The Uses of Self-Help Books in Trinidad

Abstract

This book explores the contemporary cultural significance and understandings of self-help books and the narratives they contain. In the following, we introduce a considerable shift of perspective into our argument. In earlier chapters, we have explored the transnational popularisation of self-help books, and we have examined self-help’s narratives of self, personal development and social relationships in various national contexts. In contrast, here we consider how readers engage with self-help texts. Who reads self-help books? Why and how do they read them? What do self-help readers say about the books they read? How do they feel about them? What do they want from them? Why do they use them? How do self-help books inform their readers’ beliefs and actions in everyday life? How do divisions of class and gender impact the consumption of self-help literature? In the context of the overall objectives of this book, these questions are significant in so far as they draw attention to the roles which self-help narratives may come to play within the lived realities of individuals’ everyday lives.