Desperately Seeking Self-Improvement

Carl Cederström is Associate Professor at Stockholm Business School, Stockholm University and the co-author or co-editor of five books. His writing has appeared in The Guardian, Washington Post, Al-Jazeera, New Scientist, Harvard Business Review, and 3:AM Magazine.André Spicer is Professor at Cass Business School, at City University London and the co-author or co-editor of five books. His writing has appeared in The Guardian, Financial Times, Times, Independent and CNN.

Praise for Desperately Seeking Self-Improvement"A comically committed exploration of current life-hacking wisdom in areas ranging from athletic and intellectual prowess to spirituality, creativity, wealth, and pleasure." —The New Yorker"An absurdist masterpiece." —The Guardian"Beautifully observed and incredibly conceived, this account of a self-imposed ordeal has the chilling quality of a true nightmare. It is the dark side of the moon of Tim Ferriss." —Tom McCarthy"Two crazy people try numerous crazy strategies, all so I don't have to. I call that a result!"—Lee Child, author"A good-natured, thoughtful, and often comic joyride." —Kirkus ReviewsPraise for The Wellness Syndrome“Carl Cederström and André Spicer’s brilliantly sardonic anatomy of this “wellness syndrome ”concentrates on the ways in which the pressure to be well operates as a moralising command and obliterates political engagement... These authors would no doubt agree that there is nothing wrong with being well or wanting to be well. But, as their deeply humane and persuasive book shows, being told to be well is a different matter entirely. A society where wellness is obligatory is a sick one. ” —Steven Poole, The Guardian"When I read their angry, hilarious book, The Wellness Syndrome, I felt like I was being shaken awake from a dream. ” —Helen Rumbelow, The Times“My underlying scepticism about society's single-minded quest for physical perfection was validated when I came across The Wellness Syndrome. Like me, the authors don't have any gripes about wellness per se… but what they are concerned about is how wellness has become an ideology. The more we focus on our own wellness, the book argues, the more we alienate others and the more isolated we become... By spending so much time looking inward, in a relentless pursuit for the ideal body and state of mind, we pay less attention to the wider world and its ills. ”
—Gabrielle Monghan, Irish Independent“Short, brilliant and bracing, The Wellness Syndrome is the Brave New World de nos jours, a mordant satire on our contemporary mores... I pray that the authors will put a lot of life coaches (and celebrity chefs and similar fraudsters) out of business. ” —Andy Martin, Literary Review“The book’s great virtue is its lightness of theoretical touch, which combines Darwin-award style tales of idiocy with punchy commentary to make for the kind of readability conducive to cult status among undergraduates. ” —Gerald Moore, Radical Philosophy