The Birth Order Book, by Kevin Leman

"I don't read self-help books. On any given day my self seems to need so much help that 200 pages of cheerful advice and end-of-chapter exercises miss the core of my dilemma. The real question keeping me up at night is this: What the hell is a self anyway? How did I get one and why is it so damn desperate for help?" - Adam Frank


Naturally, that is how I start a post about the self-help book I just finished.


Leman claims that birth order has a significant impact on how you turn out as a person--to the point that he gets scared if he's on a plane and the pilot isn't a functional firstborn or only child. This book outlines the typical characteristics of each birth order, how to deal with it yourself, how to deal with it in others, and how to take it into account when parenting.


With the exception of one of my sisters, his predictions fit my entire family almost perfectly. It's kind of freaky (in that halfway through the chapter on firstborns I was shouting "THESE ARE MY PEOPLE." And that's only a little bit of an exaggeration).


All of the psychology and analysis is interspersed with stories about his clients, and his own family. He's a likable enough person, and it's always amusing to be reading along and find something that describes someone you know to the letter.


The whole book is fascinating (to anyone who has siblings, anyway), and I'd recommend it to anyone who has an interest in that sort of thing. My mom picked it up a couple days ago and decided that all five of us were going to read it, so we'll see what happens after I'm not the only one in the house with this Deep and Perceptive Knowledge about the Mysterious Secrets of Birth Order.