The collection of book related content, creators, and their active audience on TikTok. There's also BookTube (on YouTube), Bookstagram (on Instagram), and every platform has their own version I just don't know the name. It covers reviewers, fans, challenges, charity drives, diy rebinding and book repair, the Regency Romance fanfic community, and basically anything you can think of.

When these are used as adjectives for specific books, it means the book got lots of attention on the platform. Or, more commonly, someone put a sticker or digital label on it for marketing purposes or as criticism because there's a handful of content mentioning the book.

Fair enough.

Probably positive association with the influencers/vloggers that recommend the book. People also like to be in the know and get in on trends, so if an influencer pushes a book people will want to be apart of that.

Might be an effort to feel a part of something? If everyone you know is reading a certain book you might feel a little FOMO.

I think it has to do with feeling like a part of something. I have bought a couple of books here and there because I like supporting indie authors, and don’t mind reading various stages of drafts. One series I really really liked, and another was very unfinished but a good idea.

With tt authors you get the chance to give direct feedback and I think that makes people feel like they had direct influence on something they think is cool. Personally, I don’t give feedback unless specifically asked. That feels too much like unsolicited criticism for me, a non professional editor.

It gets people to read who otherwise wouldn't have picked up a book, I guess? Maybe their standards are different ;)

Then again, I know some older people who'd only ever read books that were in the top 10 bestseller lists (and definitely not all books in bestseller lists are that good, or at least, I don't think so), so it's nothing new, but just the same but on another platform, aimed at another target audience

Books recommended on tiktok, as far as I know.

What’s a BookTok?

Social Media is based around sheep idolising influencers. These people successfully sell people their bathwater.

Books are no different really. When followers buy into the value of some influencer's vapid opinion, they'll value that opinion no matter what it is. That includes pushing books.

Sometimes I find that the parallel play aspect of some ASMR study videos can help bring my mind back to reading mode once it starts to wander. Some days it just makes me sleepy, or it's overstimulating, but is worth trying out.

Get an audio version of the book; I don’t know if that helps, but good luck.

I like to put on asmr with no words in it. You can just search YouTube for “study asmr no talking”

For me it seems to help shut off that racing part of my brain by distracting it with nonsense noise input, and then I can focus much more on the content I’m reading even ifs it’s super glad study material.

I think the obvious answer here is to continue to rely on your therapist for help, and do not be afraid to seek other therapists if you feel like the sessions are not helpful.

Personally, while I do not suffer from severe “racing thoughts”, I do get interrupted a lot by random thoughts and ideas when reading. I find it helpful to not treat these ideas that negatively. At their presence I try not to judge myself or blame these thoughts. I acknowledge that they appeared in my mind, and carry on rereading parts that I missed. I try to not get anxious when I am interrupted, and tell myself that I can take it at my own pace.

Hopefully that helps and wish you the best of luck!

Excluding medications, medical diagnoses, or any other stuff I am not qualified to speak on:

Read faster

I’m not joking, often when my mind wanders and I realize my eyes have been following the words but my mind has been elsewhere it’s because I’m slowly scanning. I think to myself “ok. I am reading now” and try to read at a much faster pace. This always draws me in and doesn’t allow my brain to drift off to other stuff.

“I have until then to fix these racing thoughts”

I’m my opinion that’s not a great world view. Racing thoughts aren’t inherently bad. If you’re mind isn’t allowing you to enjoy your hobbies (example here being reading), then maybe ask what’s going on in your life that’s making you distracted. If you can identify it and address it then maybe it’ll alleviate what’s going on. At least that’s the hopeful outcome.

Most people only read the pop bestseller ones designed to appeal to the masses and then are furious they didn’t help them. I’ve found that very specific issues can be addressed by highly experienced authors and those are good. Examples on my end include doctors writing about brain fog and coping techniques, PTSD and trauma and anxiety coping (as recommended by my therapist), and books about situations where normal childhoods were discussed and how to not continue the pattern of dysfunction. I’ve read some, like Big Magic, that are more of a call to action and I tend to find those inoffensive as well. The absolute worst of the genre are ones that prey on people but next worst might be trying to read rich business bro’s musings and to learn something when really the secret is to be born privileged.

Didn't really like them up until recently, Atomic Habits really helped me to be a bit more productive and changed my perspective, I also like reading books from Norman Vincent Peale. They can be very helpful, I think everyone should at least try and see if it works for them.

The problem with self help books, besides the fact that most of them could have gotten their point across better as magazine articles, is that while their points may be good, there’s no follow through or follow up. You can read the book, get some fabulous, life changing insight, and six weeks later you’ve forgotten everything and you’re back to your same old thing. Things like therapy or good support groups work better, because you have ongoing support when you’re trying to make changes.

Dave Allen’s Getting Things Done was life changing for me, though. Or at least career changing.

I have read so many from finanace to self love and marriage. At first, yeah, I was into it trying new practices and what not but long term I am who I am and I ain’t gonna change.

A third of self-help books are written by women. While sure, that means men write most of them, it also means it's not exactly difficult to find self-help written by women. Seems like a very silly reason to ignore a genre. A better reason would be the amount of hucksters that write these books.

I've read several self-help books that changed my lifestyle and perspective (also many that were drivel, it comes with the genre). If you're looking for books by women, these two in particular come to mind:

- The Willpower Instinct by Kelly Mcgonigal

- Dopamine Nation by dr. Anna Lembke

Many self-help books feel like expanded blog posts. I don't think a lot of people ignore the genre because the genre is mainly written by men, as you say -- it's a popular genre.

After trying to slog through Atomic Habits, Essentialism, and other highly recommended titles in the self-help world I've dropped self-help books from my TBR list altogether. I've had more success learning from family members, friends, therapists, and diaries.

It really depends why you want a self help book. I have found books that help with people management, and books that help with the general problem of getting lots of emails and having to be organized while handling it all. But those were specific issues I had in my work. I wouldn’t recommend those to just anyone, it would be like reading a “how to fix your sink” book when your sink wasn’t broken.

I find self-help readings are works not originally published with that marketing intent.
Stoics. Scientists' memoirs (self-penned, not ghost-authored). Nautilus magazine. Historical travel diaries. Brainpickings.org (now The Marginalian). Updates from my preferred not-for-profits
All these and more lead me to reflect and are bellows on the fires of my conscious thoughts, activities, decisioning abilities and my fulfillment and happiness.
A rule of thumb (via personal observation) is one should have done a thing ten times before positioning oneself as an expert about it.

So I have read some that could be distilled down to a power point presentation without losing any content, some that were pure bullshit, and some that contained cutting edge psychological and neurological content, leading to very useful tips. Cal Newport, John Gottman, Dr Wendy Suzuki, Eve Rodsky were helpful to me, among others.

I also have benefited from books on psychology, sociology and philosophy that worked for me like self help even though they weren't technically self help books. Examples Flow the psychology of optimal experience by Csikzentmihalyi and Being Wrong Adventures on the Margin of Error, and Breakfast with Seneca and Man's Search for Meaning.

I'm a retired Health and Life Coach and I've read a lot of self-help, motivational, finance, health, communication, business, productivity, and time management books. It is easy to find them written by women if you look for them.

There is a lot of crap out there, many coaches and gurus are told to write books to add to their credibility and many are not helpful. I will say that there are absolutely some that have made an impact on my life and the lives of clients over the years.

I will say that to get the most of them I treat them more like workbooks. I often read through them once to see if they are worth my time, then I go through them in more detail, doing the exercises, journal prompts, setting up the systems etc.

I do have a few that I like to read every year or two to keep me on the right track.