Promise Land: My Journey through America's Self-Help Culture
This book will not make you healthier, wealthier, or better looking. Instead, it offers a riff on the self-help industry—and an industry it is, with brands, magnates, and big bucks spent on programs and merchandise. With an eye for irony, Lamb-Shapiro attends various self-help functions, from a fear-of-flying class to a hot-coal walk, and works her way through the literature. She is critical of the genre’s one-size-fits-all approach, which emphasizes the individual’s responsibility for bad situations, even those seemingly beyond one’s control. But what started as an exploration of the irrepressible self-help culture quickly became personal. Those interested in self-help are, after all, seeking something—in Lamb-Shapiro’s case, coming to terms with the consequences of her mother’s death when she was a small child. The result is two-toned, both a surface ramble through parts of the shiny but hollow self-help empire and a personal reflection on her disastrous childhood. Ultimately, the latter provides her most lasting insight, that when it comes to human goals and desires, there are no simple answers. --Bridget Thoreson