self-help

There were more self-help books, including How to Survive Christmas, and The Common Years: a brilliantly observed look at the time when she lived by and walked on Putney Common.

Dozens of self-help books and therapy sessions later, I’m still on the prowl for something that makes sense of it all.

Among those characters is a damaged male self-help guru played by Tom Cruise in a big-swing performance he has never quite topped before or since.

But much of what they are spouting is self-help, internet based, anecdotal nonsense.

From the wealth of self-help books, advice columns, therapists, country songs and, yes, romantic comedies that fill our culture, I reckon the messier elements of “Too Much” will feel familiar to many.