It starts with an attempted suicide on the road to Aberdeen and reaches its grand climax on the island of Gomera... Barefoot Doctor's latest book is less a self-help tome than a journey of self-discovery. Here, he reveals how he came to write Twisted Fables for Twisted Minds and why it will either 'heal you or make you go insane'.

Could a single trip on a piece of African rootbark help a junkie kick the habit? That was the claim in the 1960s, and now iboga is back in the spotlight. But is it a miracle cure? Daniel Pinchbeck decided to give it a go. And life, he says, will never be the same again...

When M Scott Peck wrote The Road Less Travelled 25 years ago, he brought the self-help book into our lives and taught us that all our problems were solvable. The book has been a bestseller ever since - but how has Peck's own life matched up? Edward Marriott finds him on a winding road.

Dee O'Connell finds out how New York's biggest cad met his match - and his mate