With many people dealing with fear and anxiety amid the coronavirus pandemic, Elena Mosaner said several of her clients have been inquiring about “reinventing themselves.” “It’s key to teach clients ...

In a 1954 New Yorker essay “Howtoism,” writer and critic Dwight Macdonald states that authors of how-to books are to other authors as frogs are to mammals, and encourages people to read other genres.

The best self-help books don’t promise to “completely change your life” overnight. Instead, a truly great one—written by someone who knows their stuff—will gently nudge you towards small shifts that ...

Heaven helps those who help themselves.” So opens Samuel Smiles’ 1859 book Self-Help; with Illustrations of Character and Conduct—an appropriately self-published work that birthed the modern genre.

From the 1940s to the ’60s, the Onitsha Market in southeastern Nigeria was the center of a burgeoning movement in self-help literature. Known as Onitsha Market literature, these cheap, locally ...