'Self-Help Nation': Book Review

The glut of insipid, Chicken Soup-style in- spirational tomes is hardly a new development, but it sure ticks off Tiede, who takes what should have been a Sunday-paper column and stretches it to 200-plus repetitive pages. Taking time to attack seemingly every book in this expansive genre — from marriage fixing to financial counseling — and counter it with folksy, ”no kid- ding” platitudes of his own, Tiede unknowingly creates what he hates: a costly, shelf-clogging collection of musings and observations that amount to nothing more than good ol’ common sense. C-