Can a Self-Help Book Really Change Your Life?
The genre promises easy fixes for intractable problems, but some conflicts can’t be solved by individuals alone: Your weekly guide to the best in books
As a genre, self-help books promise that fulfillment can be attained by sheer individual will. That offer is seductive, and in the midst of a global pandemic and public distress, many readers have stocked up on titles that foreground individual healing, such as Bessel van der Kolk’s ever in-demand . It can provide solace, Eleanor Cummins wrote in , but : personal, psychological trauma. Some conflicts require different
