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7 Secret Self-Help Books

What comes to mind when you hear the phrase “Self Help”? Is it untrustworthy life coaches, faux spirituality, or the infamous “Self-Help Book”? Before you judge, consider this: Might seeking guidance for self help, from trusted sources, be a form of self care? These books are not self-help books, explicitly, but they’ll encourage you to tune into yourself and the world around you. And they’re really, really good. 

How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, by Jenny Odell

Wake up. Work. Doomscroll. Repeat. Jenny Odell’s How to Do Nothing is a modern manifesto on the technological and work culture that has made our attention a commodity and is slowly but surely rotting our brains! The fracturing of our attention wrought by social media, persuasive design, and increasingly long (and poorly compensated) workweeks keeps us distracted, disillusioned, and divorced from nature and from one another. Odell advocates for a different way of life, encouraging us to attune ourselves to our communities and our surroundings and to divest from the forces that profit from keeping us apart. 


The Year of Magical Thinking, by Joan Didion

Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, published in 2005, was an instant classic and one of the most memorable books on grief and mourning written in recent memory. The memoir is Didion’s account of the year following the death of her husband in 2003. What’s most striking about this book is its candidness. Didion doesn’t hold back from sharing the obsession, denial, and “insanity,” as she would describe it, of her grief. Didion’s story is deeply personal, yet still translatable to those experiencing grief themselves. It is ultimately an optimistic reminder that in grieving we are not alone and, even when it’s difficult to see ahead, there is a path forward for us all. 


The Book of Delights, by Ross Gay

We tell each other “it’s the little things” that make us happy, but how often do we stop to recognize what those things actually are? Another year-long book project, poet Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights is a collection of short, lyrical essays written daily for a year that celebrate the small things that brighten his days. He records the things that make him pause, smile, and reflect, but does so without sugar-coating the more complicated realities of the wider life and world these joys exist within. The result will inspire you to seek out your own small joys and hold them close. 


¡Hola Papí! How to Come Out in a Walmart Parking Lot and Other Life Lessons, by John Paul Brammer (See also: ¡Hola Papí! the newsletter!)

JP Brammer is a contemporary Carrie Bradshaw, a snarky yet thoughtful advice columnist with an eye for the trials and tribulations of young(ish) adulthood. His memoir is a funny and sweet attempt to grapple not with other people’s stories, but with his own experiences coming out as gay as a Mexican-American boy growing up in Oklahoma and his larger journey to self-understanding and acceptance. His newsletter, first appearing on Grindr and now published on Substack, is another gem, rife with advice columns offering wisdom for writers-in of all identities on romance, friendship, conflict, and assorted other joys and pitfalls of modern life. 


Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir, by Akwaeke Emezi

Dear Senthuran is a singular memoir precisely because Akwaeke Emezi is a singular person. Confident and unsparingly introspective, Dear Senthuran is written as a series of letters to Emezi’s loved ones on subjects of love, gender and sexuality, spirituality, identity, wellness, and creativity. Cumulatively, it is a love letter to those who can relate to and learn from Emezi’s experiences. “I want to write as if I am free; as if my people are my only readers…” they write of the book. “I want this book for the readers who know what I’m talking about. We’re not often, if at all, considered enough to make a book.” 


We’re Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation, by Eric Garcia

Public understanding of autism has long been dominated by doctors, parents, and self-professed advocates who speak on behalf of a diverse community fighting to advocate for itself. Eric Garcia’s We’re Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation challenges common stereotypes by sharing the personal experiences of autistic people, including underrepresented BIPOC and LGBTQ autistic people, and by exposing the harm caused by an industry bent on “treating” and “curing” what has never been a disease. “[We’re Not Broken] isn’t just a history or overview of issues facing autistic people,” wrote one reviewer. “It’s a referendum on and affirmation of our humanity and our expertise in our own lives and communities.”


Gender Euphoria: Stories of Joy from Trans, Non-Binary, and Intersex Writers, Edited by Laura Kate Dale

For those who experience gender beyond the binary assigned to them at birth, written roadmaps are few and far between. And the ones that do exist often represent (importantly, of course!) the personal and political obstacles faced by members of the trans and non-binary community. In Gender Euphoria, nineteen queer writers share stories of joy and elation about their gender identities and the lives that they have built for themselves as queer adults. They are remedies to pain and pessimism, showing queer readers what it can look like to live freely and happily as they are.


how do you practice reflection and self care?