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Е-issn 81-1466 2 issn 181-6875 2 0 5Bog'liq Sharopova Sh OAK 2LITERARY CRITICISM
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS OF BUKHARA STATE UNIVERSITY 2024/5 (110)
42
Despite the stunning popularity of self-help literature there is some hesitations among scientists whether
these books are beneficial or not. For Blum, however, the genre’s history also reminds people of a different
mode of reading and she wryly notes that “Self-help has no such qualms about its utility.”[5;14]
Research methods.
Literary, typological and psychological analyses of the self-help genre are the main
methods used in this research.
Koay Dong Liang collected an interview data and found out the different characteristics of self-help
books according to the people’s preferences. Some of the readers called them self-help books whereas the
others called them motivational books, inspirational books, personal development books and positive thinking
books.[5;96] These books are written mostly from the 1
st
person, in some cases from the 3
rd
person point of
view.
Self-help books along with creative writing manuals, textbooks, therapeutic writing manuals and writing
memoirs belong to the “writing advice industry” which is one of the most enigmatic and, until recently, most
overlooked areas of literature. Writing workshops are spreading across the globe, both inside and outside
universities, and magazines about writing, both for amateurs and professionals, are widely available.
What truly boosted the advice industry is the Internet. The correspondence courses and manuscript
advice services of the early days have moved online, as have the self-publishing venues. Amazon’s Kindle
Worlds, for example, can offer possibilities to publish on Kindle, in print and audio formats, leading to the
emergence of what Nick Levey calls a “post-press literature”.
At the far end of the academic institution of creative writing, the industry is associated with a commercial
genre circuit outside the confines of “Literature,” with the formulas of Hollywood storytelling gurus, and with
its big brother, the self-help or self-improvement industry.
Advice authors are said to encourage amateurs who lack genuine talent to churn out memoirs, genre
fictions, or fan fiction, in the hope of writing the next bestseller, of achieving stardom in a limited niche of the
world wide web, or just some peace of mind by unloading their thoughts on paper or a blog.[ 1;1-2]
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