The IBIC Guide to Books About Self-Help

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Remarks from the IBIC Editor's Journal

I found FIRST THINGS FIRST by Stephen Covey et al. to be a valuable and thought-provoking book. As with Covey's previous bestseller, THE 7 HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE, I turned to it at a moment in my life when I was feeling stressed by many competing demands upon my time; and, as was the case with 7 HABITS, this book helped. It is a useful pedagogical device.

That, in fact, is an excellent way to characterize FIRST THINGS FIRST. It is more a device than a book. Do not expect to read it in the same "fun" sense that you would read a novel or a learned essay, where you can read for several hours, absorb insights, think "gee, that was good," and move on. In order to benefit from this book, you have to take it on its own terms. You have to engage yourself with it just as you would with a chemistry textbook or the documentation manual for a new piece of computer software.

Indeed, the experience of reading FIRST THINGS FIRST is quite a bit like reading an introductory textbook for a good seven-week summer course. Covey makes a handful of very intriguing citations in each chapter. But I would have liked more footnotes, a deeper bibliography, and a more sustained analysis. (A caveat about "prerequisites": this book presupposes a fairly high level of mental health in the reader. It is aimed more towards the reader who is able to consciously direct his energies towards improving his quality of life.)

While there are a number of well written vignettes and interesting insights, there is also a somewhat numbing repetition of specialized Coveyese jargon. That, I am sure, is the authors' deliberate choice, based on their years of experience in teaching (and marketing) these techniques. Their objective is to get their system of thought across to a diverse audience in a way that communicates their message with maximum clarity and coherence. Unfortunately, to do this, they pay a price in the aesthetic quality of the book's composition; but they succeed in making the book--what else--"effective" in achieving its own purposes.

The three elements of this book that I found most valuable were:

Overall assessment: this book is a good starting point for tackling middle-of-the-road quality of life problems. It will be a permanent and valued part of my personal library.


Comments from IBIC Readers

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Editor's Recommendations, Summer 1996

In this inaugural edition of IBIC's Featured Books, I'd like to draw your attention to several titles which have helped to shape my life and thinking.

  • When I was around fifteen, I came across Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's science fiction novel, INFERNO. This '70s remake of Dante's classic describes science fiction writer Allen Carpentier's descent into Hell. It's still a very fresh, accessible take on the classic. What a great movie it would make!
  • The Niven/Pournelle INFERNO immediately inspired me to read the original Divine Comedy. I've read a number of translations over the years, but my favorite is the one by Dorothy Sayers (INFERNO; PURGATORY; PARADISE). The notes are excellent, and Sayers had such a knowledgeable and witty mind that reading her prose is a pleasure in itself. (For those interested in a more contemporary translation, I should mention that Robert Pinsky received excellent notices for his 1995 THE INFERNO OF DANTE : A NEW VERSE TRANSLATION; it's a very handsome book.)
  • I also want to tell you about the late Henry Fairlie's THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS TODAY, which probably did more than any other single book to galvanize me into a lifetime interest in Christianity that led me, eventually, to faith. Ironic, because Fairlie was a self-proclaimed agnostic socialist! But reading between the lines of this insightful and deeply feeling book, one realizes that the love of God cannot have been far from Fairlie's heart.
  • Finally, I should draw to your attention a more recent acquisition, the very handsome NIV STUDY BIBLE (10TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION) from Zondervan, indexed and bonded in leather in IBIC's theme color, burgundy (black and brown are also available). The notes to this Bible are amazing. They appear to provide you with a very substantial portion of what you need to know to have an intelligent layman's appreciation of the linguistic and historical issues involved in understanding Scripture.

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