The New Self-Help

21 Books for a Better You in the 21st Century

‘Self Improvement’ doesn’t mean what it used to

“Self help” is about the “self” being “helped” — but guidance for personal growth is only useful when it works in the world we live in now. We’re most effective when we understand ourselves and the people around us.

The 21st century has been marked by crises that force us to re-learn where we fit, and how we should get where we want to be. The personal “ladder of success” feels increasingly outdated when set against a giant framework of systems and technologies, involving billions of other people. Last century, you could get away with adopting highly effective habits for winning friends and influencing people — especially if you were from Mars, not Venus. Now, you must turn to books that illuminate the world and inspire change.

Many of these 21 books aren’t found on the “self-improvement” shelf of a library. But from bell hooks to Emily Oster, Marie Kondo to Damon Young, these are thinkers who speak with lasting resonance to the conditions of their time — our time — defining new phenomena, transforming the zeitgeist, or answering a question we didn’t even know to ask.

As the editors of Forge and many of our Medium colleagues created this list, we looked for…