Reading List

Authors Like Iyanla Vanzant

Iyanla Vanzant was born Rhonda Eva Harris in the back of a taxi in Brooklyn in 1953, and her mother died of breast cancer when she was two. In 1980 she left an abusive first husband, taking her three children, and later earned a law degree at the City University of New York School of Law. Her daily meditation book Acts of Faith appeared in 1993. She made about twenty appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1998 and 1999, and from 2012 to 2021 she hosted Iyanla: Fix My Life on OWN. On Christmas Day 2003 her daughter Gemmia died of a rare colon cancer at 30. The ten writers below share her subject: women putting a life back together through forgiveness, faith and plain talk, and the critics who ask what that kind of healing leaves out.

By Lisanne Swart · 10 authors · Spiritual self-help · Forgiveness and healing · Updated October 2026

Quick answer

If you love Iyanla Vanzant, start with Louise Hay, whose You Can Heal Your Life (1984) shaped the affirmation-based self-help Vanzant writes in, and Marianne Williamson, whose A Return to Love (1992) also reached readers through Oprah Winfrey. Desmond Tutu’s The Book of Forgiving (2014), written with his daughter Mpho, sets out a four-step path to forgiveness close to Vanzant’s own. Further down are the Black feminist writers who argue that healing is political as well as personal.

10 authors like Iyanla Vanzant

01
Where the genre began

Louise Hay

American · Heal Your Body (1976), You Can Heal Your Life (1984)

Hay (1926–2017) self-published the pamphlet that became Heal Your Body in 1976 and founded the publisher Hay House in 1984, the year You Can Heal Your Life appeared. She taught that resentment, guilt and a lack of self-love cause illness, and said she had cured her own cervical cancer that way. Critics, including AIDS activists, said her teaching gave false hope and could keep people from medical treatment.

Hay is the source of the affirmation-based self-help Vanzant writes in. Read her for the origin of the method, and with the criticism of her health claims in mind.

— Lisanne
02
Survival as politics

Audre Lorde

American · The Cancer Journals (1980), Sister Outsider (1984)

Lorde was born in New York City in 1934 to parents from Barbados and Grenada, and died in St Croix in 1992. The Cancer Journals records her breast cancer and mastectomy, and Sister Outsider collects her essays and speeches on race, sexuality and silence.

Lorde writes about a Black woman’s healing, as Vanzant does, but insists that illness and silence are political too. She came before Vanzant’s books and complicates their focus on the inner life.

— Lisanne

Every book by Audre Lorde →

03
The elder’s voice

Maya Angelou

American · I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), Letter to My Daughter (2008)

Angelou was born in St Louis in 1928 and died in 2014. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is the first of her seven autobiographies, and Letter to My Daughter is a book of short essays of advice. She met Oprah Winfrey in the late 1970s and became her close friend and mentor.

Angelou and Vanzant both turn a hard life story into counsel, in a direct, spoken voice. Angelou is the literary writer of the two; start with her if you want the memoir behind the advice.

— Lisanne

Every book by Maya Angelou →

04
Love as practice

bell hooks

American · Sisters of the Yam (1993), All About Love (2000)

hooks was born Gloria Jean Watkins in Kentucky in 1952 and died in 2021. Sisters of the Yam is subtitled ‘Black women and self-recovery’. All About Love argues that love is a set of actions and choices, not a feeling, and that a culture of domination makes it hard to practise.

The writer who argues with the self-help shelf from inside it: hooks takes recovery seriously but ties it to race, class and patriarchy. Sisters of the Yam came out the same year as Acts of Faith and speaks to the same readers.

— Lisanne

Every book by bell hooks →

05
Spiritual counsel on Oprah

Marianne Williamson

American · A Return to Love (1992), A Woman’s Worth (1992)

Williamson was born in Houston in 1952. A Return to Love, based on A Course in Miracles, spent 39 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list after Oprah Winfrey praised it. She ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020 and 2024; her remarks on antidepressants and vaccines, and former staff members’ accounts of her as a boss, drew criticism, which she has partly disputed.

Williamson and Vanzant reached wide audiences through Oprah in the same decade, and both write spiritual counsel for women in crisis. Williamson works from a single text, A Course in Miracles; Vanzant draws on several traditions.

— Lisanne

Every book by Marianne Williamson →

06
Forgiveness, step by step

Desmond Tutu

South African · The Book of Forgiving (2014, with Mpho Tutu)

Tutu was born in Klerksdorp in 1931, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 and chaired South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission after apartheid. He died in Cape Town in 2021. The Book of Forgiving, written with his daughter Mpho, also an Anglican priest, sets out a fourfold path: telling the story, naming the hurt, granting forgiveness, and renewing or releasing the relationship.

The closest match to Vanzant’s Forgiveness: a practical, staged method for letting go of harm. Tutu brings the experience of a country trying to forgive, which gives the personal steps a wider weight.

— Lisanne
07
Shame, researched

Brené Brown

American · The Gifts of Imperfection (2010), Daring Greatly (2012)

Brown was born in San Antonio in 1965 and is a social work professor at the University of Houston who studies shame and vulnerability. Her 2010 TEDx Houston talk, ‘The Power of Vulnerability’, made her widely known. Her latest book is Strong Ground (2025).

Brown covers Vanzant’s territory, shame and self-worth, with interviews and data instead of scripture. Read her if you want similar advice with research behind it.

— Lisanne

Every book by Brené Brown →

08
Myth as medicine

Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Mexican-American · Women Who Run with the Wolves (1992), Untie the Strong Woman (2011)

Estés was born in Gary, Indiana, in 1945 and is a Jungian psychoanalyst. Women Who Run with the Wolves retells folk tales as maps of a ‘wild woman’ instinct that women are taught to suppress; it was a New York Times bestseller for 145 weeks. Some feminist scholars argue that her idea of a universal feminine nature overlooks differences of race and class.

Estés and Vanzant both write for women rebuilding a self, and both draw on spiritual traditions outside the Christian mainstream. Estés works through stories; Vanzant through direct instruction.

— Lisanne

Every book by Clarissa Pinkola Estés →

09
Trauma, from a doctor

Gabor Maté

Hungarian-Canadian · When the Body Says No (2003), The Myth of Normal (2022)

Maté was born in Budapest in 1944 and moved to Canada with his family in 1956. For twelve years he was a staff physician for the Portland Hotel Society in Vancouver, working with people with addictions. The Myth of Normal, written with his son Daniel, argues that trauma and stress lie behind much illness; several researchers have called his focus on trauma too narrow.

Maté gives a medical account of what Vanzant calls emotional healing: the idea that what happened in childhood shows up in adult life and in the body. He is the most clinical voice on this list.

— Lisanne

Every book by Gabor Maté →

10
The next generation

Glennon Doyle

American · Love Warrior (2016), Untamed (2020)

Doyle was born in Burke, Virginia, in 1976. Her memoir Love Warrior was chosen for Oprah’s Book Club in 2016, and Untamed followed in 2020. She hosts the podcast We Can Do Hard Things with her wife Abby Wambach and her sister Amanda.

Doyle writes Vanzant’s kind of book for a younger audience: a woman’s own collapse told plainly, then turned into advice. Both moved from the page to a broadcast voice.

— Lisanne

Every book by Glennon Doyle →

Where to start if you loved Iyanla Vanzant

If you want the roots of the method, read Louise Hay.

You Can Heal Your Life (1984) is behind much affirmation-based self-help; read it alongside the criticism of its health claims.

If you want a forgiveness practice, read Desmond Tutu.

The Book of Forgiving lays out four steps, from telling the story to renewing or releasing the relationship.

If you want the politics of healing, read bell hooks.

Sisters of the Yam (1993) is about Black women and self-recovery.

If you want research instead of scripture, read Brené Brown.

The Gifts of Imperfection is her shortest route into shame and self-worth.

If you want to go back to Vanzant, read Acts of Faith.

Her 1993 book of daily meditations is the usual way in; Peace from Broken Pieces (2010) is the more personal one.

Frequently asked questions about authors like Iyanla Vanzant

Who writes like Iyanla Vanzant?

Louise Hay, Marianne Williamson and Desmond Tutu are the closest: Hay and Williamson for spiritual self-help, Tutu for a step-by-step practice of forgiveness. bell hooks and Audre Lorde write about Black women’s healing with a political edge.

What should I read after Acts of Faith?

Try Sisters of the Yam by bell hooks, published the same year, or Maya Angelou’s Letter to My Daughter for short pieces of counsel.

Is Iyanla Vanzant like Louise Hay?

Both write affirmation-based spiritual self-help. Hay claimed that thought patterns cause illness, which critics have challenged; Vanzant’s books focus on relationships, forgiveness and faith.

Does Iyanla Vanzant have a new book?

Her most recent book is Forgive Everyone for Everything (2025), a revised edition of Forgiveness (2013). In 2025 her podcast The R Spot with Iyanla was nominated for an Emmy.

Which Iyanla Vanzant book should I read first?

Acts of Faith (1993) for daily reading, or Peace from Broken Pieces (2010) if you want her own story.

Is Iyanla: Fix My Life still on?

No. Iyanla: Fix My Life ran on OWN from 2012 to 2021.

Sources

List last reviewed 31 October 2026.

Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021. Every comparison here is a judgement about method and subject, not an algorithmic match. See more on her personal bookshelf.

More from the shelf

Reading list

Self Help for Women

Advice that respects the reader.

Reading list

Books About Forgiveness

Letting go, and what it costs.

Reading list

Spirituality and Humanity

Faith, meaning and other people.

Reading list

Self Improvement Books

The ones that hold up.

Read next

Every book by Iyanla Vanzant, in order →

Reading lists to try next
Reading listBooks About HopeFor the hard months.Reading listBooks About RelationshipsHow people love and fail.Reading listBooks on TraumaWhat the past leaves in us.Reading listBooks About GriefLiving with loss.
Start Typing
Dummy Image

Hi, there.

Home

About

My Bookshelf

Weekly’s

Stay tuned: sign up for the newsletter!