The Self-improvement Handbook

In the last half-century or so that the humble
self-help book has jumped to cultural prominence, a
fact admitted by both the advocates and the critics
- often highly polarised - of the self-improvement
genre. Some would 'view the buying of such books...
as an exercise in self-education'.Others, more
critical, still concede that 'it is too prevalent
and powerful a phenomenon to overlook, despite
belonging to "pop" culture'.

For better or worse, it is clear that self-help
books have had 'a very...