Lately, life coaches, authors, celebrities and others have used books to spread their knowledge across wide audiences. This list of nine self-help and motivational books feature African authors sharing tips and tricks on how readers could become the best versions of themselves.

Ranging from reflections on confidence and female empowerment to biblical life lessons to instruction manuals on running a business, this book list covers a diverse range of topics. Using these self-help guides, readers can improve their lives and acquire new skills. Written for the modern woman, Tiwalola Ogunlesi’s Confident and Killing It and Dj Zinhle’s and Nokubonga Mbanga’s Meeting Your Power: Returning Home to Yourself feature practical advice and real-life examples to empower women to overcome any fears and be their confident selves. In keeping with this theme of facing fears, Luvvie Ajayi Jones’s Professional Troublemaker is aptly named “the fear-fighter manual” and talks about the importance of truth-telling by having the courage to speak up against injustices and for yourself.

While Yrsa Daley-Ward’s The How: Notes on the Great Work of Meeting Yourself teaches us to explore the depths of our inner selves using reflective questions and writing exercises, His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s and Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World is all about discovering peace and joy in our lives despite numerous sufferings. Books like these remind us how we can continue to grow and understand who we are even in the midst of hardship. Nnedi Okorafor’s Broken Places and Outer Spaces shows us how the painful journey from athlete to paralysis led her to become a creative writer and find hope and joy in spaces she had not dreamed of before. Still others like Emmanuel Acho’s Illogical and Yvonne Orji’s Bamboozled by Jesus use life lessons learned from the Bible to show readers how to expand their own horizons.

We hope that this list helps you gain some essential life skills and promote your personal growth through inspirational stories and practical tips!