains closed. Explore the senses, for example, by indulging in forms of non- sexual contact such as dancing or bare-knuckle fighting. Later on, there's even a section dedicated to Tantric sex, for which you will need a Sting album. Or long-player, as he probably likes to call it.
A word, here, must be spared for Mr Steven Carter and his natty guide This is How Love Works: Nine Essential Secrets You Need to Know , not only for its splendidly toe-curling chapter titles - Make "We" a Priority and Take Off the Masks, for example - but also for Steven's brilliant use of stale-couple scenarios to illustrate his point - "Carla and Bryan moved in together one year ago, and ever since then they have been playing 'the thermostat game'." If you know the rules of "the thermostat game", please write in.
Relationship Rescue: A Seven-Step Strategy for Reconnecting With Your Partner is by Phillip C McGraw PhD. "I'm prepared to kick a hole in the wall of the pain-ridden, unhappy maze you've gotten yourself into," says Dr Phil, who is essentially the Mr T of counselling. And with his trusty Seven Step Strategy - which probably involves ropes, underground tunnels and a cagoule - he will liberate us. No straggling, you there at the back! Your first task is to wade through endless questionnaires, profiles and tests such as "List Five Things That Today Would Make You Fall Out Of Love With Your Partner".
Only after this period of self-analysis, are you and your partner ready to "reconnect", by taking it in turns to give monologues on subjects such as "The most positive thing I took away from my Mother and Father's relationship was . . ." This process usually takes half an hour a day over the course of two weeks, but you can probably cram it into an afternoon, if you're in a rush.
Speaking of which, The Multi-Orgasmic Couple: Sexual Secrets Every Couple Should Know by Mantak Chia, Maneewan Chia, Douglas Abrams and Rachel Carlton Abrams is a charming introduction to Taoist sexual theory, where a man is fire, and a woman water. Illustrations are provided by the same artist who so enhanced The Joy of Sex. Cynics may suggest that he can only draw naked people "at it". The thought never entered my head.
