TIEDE, Tom (Robert) 1937-

PERSONAL: Surname sounds like "T. D."; born February 24, 1937, in Huron, SD; son of Leslie Albert (a skilled laborer) and Rose (Allen) Tiede; married Patricia Lee Chisholm, April 4, 1959; children: Kristina Anne, Thomas Patrick. Education: Washington State University, B.A., 1959. Religion: Roman Catholic.

ADDRESSES: Office—The Book Cellar, 316 East Main St., Charlottesville, VA 22902; fax: 804-979-7788. Agent—Toni Mendez, Inc., 140 East 56th St., New York, NY 10022. E-mail—ttiede@mindspring.com.

CAREER: Kalispell Daily Interlake, Kalispell, MT, sports editor, 1961-62; Daytona News-Journal, Daytona, FL, sports columnist, 1962-64; Outdoor Empire, Sacramento, CA, editor, 1964-65; Newspaper Enterprise Association (syndicate), New York, NY, correspondent, beginning 1965; The Book Cellar, Charlottesville, VA, owner. Lecturer on tours. Military service: U.S. Army, Infantry, platoon leader, 1960; became first lieutenant.

MEMBER: Headliners Club, Sigma Delta Chi, Lambda Chi Alpha.

AWARDS, HONORS: Ernie Pyle Memorial Award, 1965; Freedoms Foundation Award, 1966; Headliners Club Award, 1966; George Washington Medal, 1972; four awards for sportswriting.

WRITINGS:

Your Men at War, Newspaper Enterprise Association, 1966.

Coward, Trident (New York, NY), 1968.

Calley, Soldier or Killer?, Pinnacle Books (New York, NY), 1971.

Welcome to Washington, Mr. Witherspoon (novel), Morrow (New York, NY), 1979.

The Great Whale Rescue: An American Folk Epic, Ballantine (New York, NY), 1986.

The Man Who Discovered Pluto: And Other Eyewitness Accounts of 20th Century America, St. Martin's (New York, NY), 1988.

American Tapestry: Eyewitness Accounts of the Twentieth Century, Pharos (New York, NY), 1988.

Self-Help Nation: The Long Overdue, Entirely Justified, Delightfully Hostile Guide to the Snake Oil Peddlers Who Are Sapping Our Nation's Soul, Atlantic Monthly Press (Boston, MA), 2001.

SIDELIGHTS: In his book Self-Help Nation: The Long Overdue, Entirely Justified, Delightfully Hostile Guide to the Snake Oil Peddlers Who Are Sapping Our Nation's Soul, Tom Tiede takes a revealing look at the many self-help and New Age experts active in America. Among those attacked are figures like Richard Simmons, Norman Vincent Peale, Leo Buscaglia, Deepak Chopra, Laura Schlessinger, and Dr. Wayne Dyer, and the books All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten and the various "Chicken Soup" titles. Tiede argues that the self-help industry is harmful, making money by telling perfectly normal people that they need assistance in living their lives. He wonders sarcastically how humanity got along before the self-help boom of the twentieth century. Gilbert Taylor in Booklist called Tiede's book "a devilishly delicious diatribe." Jeanne M. Leiboff in Library Journal found Self-Help Nation to be "sardonic and bitterly derisive," while a critic for Publishers Weekly described Tiede's book as a "mordantly funny attack on sanctimonious advice givers." Tiede "unleashes a tide of bile against the way the self-help industry's hug merchants and dysfunction mongers profit from human weakness," according to Mark Rozzo in Esquire.

Tiede told CA: "As a newspaperman published in roughly 700 dailies, I report on a wide spectrum of events and subjects, but try to concentrate my efforts on the human side of the stories.... Find that my private interests are closely related to my professional interests. Enjoy reading, but it is also research. Enjoy people, but I use them for study. I have a number of hobbies (gardening, carpentry, athletics) but each of them [is a] convenient area for private thoughts on news and events...."Tiede's professional material has been collected by the Boston University Library Archives.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, February 1, 2001, Gilbert Taylor, review of Self-Help Nation: The Long Overdue, Entirely Justified, Delightfully Hostile Guide to the Snake Oil Peddlers Who Are Sapping Our Nation's Soul, p. 1030.

Commonweal, September 6, 1968.

Entertainment Weekly, March 9, 2001, Brian M. Raftery, review of Self-Help Nation, p. 76.

Esquire, April, 2001, Mark Rozzo, review of Self-Help Nation, p. 56.

Library Journal, December, 2000, Jeanne M. Leiboff, review of Self-Help Nation, p. 167.

Nation, March 12, 2001, Julia M. Klein, "A Noodler's Chicken Soup," p. 31.

National Review Online Weekend, March 3-4, 2001, Bruce S. Thornton, "Help Yourself: Outing the Advice Dispensers."

Orlando Sentinel, January 23, 2001, Harry Wessel, review of Self-Help Nation.

Publishers Weekly, January 1, 2001, review of Self-Help Nation, p. 78.*