Self-Help Books, Reviewed Honestly

Every book here is read end to end and then put through the same three questions: what does it actually claim, what evidence did the author have, and does that evidence still stand after the last decade of replication attempts. Each title ends with one of three verdicts — read it, read our notes instead, or skip it — and the reasoning sits underneath.

Four reviews show what that costs a famous book when its central finding later moves: «Atomic Habits», «Thinking, Fast and Slow», «Why We Sleep» and «The Willpower Instinct». The procedure we follow is written down separately.

41 books, read with one question: what still holds up? Not what inspires — what survives contact with the evidence published after the book came out.