Subscribe to Read | $0.00
Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!
Quick and Easy Sign Up!
It takes less then 1 minute to sign up, then you can enjoy Unlimited eBooks.
Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!
Quick and Easy Sign Up!
It takes less then 1 minute to sign up, then you can enjoy Unlimited eBooks.
Read Anywhere and on Any Device!
Rate this book!
Write a review?
I mostly read this book because it was so hilarious. It's full of making fun of the self-help industry, while also give some self-helpy tips on the way, just in case you we're interested. I guess it's audience is really we who happens to read a lot of self-help, but are really sceptical at the same time... For that purpose it was great! A light, fun read. For a more deeper and philosophical touch on life and how to make the most of it, I really recommend Burkemans other book, Four Thousand Weeks...
It's time to admit that I don't want to keep reading this book any longer. DNF @44%. It has its merits but it's just repeating the same things over and over again (particularly "Just chill out and don't expect results immediately in any endeavor, don't believe those "[Do thing] in 4 hours!!!" self help books") and I don't care for that. Left unrated because, again, it has its merits so I don't want to lower its rating because it may genuinely help someone, but I (obviously) didn't enjoy it all t...
Self help analysis from an era where you could still joke about Jimmy Savile and his one pair of underpants. Burkeman has read and sifted through all the junk so that we don’t have to and often presents conclusions that are counterintuitive or disappointingly simple. A witty compilation of his newspaper columns, this book covers topics he has since expanded on in his more recent work, such as time management and the limitations of positive thinking.
A collection of Guardian’s self help columns on a variety of topics ranging from e-mail management to friendships. This was an ok read, I’d recommend reading a few chapters on topics that interest you the most, but not necessarily the whole book.Something about Oliver Burkeman’s writing just doesn’t work for me. The sarcastic approach to humans’ quest for self improvement definitely made me laugh out loud a few times, but gave the whole book a bit of a negative undertone. It was a bit like talki...
Restored my sanity after one too many self-help books. I am now in recovery... Oliver Burkeman also has a very entertaining column in the Saturday Guardian. 'This Column Will Change Your Life!'
I did not like the book first of all because I did not find anything new in it. Secondly, because it criticized so many books I just loved. And most of all Wayne Dyer! I loved his work! I felt that the writer is so skeptical about everything that had to do with positive psychology. For me it was a book that did not make me happier or gave me any new tips on productivity.
Lessons:Accepting a situation means acknowledging the reality of what's here, including any negative feelings. It does not mean resignation.The real benefit isn't eradicating something, but becoming more conscious of what you let in.Recognise bad moods generally arise from HALT (Hungry, angry, lonely, tired)Different levels of need for connectedness lead to different level sof loneliness.Just paying attention is enough, no need to analyse if the action was 'right'.Ideas currently in the world ar...
This is a brilliant overview of the utter bile to the useful theories of self-help books. Burkeman looks through a diverse range of current hyped-up self-help books and gives a clear-cut, personal and humorous review of what is and is not evidence-based techniques to improve your life.It doesn't claim to make your problems go away overnight, but that is exactly why it is so refreshing. I would recommend it to anyone who isn't still stuck in the positive thinking bile.
Lots of references to other material that I have read which I found very interesting to begin with. After a while though I realised the book itself contained far too many references to an abundance of different material in the self help field but with very few insights from the author. This left me with the feeling that there was nothing new to be gained.
Whilst often very funny, this is not as good as Burkeman's other book The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking due to its format - it reproduces his brief Guardian columns, meaning that each section is brief and tends to finish just as it gets interesting. Also, whilst he points out why positive thinking or self-help can actually make things worse using evidenced-based research, he doesn't always suggest evidence-based alternatives that *do* work and this too is bette...
I’m not much of a fan of the self-help genre and I believe that most self-help books do little for their readers other than inducing a greater sense of self-loathing and diminished self-worth when those readers fail to convert themselves into better people overnight. How many copies of ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ are sitting on the shelves of friendless and uninfluential people who can’t quite remember how they ever thought something they paid a few quid for was going to change the...
This is a delight: the anti-self-help book we all needed! Oliver Burkeman critiques practically every self-help manual known to man. Funny, smart and insightful, I loved every page. Be sure to buy a couple of copies so you have one to pass round to your friends. Oh, and best to read it when you’re on your own or you’ll find yourself doing that awkward thing where you keep interrupting your companions with impromptu readings each time you find something so good it must be shared!
The thing about self help type books, like writing advice books and management books, is they tend to have basically one genuinely useful nugget of advice and the rest of the £7.99 book is there as scaffolding for it. This book is all the nuggets of advice, no scaffolding. As such it's actually crammed with really useful thoughts, and extensively annotated so you can do some further reading for the points where you want depth. (Which you will not get here--it's an overview.) It's very funny at p...
