"Don't read self-help books" is just one of the surprising suggestions to be found in Tell Me About It: Lying, Sulking, and Getting Fat... and 56 Other Things Not to Do While Looking for Love by Carolyn Hax, the funny and compassionate author of an advice-for-the-lovelorn column ("a semiweekly act of gall") in the Washington Post. Based on 30-plus years of life experience, and constant bombardment by letters that form "a virtual catalogue of the most counterproductive ways to interact with other human beings" and that typically reflect "a breathtaking absence of self-awareness," Hax offers in-your-face advice that only a stranger could give, and she does it supremely well. National radio satellite tour. (Talk Miramax,...