By
Rod Dreher
I’m not a big fan of self-help books. To be fair, of
course, there’s nothing wrong with them, and I’m sure they help a lot of
people. But none of them, however valuable they look like they might be, ever hold my attention long
enough for me to get anything of worth out of them. This book is not, strictly
speaking, a “self-help book,” but the extended title rightly hints that it does share a lot
in common with that genre, taking the novel approach of describing how a 700-year-old
medieval Italian poem helped modern conservative commentator Rod Dreher to put
his life back on track after what I would term (he does not) a nervous
breakdown, a total emotional meltdown that was wrecking even his physical
health, which readers of the quasi-prequel memoir, The Little Way of Ruthie Leming, would not have expected as
imminent.
