Hugh Prather, author of the wildly popular self-help book Notes to Myself, has died at 72. He was in his hot tub and apparently died of a heart attack, according to the NYT obit. Notes to Myself was first published in 1970 by a small press, then quickly outsold its first printing; it’s gone on to sell five million copies and is still in print–published by Bantam–today.
The book was composed of a series of journal entries, little notes to the self, like this:
“When I get to where I can enjoy just lying on the rug picking up lint balls, I will no longer be too ambitious.”
Notes to Myself was also the inspiration for Jack Handy’s “Deep Thoughts” sketches aired on “Saturday Night Live.” But all kidding aside, Prather’s book was a source of comfort and help to many. Anyone have memories of the book to share?
My life was forever changed when I read Hugh Prather’s Notes on Love and Courage as a young girl. I still have it on my shelf today.
“hugh prather” stood in the slender poety shellf in mall bookstores (hello Harry Hoffman) in the early 70s–along with Kahlil Gibran, Rod McKuen, and some unaffordable editions of Wordsworth and Dickinson. Its title–Notes to Myself–always appealed to my young self, and though I cannot ever remember picking it up to peek inside–something kept me from doing it, and I can’t even today say what it was–the title resonated. I can imagine that, for such a book to be in print for so long, many folks did more than graze on the title and found Prather’s wisdom a comfort. He seems to have found an ideal exit, if such can be found. Perhaps this is “a note to myself.”