Life lessons from ‘Idol’

“Chicken Soup for the Soul” -- the line of inspirational books launched by motivational speakers Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen in 1993 -- has become a cottage industry of sorts. With 170 titles as diverse as “Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul” or “Chicken Soup for the Soul in Menopause,” the books are supposed to encourage the crestfallen and bring hope to the hopeless.

It was only a matter of time before the brand found fodder in one of the culture’s other great brokers of despair and dreams: “American Idol.” The just-released “Chicken Soup for the American Idol Soul” contains 74 stories from some of the Fox television show’s famous and forgettable contestants, producers, fans and crew -- all waxing on about on how “Idol” has touched-changed-inspired their lives.

Fans can dig for the “Chicken Soup” moral in tales of how Sanjaya Malakar dealt with the harsh criticism from the judges or how former champion and recent Grammy winner Carrie Underwood was moved when she met a South African boy diagnosed as HIV positive.

Inevitably, some of the book’s prose can summon a reader’s inner Simon Cowell. For example, Kimberly Caldwell, a finalist from Season 2, opens her vignette with: “No question about it: I had fallen hard. I was in love -- in love with music.”

Executive producer Nigel Lythgoe offers this gem of a closer: “So, if you’re going to dream, dream in Technicolor. Don’t dream in black and white.” And as Simon might helpfully add, don’t quit your day job.

-- Christine N. Ziemba