Books by agony aunts and about advice columns
The following texts represent a variety of accounts of advice giving. From reflections on being an agony aunt or uncle, collections of letters from advice columns, or texts explaining or analyzing media advice giving. The first two sections may be useful if you are seeking to find archive material to research, the last section provides tools and ideas for analysing advice columns.
Books and chapters by or about advice columnists and their work
Bottel H. 1970. Helen help us! Tempo Books.
Boyle K. 1982. What this Katie Did: an autobiography. Sphere.
Boynton P. 2009. Whatever happened to Cathy and Claire? Sex, advice and the role of the Agony Aunt. in Mainstreaming Sex: The sexualisation of Western Culture. IB Tauris.
Ironside V. 1998. Problems! Problems! Confessions of an Agony Aunt. Robson.
Kurtz I. 2014. My life in Agony: Confessions of a professional Agony Aunt. Alma Books.
Pottker J and Speziale B. 1987. Dear Ann, Dear Abby: the unauthorized biography of Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren. Dodd Mead.
Proops M. 1976. Dear Marje. Andre Deutsch.
Puri K. Pool of Life: The autobiography of a Punjabi Agony Aunt. Kindle.
Raeburn A. 1984. Talking to Myself. Elm Tree Books.
Rayner C. 2003. How Did I Get Here From There? Virago.
Robertson D. 2006. Agony? Don’t get me started. Little Books.
Sharma A. 2010. Dear Agony Aunt. Rupa and Co.
Stone M. An unauthorized guide to Cheryl Strayed: a short biography of the author of Wild and Dear Sugar. Kindle.
Whitehorn K. 2008. Selective Memory: an autobiography. Virago.
Self help books by advice columnists and problem page collections
Alkon A, Minnick M and Johnson C. 1996. Free Advice. Dell Publishing Company.
Boyle K. 1982. Boyle’s Law. Littelhampton.
Carey T. 2006. Never kiss a man in a canoe: words of wisdom from the Golden Age of Agony Aunts. Boxtree.
Dickinson A. 2013. Ask Amy: advice for better living. Surrey Books.
Golding M. 2011. Nude Rude and In the Mood: questions and answers by the World’s only naked Agony Aunts. Lulu.
Hall R. 1981. Dear Dr Stopes. Sex in the 1920s. Penguin.
Hawthorne R. 1998. Dear Worried Violet: A Peep at Problem Pages through the ages. Pavillion.
Henegan J. 1985. Problem Page: me and my friends. Franklin Watts.
Kent R. 1979. An Agony Aunt Advises: Problem pages through the ages. WH Allen.
Kurtz I. Cosmopolitan. The Agony Column: Vol 1:1975-1980.
Kurtz I. Cosmopolitan. The Agony Column. Vol 2:1980-1985.
Kurtz I. Cosmopolitan. The Agony Column. Vol 3:1985-1987.
Kurtz I. 1995. Irma Kurtz’s ultimate problem solver. Avon Books.
Landers A. 1997. The best of Ann Landers: her favourite letters of all time. Fawcett Books.
Landers A. Wake up and smell the coffee! Advice, wisdom and uncommon good sense. Villard Books.
McNight-Trontz J. 2000. Yes you can: Timeless advice from self-help experts. Chronicle Books.
Proops M. 1993. The very best of Dear Marje. Bookman Projects.
Rowe C. Dear Playboy Advisor: questions from men and women to the advice column of Playboy Magazine. Kindle.
Sanders D. 1995. Dear Deidre’s Casebook. Blake Publishing.
Sanders D. Dear Deidre’s Brilliant Sex Guide: solving women’s sexual problems. Kindle Edition.
Sanders D. Dear Deidre’s Brilliant Sex Guide: sorting out sex drive dilemmas. Kindle Edition.
Sanders D. Dear Deidre’s Brilliant Sex Guide: solving men’s sexual problems. Kindle Edition.
Sanders D. Dear Deidre’s Brilliant Sex Guide: 50 quick tips to make sex more fun. Kindle Edition.
Sanders D. Dear Deidre’s Brilliant Sex Guide: How to keep on having hot sex year after year. Kindle Edition
Sanders D. Dear Deidre’s Brilliant Sex Guide: sexual diversity. Kindle Edition.
Savage. D. 1998. Savage Love. New American Library.
Strayed C. 2012. Tiny beautiful things: advice on life and love from Dear Sugar. Vintage.
Strayed C. 2013. Tiny, beautiful things: advice from life and love from someone who’s been there. Atlantic Books.
Van Buren A. 1958. Dear Abby. World’s Works.
Van Buren A. 1962. Dear Abby. Pan.
Van Buren A. 1982. The best of Dear Abby. G.K.Hall.
Books that analyse advice giving and media
Beetham M. 2000. The Agony Aunt, the Romancing Uncle and the Family of Empire:Defining the Sixpenny Reading Public in the 1890s. in Masculinity and Men’s Lifestyle Magazines. John Wiley and Sons.
Ehrenreich B and English D. 2005. For her own good: Two Centuries of Experts Advice to Women. Pluto Press.
Ferguson M. 1983. Media, gender and identity. Routledge.
Gill R. 2006. Gender and the Media. Polity.
Hermes J. 1995. Reading Women’s Magazines. Polity.
Jackson P, Stevenson N and Brooks K. 2001. Making Sense of Men’s Magazines. Polity.
Lees S. 1993. Sugar and Spice: Sexuality and Adolescent Girls. Penguin.
McRobbie A. 1991. Feminism and youth culture: from Jackie to Just Seventeen. Macmillan.
McRobbie A. 1995. More!: New Sexualities in Girls and Women’s Magazines in Curran J and Morley D and Walkerdine V (eds) Cultural Studies and Communications. Hodder Arnold.
Phillips A. 2008. Advice Columnists. in Pulling Newspapers Apart: Analysing Print Journalism. Franklin B. ed. Routledge.
Tiefer L. 2004. Six months at the Daily News, in Sex is not a natural act, and other essays. 2nd Edition. Boulder,CO. Westview Press.