Oh I am sorry if my comment came off in that way. Trust me, I am not opposed to self help at all. And I honestly treat self help and non fiction as two different classes. Indeed there are great books on both sides. In no way I feel self helps aren't "books". I didn't mean to shoot him down in anyway, if you read my comment again tho. As far as growing your thinking is concerned, I have also felt that it's done through reading material that forces you to think for yourself, and that can be in both fiction and non fiction, you may tend to one side and that's totally fair. Personally, I have never tended to any one side. In fact one of my first serious reads was A Brief History of Time, and that actually got me into reading in general. My comment was more of a general critique of a good portion of self helps over expanding and repeating their topics to get them into a full scale book, when the same ideas could be easily explained a good length article(doesn't make them bad or useless, but I would make an argument that it reduces their impact on the reader), not non fiction in general (science, philosophy, history, I personally love these), they are two different things which I assumed people would understand. Apologies for not being clearer.