Bernard O'Shea: Ikea's furniture has me yearning for an ancient self-help book

Did you ever wonder where our bookstores' 'self-help' sections came from? It all started when an ancient Egyptian realised he couldn't build a pyramid on self-doubt!

Pic: iStock

With its vast timeline, the ancient Egyptian civilisation gave more than monumental pyramids and enigmatic hieroglyphs. Among these achievements is one of humanity’s earliest recorded self-help handbooks: the ‘Sebayt’. Before imagining an ancient Egyptian Tony Robbins, let’s delve deeper.

This week while I was assembling an IKEA bookshelf (and failing spectacularly), a bizarre thought struck me.