Best Job Ever

Ellie Tesher spent many childhood hours at her father’s Harbord St. drugstore, listening as he advised patrons on personal as well as health issues. Decades later, after she had studied sociology, worked with foster children, married, divorced, raised a family, remarried and won accolades as a journalist, it almost seemed she was destined to become the Toronto Star’s advice maven. Best Job Ever: Ellie Tesher on Life as an Advice Columnist, is her revealing account of a position that has deepened her understanding of how humans tick – and how to decipher what makes them tick. The book is a humane and fascinating look at the personal struggles of the 21st century: online porn, flimsy relationships, infidelity, despair. But Tesher includes a healthy dose of readers’ and her own hard-won wisdom.

Star Dispatches is a weekly series of quality journalism in ebook form from the newsroom of the Toronto Star, Canada’s largest newspaper.