The More or Less Definitive Guide to Self-Care

Borges, senior editor at Self magazine, delivers a comprehensive guide to self-care in her strong debut, a playful encyclopedia filled with sound advice. Arranged in alphabetical order, Borges’s catalogue covers the spectrum of therapeutic practices, including recent trends such as adult coloring books and more traditional solutions for self-care such as support groups. She also takes time to explain the recent history of the term self-care, its limits as a cure, and the potential for self-care to be used as an excuse for furthering consumerism. The encyclopedic format of the book means that entries are covered cursorily, and so the guide is most useful as a compendium of ideas that one can peruse and explore further elsewhere. Personal self-care routines are set off throughout, and joyful illustrations by Scott accentuate Borges’s friendly tone. Borges concludes with a flowchart to decide what kind of self-care one might need and a guide for those new to therapy. Borges’s welcoming tone and plethora of ideas will be helpful for readers whether they’re looking for ideas for being just a little bit happier or struggling with serious mental health concerns. (Nov.)