Advise Me on Advice Columns
July 16, 2018 7:00 AM   Subscribe

I love advice columns. I want more of them to read. Please share your favourites!

I am a sucker for an advice column, and am looking for some more of them to read!

My current reading list is as follows:
Dear Prudence (general)
Care & Feeding (parenting)
Captain Awkward (general)
The Salty Waitress(restaurants/dining - just learned about this one on the blue recently!)
Ask a Manager (frequently recommended here for work-related advice)

I have also read and loved the book of collected Dear Sugar columns.

I am interested in any kind of advice columns (for example, I am not a parent but I love reading Care & Feeding!)(also, this may explain why I love AskMe so much), the more obscure the better. Personal relationship stuff is great. I have read this question about specific columns by columnists and this 2013 question, but am hoping there are some new answers, since many of the old answers appear to be discontinued columns. Hit me with your best advice columns!
posted by hepta to Human Relations (25 answers total) 112 users marked this as a favorite
 
If you check out Han and Matt Know It All, they also are obsessed with advice columns and re-answer many questions from advice columns around the Internet. So many different columns out there! I believe they also have a “Best Advice Columns” page where there’s a list of their favorite ones.
posted by buttonedup at 7:03 AM on July 16, 2018 [2 favorites]


It barely updates anymore, but I really like Dear Coquette. There are years of archives to go through. She takes a bit more of a "tough love" approach sometimes than a lot of your listed columns (some of which I also read), but I appreciate the counterpoint.
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:04 AM on July 16, 2018 [5 favorites]


My personal favorite is Carolyn Hax. Her Friday chats are great, too.
posted by XtineHutch at 7:35 AM on July 16, 2018 [7 favorites]


I love Miss Manners, but I don't think it's been quite as good since her children have been assisting with writing it. She is very witty and her answers always seem spot on. I would strongly suggest her early books, particularly Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior.
posted by FencingGal at 7:51 AM on July 16, 2018 [4 favorites]


CAROLYN HAX CAROLYN HAX CAROLYN HAX

Cary Tennis

Amy Dickinson

Advice Goddess

Dear Emuna (Jewish advice)

I love them too! Every morning I wake up and read Metafilter and some combination of the above. :)
posted by Melismata at 7:52 AM on July 16, 2018 [2 favorites]


Ask Polly is the spiritual successor to Dear Sugar (which I assume you have read).

Your Sorry Ass is not for everyone, but I love its snark and leftist bent.
posted by quadrilaterals at 7:55 AM on July 16, 2018 [3 favorites]


I'm sure this was mentioned in those other threads, but I really like Ask Polly by Heather Havrilesky. She also published a collection in the excellently titled book How to Be a Person in the World.
posted by radiomayonnaise at 7:56 AM on July 16, 2018 [4 favorites]


Pretty shocked no one has suggested Savage Love yet.
posted by kevinbelt at 8:24 AM on July 16, 2018 [1 favorite]


I'm also an advice column junkie! Here are a few more for you:

Dana Norris - relationships (also a friend of Captain Awkward)

Mixed Feelings - relationships

Savage Love - sex, kink, relationships

Cary Tennis - general, doesn't update anymore, but has some really good exploratory writing there

Ask Amy - general

Reddit relationships is pretty good too.

Ask Polly's original column at her blog, rabbit blog and The Awl

Recently discovered Ask a Queer Chick and I see via buttonedup's link that its still live at another link! Yay! Same with Ask Bear - love them and so glad they're still being updated.
posted by foxjacket at 8:29 AM on July 16, 2018 [1 favorite]


Ask an Indie Rock Veteran
posted by statsgirl at 8:43 AM on July 16, 2018 [1 favorite]


Here is Han & Matt's list of advice columns.

Also, they had Andrea Grimes, aka The Bad Advisor, on (ep #51) and she talked about a bunch of different advice columns and it was great.

That's not exactly an answer to your question but it is adjacent I think.
posted by Emmy Rae at 8:50 AM on July 16, 2018 [1 favorite]


I also want to add that Dear Sugars has an NY Times column and a podcast.

Here's the Bad Advisor's column.
posted by foxjacket at 8:54 AM on July 16, 2018 [1 favorite]


I discovered AskMeFi about a decade ago after someone asked a similar question to yours on The Vine at Tomato Nation, and have never looked back! It isn't updated much anymore, but there's an extensive archive (194 pages to scroll through!).

Sarah Bunting, who runs the site, is one of the founders of the late lamented Television Without Pity, and she gives excellent advice.
posted by vickyverky at 8:55 AM on July 16, 2018 [4 favorites]


I like Kwame Anthony Appiah’s The Ethicist column in the New York Times Magazine. John Hodgman always has a piece of bonus advice on the same page, and if you enjoy that, you might like the Judge John Hodgman podcast.
posted by lakeroon at 9:11 AM on July 16, 2018 [2 favorites]


Y’all Need Help
posted by Grandysaur at 9:23 AM on July 16, 2018


Dear Businesslady is written by a friend of mine.
posted by maurice at 9:24 AM on July 16, 2018


The very funny brandy jensen has a column called ask a fuck up, this one is good in a meta way about how many questioners want validation or permission to act.
posted by JonB at 9:25 AM on July 16, 2018 [2 favorites]


Social Qs in the Sunday New York Times. There's also a Facebook group that has some sort of (mostly amusing, occasionally frustrating) meltdown at least every couple days.
posted by Sweetie Darling at 9:36 AM on July 16, 2018


Seconding ask a fuckup!
posted by ellieBOA at 10:23 AM on July 16, 2018


I'm also a fan of Miss Manners, mentioned above, for her sharp wit and elegantly reasoned explanations supporting her advice. Also as mentioned, her classic era is past, but there are various compilations of her old work in the library.

There are many who do not care for Andrew W, but I like him. He has a fairly distinctive style that makes him an outlier in the advice world.
posted by ovvl at 10:32 AM on July 16, 2018


Tom Sietsema is the restaurant critic for the Washington post, and his Wednesday "Ask Tom" chats often go way beyond the usual restaurant-recommendation role. He talks a lot about how to handle difficult issues when eating out (poor service, a dish you don't like, etc.), and it ends up being a good discussion of reasonable expectations and good strategies for handling issues from both the customer and restaurant perspeective.
posted by dapati at 11:51 AM on July 16, 2018


He's not an advice columnist, per se, but WaPo's Gene Weingarten's live chats end up feeling a lot like Hax chats.
posted by Pax at 8:16 AM on July 17, 2018


The Straight Dope. In the Chicago Reader since 1973 is a great, fun read. Lots of info, just the right amount of snark.
posted by Enid Lareg at 5:03 PM on July 17, 2018


nthing cary tennis
posted by lalochezia at 5:33 PM on July 17, 2018


Dear Pepper by cartoonist Liana Finck
posted by book 'em dano at 7:14 PM on July 17, 2018


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