Writers Recommend: Marianne Power

Marianne gives her recommendations of the best books for turning a new page and starting the new year off as you mean to go on

Welcome to another one of my Writers Recommend series where authors pick for you their favourite four books within the genre they write in.

It seemed to me that with it being a new year an’ all, and how we’re all setting our new intentions, it would be good to hear from Marianne Power.

Marianne is the author of HELP ME! HOW SELF HELP HAS NOT CHANGED MY LIFE. Being a voracious reader of self-help books, she set herself the challenge of following the advice of one each month for a year to see if it changed her life.

‘The book started life as a blog,’ explained Marianne, during our chat, ‘at that point I was 36, and on paper things were really good, I had friends, I had work, but I was really quite lost. Friends were moving on, getting married, having kids, buying houses, whereas I was always in debt, depressed, drinking a lot. I was also reading a lot of self-help books which, at that time, felt like an embarrassing thing to be doing. I had this idea, I started re-reading Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, and I had this realisation that the reason none of these self-help books changed my life is because I never did what they told me to do — it was like buying a cookery book and ordering takeaway every night. You think the act of buying the thing is enough. So I set myself a task that I wouldn’t just read self-help, I would do it, and I believed if I did everything the books said, I would become this amazing, perfect person.

‘What I learnt was an obvious thing – there is no such thing as a perfect person. I had this idea that there was something wrong with me and I should fix it. But through the process of trying to be perfect, I learnt that humans are messy, gorgeous, up and down people, and I ended up at peace with the person that I am. So it turned out to be a book of self-acceptance, not self-help.’

Well, you can probably tell from the title of her book that it didn’t have the desired effect in one way – but it did in many others which you can read about.

Marianne’s book was sold all over the world and she also had the rights for a TV dramatisation snapped up. You can buy HELP ME! here.

Now I would usually just leave you to watch our interview, but I must apologise because the audio (on my part at least) is not very good at all. If you can bear it have a listen (the link is at the bottom), if not here are the books Marianne is recommending for ones that actually can change your life, or at least set you on a path of good intentions and resolutions.

So first up, is a classic and one that appeared in Marianne’s own experiment, THE POWER OF NOW.

‘The author, Eckhart Tolle, says that when we walk down the street and see someone talking to themselves, we might feel sorry for them, and think they have problems,’ Marianne told me, ‘But he says we’re all actually talking to ourselves all the time, we all have this voice in our heads which is narrating what we’re doing and it’s usually a critical voice which is either re-hashing stuff that’s happened in the past, or trying to skip to a moment in the future: ‘things will better if I have more money in the bank; things will be better if I lose weight.’ And he says because of this ego mind we’re constantly missing the only thing that’s ever important, and that’s the present moment.’

You can listen to more of what Marianne had to say about this book in our chat. Since it was published in 1997, THE POWER OF NOW has sold over one million copies in the UK alone, and if you haven’t read it already, perhaps …the time is now?

From classic to contemporary, here is Dr Nicole LePera’s HOW TO DO THE WORK which is one I’ve never heard of before. Marianne told me that Dr Nicole LePera is known as the holistic psychologist and has millions and millions of followers on instagram.

‘She was a traditional psychotherapist who noticed that she was seeing patients coming in year-after-year with the same problems, but they never changed, they just got better at articulating their problems,’ Marianne said, ‘It’s a very good beginners’ guide for anybody who might not have the time/money/interest in going to therapy, it’s a really good way to start to understand some of your psychology and how the things that you’re brought up with – with all the best of intentions – how they impact you, and how that then plays out throughout your whole life. The author is also a believer – and this is the way that psychology is going now – that our brain is not this separate entity from our body, and that it isn’t enough to have therapy and understand your childhood stories, you need to address your physical health, your diet, your exercise, sleep, all these things, they play a fundamental part in our mental health. This book is holistic and trying to see our whole selves, how our mind impacts our body, our body impacts our mind.’

This sounds really interesting, and makes perfect sense, it would definitely set you up for the year ahead, and so if you would like to order HOW TO DO THE WORK, you can do so here.

Now, another classic, it’s THE ARTIST’S WAY by Julia Cameron. Many people will have heard of ‘morning pages’ but they won’t know that the idea originates from this book. The premise of ‘morning pages’, for those who are not familiar, is that on waking, before you do anything else, while you’re still in that sleep/wake state, you should reach for your notepad and pen and start automatic writing. The idea is that this will help to give you clarity in your thoughts, that it will free up your creative mind, that it will help you spot the things that are nagging away at you. And you do not have to be a writer to do this, it is a good practice for anyone.

‘There’s lots of research that talks about the therapeutic benefits of writing,’ says Marianne, ‘because there is something about taking the jumble that is in your head – and half the time we don’t even know what it is – and putting it on an external piece of paper. They’ve done studies that show that your wounds will heal quicker, your immune system is better – it is a free way of making yourself feel a bit calmer.’

Hear more of what Marianne has to say about THE ARTIST’S WAY in our chat, but if you would like to buy it and start doing your own morning pages (as well as all the other tips that Julia Cameron has in there – read about her inner critic called Nigel for example), you can do so here.

Here’s a book that has been on my own reading list for so long as I have heard it recommended by so many people, it is WRITING DOWN THE BONES. And look, this edition even comes with a forward from Julia Cameron.

‘It’s true that this is a book that people who want to start writing read,’ says Marianne. ‘But Natalie Goldberg is a zen buddhist, and she is also such a warm and friendly voice and her book is about writing as a form of meditation and of paying attention to your life – that makes great, vivid writing, but it’s also a way of just paying attention to the moment. She says the details of our lives are so worthy of being written down, that there is a magic and beauty in the mundane, it’s just such a lovely practice for anyone who doesn’t get on with meditation… it’s amazing what you start to notice.’

I have already ordered my copy as this is a book that has been calling on me to read it for years, and if you would like to order WRITING DOWN THE BONES, you can do so here.

So there you are, five books that can help you start the new year the right way. The video of my chat with Marianne is available below and she had many other things to say about these books as well as her own. I hope you’ve enjoyed hearing from her.

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