Brilliant little book

I love this book. It has a lot of useful advice on how to make your life better in every way. I would recommend it .

A great intro to reading body language

This is great intro book, doesn't go into loads and loads of detail, but it does give practical advice for gauging what people are thinking.<br /><br />I've already started to use what I have learnt in business meetings, that's not to say that I can now read peoples minds but being more aware of the non-verbal signals definitely makes you a more effective communicator.<br /><br />A little American cheesy in places but otherwise an enjoyable and educational read.

It will Influence your life

This is one of the classic books that everyone should read.<br /><br />At first the title may deceive someone by thinking that this books teaches malicious techniques to"Win Friends and Influence People"...it does not.<br />It's goal is to change oneself in being a better person, in understanding others and our social expectations, by doing so, by becoming a understanding, friendly, warm and social person you will naturally"Win Friends and Influence People".<br /><br />While Napoleon Hill"Think and grow Rich" will change your mindset and reshape your attitude and communication towards yourself, Dale Carnegie"How to win Friends and Influence People" will reshape your attitude and communication towards other.<br /><br />Together, they are one of the most powerful tool ever developed by mankind to become successfully in anything in life.<br /><br />I do not have words enough to plead you to read this two books.....if you can only read two books in your lifetime....this two should be the ones.<br />

Good stuff

This book is about encouraging you to take control and responsibility for your life. You can choose your reactions to your life. This is powerful stuff!

Pop pyschology for those in early developmental stages.

One of the most awful personal development books I've ever read. I knew it was going to be bad as soon as he brought God into the equation; speaking as an Atheist I'm not looking to link my personal development with religious values or beliefs. This aside I think the book was supposed to be full of pithy insightful anecdotes that gave you those 'Aha' moments. You'll hear how the supply of golden eggs will dry up if you don't also maintain the goose, how you can't be a concert pianist without starting as a beginner and going through each stage of development and how your lawnmower will only last half as long if not properly maintained...Genius but what could he mean? Only goes to prove one of my long held views that book sales and popularity are no guarantee of quality. Big mistake buying this one; in future I shall continue to subscribe to the school of contrary public opinion. Buy at your peril or if in early developmental stages.

KISS - Keep It Simple Silly!!

If you are low on confidence or feel as though your confidence could do with some extra boost, then this is the book for you. <br /><br />The contents is based around NLP and would be ideally suited to beginners who wish to keep things simple and then progress onto more in-depth areas of the subject. This book will certainly teach you how to program your mind to work for you, rather than against you. <br /><br />The added bonus with this book is the accompanying CD, which I believe has helped me tremendously for the purpose of attending interviews and I am so convinced that by listening to the CD a few times a week, it has made me more confident in all aspects of my life. <br /><br />So what are you waiting for? Give your subconscious mind a treat and I am sure you will see the benefits for yourself.<br />

Must have!

This is an amazing book! It's a real eye opener, with some great gems that can be applied to your own life. It's a real page-turner too, and one that I would go back to time and time again!

excellent summary on Psychology & Sociology

I really liked this book a lot and heavily recommend it to anyone that in a short read want to understand something more on human behaviour. Don't expect very deep tests and the background behind but either a summary on ways to improve your live or understand better why people behave like they do.

great book

This is such an easy book to read and not to many pages which means ANYBODY can read it even book phobics. Makes you think and very motivational.

The mindful way

This book is a self-help book and so designed for a larger public. For advanced readers I suggest picking up a copy of Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy for Depression: A New Approach to Preventing Relapse, by the same authors. Both books show promosing and inspiring new ways to deal more effectively with chronic unhappiness and depression in your life and most importantly with the causes. The steps outlined in"The Mindful Way through Depression" can bring on a radical paradigm shift in the way you view your anxiety and depression. The authors are trained in both, traditional Psychotherapy and Mindfulness, so they profoundly know what they are talking about. They invite you on a journey into the deeper workings of your mind. Through the wilderness on to more peaceful grounds. But beware, it is no easy way and for some people, depending on the severity of their experience, it may be better not to try this at home. A book can never replace a good caring person.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />

Basics for CBT

I needed this book for my CBT course. We do the initial training for CBT with the exercises described in this book, so it's a very useful tool for me. But anyone who has problems with depression and other difficulties can find easy managing strategies in this book, as well. I would recommend it to anyone who is in need of counselling before and when they start with therapy.

No, you can't....

It is a tall order to claim that McKenna can make 'you' sleep, without knowing either the history of insomnia or ability (or otherwise) of being able to be put into a sleep-inducing trance. I'm afraid, he did not make me sleep any better than I had done for years (i.e. lying awake until 5 or 6 am every second night before sleeping an hour or two). While the advice in the book is to the most part fairly sound, it is nothing that people with insomnia have not found on the internet or tried anyhow. I did not learn anything new. Nor am I able to be put into a trance (as claimed) in the space of a few minutes. It may work for some or even many, but not for all.

CBT made easy

This book is easy to read and really helpful - in sorting out the faults in my thinking process - well recomended.

Amazing whether you're studying or not!

I probably would not have encountered this book if it had not been for studying but I wish I'd had this to read for my first kid. This could be given out in Parenting Classes as it would make a difference for people. Really made you think about what you could do to be a better parent without the preaching and patronising that comes with the Supernanny series or similar books/programmes. Great price on Amazon too - cheapest I found.

Shockingly unimportant

Blink is an enjoyable read which contains no ideas whatsoever. It is not that the book contains noting interesting, there are many interesting facts and interesting research mentioned throughout the book; however, the most important fact is not mentioned at all. That fact is that experts in a field use information in an economic way because they are experts. An expert in any field will be able to separate the relevant facts from all the information available and make good decisions rapidly without having to evaluate all the information available. If you want to know how a good general quickly evaluates a battlefield it is worth considering that in order to make the rank of general you will already have amassed a great deal of battlefield experience and it will be this experience that will inform the decisions you make. If you're wondering why a layman might struggle to do the same, it might just have something to do with the fact that they lack the experience or perspective to identify the relevant facts in the same situation.<br /><br />The short conclusion chapter of Blink demonstrates the superficiality of both Gladwell and Blink. What are the lessons of Blink? They are that we should be wary of situations we find ourselves in where we might express an unconscious racial preference or unconsciously acting in a sexist or chauvinistic way. However, Gladwell gives no guidance on how this might be achieved or how we might become better decision makers. The conclusion of Blink would be the starting point of a good book on how we might become better decision makers and learn to control the impulses that lead us unintentionally in to the wrong thinking that expresses unconscious preferences to race or gender, but without anything to say on the matter, Blink is nothing more than a collection of interesting stores about thinking. If you are at all interesting in the things that Gladwell writes about in Blink you could so much better than to read Blink.<br />

The little quirks of human life - have you ever really stopped to think about them?

Not much to review here, because there is so much information contained in this book that it really has to speak for itself. Suffice to say, it is just what I like best - a fascinating look at the quirky side of human psychology. Wiseman has compiled a huge amount of research on the funny little aspects of human life that we might not otherwise think twice about, weaving them together in a very accessible and humorous way that compliments the subject matter.<br /><br />Do you want to find out why there are so many fishermen named Fisher, or so many people called Louis in St. Louis? The funniest joke in the world, and how you can be led to remember events that never happened? Why Friday 13th is really unlucky, and which religion produces the best Good Samaritans? How much life has really sped up over recent years, and how to tell whether someone is lying? If the answer is yes, read this book!

better than the what the negative peopel think

The negative reviews on this book are most likely written by loners who have few friends or are only interested in themselves. The book has suggestions for ways in which to talk to people and make friends, it is in no way asking you to change your life style and become a robot. if you are a self-important, bad listener who talks on regardless of what their so called"listener" is doing then fine, don't get this book. however, if you wish to receive more friends then buy this book! iv been promoted twice after reading this book and have made a number of new friends rich and poor.

Not suitable for grown-ups

According to quotes on both the front and back covers, Christopher Hitchins thinks that this book is"for the independent-minded". He might, however, have added:"who rejoice in seemingly profound trivia."<br /><br />I've noticed that a number of reviews on Amazon equate"easy to read" with"good writing". And if the equation were accurate then this book would certainly be a useful piece of evidence for the proposition. In reality, however, the author has used her undoubted writing skills to produce a book that amounts to little more than a collection of trivial information strung brought together under the intellectually super-light weight heading:"I don't like positive thinking".<br /><br />Chapter 1,"Smile or Die: The Bright Side of Cancer" - on positive thinking and breast cancer - is mildly moving, but the author injects far too little of herself into the text for it to really grip the reader. <br /><br />And Chapter 5,"God Wants You to Be Rich" is a mind boggling collection of anecdotes about what some people will do to make money out of other people's credulity.<br /><br />But Chapter 6,"Positive Psycholgy: The Science of Happiness" - really only tells two stories:<br /><br />(a) Academic psychologists will swallow almost anything - as long as it comes from one of their own, and<br />(b) Professor Martin Seligman has recently announced: 'I decided my theory of positive psychology is completely wrong. Why? Because it's about happiness, which is"scientifically unwieldy." ' This second point is all the more daft given that psychology itself is at best a"soft" science<br /><br />The ultimate measure of the book's worth, however, can be found in Chapter 7:"How Positive Thinking Destroyed the Economy". Which utterly trivializes the topic under discussion.<br />Whilst offering a few hints along the way, the author manages to ignore a number of basic facts in order to justify her own hypothesis that positive thinking alone was to blame for the great financial crash.<br /><br />There is almost no discussion of the underlying fraud, nor of how this demonstrated the ability of international financial institutions' to effectively print huge sums of money for which they had no support, nor any investigation of WHO made mega bucks out of the whole business and then did an exit speedier than thr Road Runner chased by Wiley Coyote.<br /><br />So, bottom line, this may be a great book for anyone feeling grouchy. You'll find lots of trivia here to convince you how bad things"really" are.<br /><br />But food for thought? Only if your brand of"independent-mindedness" involves daring to believe that a London bus has been discovered on the moon.<br /><br />A sad waste of trees.<br />

I really tried to like this book

The book has useful techniques and affirmations to help everyone direct their self-talk so that it is positive and supporting of their goals. And all is well with the techniques and they work, I am much more aware of my inner voice now that before I read the book.<br /><br />However, I object to the ideas that if someone has an illness this is linked to their pent-up feelings, unwillingnes to listen or let go. Not ture! Illnesses happen to all of us and there are other reasons for this. To claim that, for example, deafness is a result of unwillingness to hear is shocking! I also disagree with the standard manipulation techniques in the book, along the lines of one reading the book because one has reached the right stage in their life and is ready for it!

Is it rational to buy this book based on this review?

Or when combined with any of the others for this book? What can you tell from what is 'helpful', what a 4 or 5 star rating might tell you and what value is ascribed to the reviews. (How rational is it I review this anyway)<br /><br />That's the thinking this book is dealing with and lumme! it deals with it all right. Some people have said this is 'too' detailed but I think the detail is required because each subject is presented with theories, examples, and conclusions, something some popular science books forget these days. You are left with the feeling that the topic has been explained fully and completely which points to good jounalistic and scientific practice from the author.<br /><br />The book presents the story of rationality from initial discussions of what is rational anyway and then each chapter takes us in to a new area where either rationality can be shown to be markedly absent much of the time or explores one of the causes of irrationality.<br /><br />I did find that book started off with a positive and enthusiastic attitude but towards the end I almost felt as if the author was getting exasperated with the human race. It's unkind but there were a few places where the tone slipped from one of amused observation and turned to annoyance that people behave in such ways. Sometimes it's difficult for people to beleive humans will act against human nature when provided with logical reasoning. I get annoyed by that myself but it's an annoying trait and should be kept out of any study of this kind.<br /><br />I dived in to this and loved the first half of the book and then had serious trouble to continue as I felt the author talking down to me. If you can get over that hurdle then this is a lively, funny in parts, and accurate study of one of the most baffling parts of human psychology.