I’ll go with the low-hanging fruit: Mein Kampf. I’ve read it, cover to cover. As a piece of propaganda, it’s good. As an example of good writing? Absolutely not (though I will admit I have only read it in translation). Oh, and the whole fascist, racist, and generally shitty worldview of the author that he infuses into the text. And the fact that the author is literally Hitler. You 5-star that book? You’re a Nazi. Period. And as a Jewish person, I don’t look too kindly on them.
The Celestine Prophecy - far-fetched new-age nonsense.
I worked in a bookstore during the peak of Celestine hype. So many customers who wanted me to believe in it as hard as they did, and I only wanted to complete the transaction.
Yes! I worked at a bookstore at the time and had so many people say it changed their lives. I was like, “how?”
Ooof. Saaaame. Just buy your stupid book that I am definitely judging you for and go. No I don’t want to hear about it.
Same here. I read the first three pages standing at the cashwrap one afternoon and was blown away not only by the nonsense of the first few pages but by how just badly it was written.
Ha! I worked in a bookstore at this book’s peak, too, with the exact same experience! Amongst the booksellers, though, it was known as The Philistine Philosophy.
You don’t say? Thankfully I didn’t think much of it after reading it.
Funny, I enjoyed this read, and I am a pretty hardcore atheist/realist. I didn’t even realize it had a following, it fell into my hands off a free bookshelf somewhere. Do people think it’s a real story, or deeper than just laying out some relationship patterns you’ll run into in life?
People are always hoping that they will find something that makes sense out of all the chaos, and self-delusion is really the only game in town when it comes to that.
Ohhh, were good at that one!!!
I remember a conversation with one guy who was raving about how exciting the book was, saying something like “didn’t you find all those coincidences amazing?”, which suggested to me he thought it was real. I don know what he thought of the guy learning to levitate at the end though.
Same. My mom read it and said it was pretty good and I read it as well. I don’t remember much from it but it wasnt bad. I can’t imagine what would be in it that was life changing or religious or culty.
I still occasionally meet people and think “this person is such a poor me.”
I don’t remember the other types though. That one stuck.
I’d describe it as a new-age self help manual badly concealed in a wish.com thriller. Hated every page.
Lol, the book is referenced in an Italian indie movie, “Santa Maradona”: the costumer of a bookstore asks to a character (who is NOT part of the bookstore staff) where she can find a book with a mix’n’match title between this one and Stefano Benni’s “The Company of the Celestines”. He gently answer that she may have confounded the two books: Benni’s book is slip-mainstream “and we don’t sell mainstream-ish books which appeal the masses”, while this one “is a nutty new age book full of poppycockeries and we don’t sell this kind of trash”. Then, with passive-aggressive kindness, he invites the costumer to go away. (She is then approacjed by an actual bookstore staff memeber and insults him).
Same with the secret and the four agreements
Oh man. I got into a fight my sophomore year in HS. My mom made me tell my band director about it (he was kind of a mentor). He told me I would not be allowed to march with the band until I did a few things; one of which was read this book. My mom, who was big into the new age movement, fully supported the idea. I read the thing. It was a story, and not a very good one. I was waiting for the “ah hah!” moment to come that I was promised. It never happened. The story ended and I was like, “why the fuck was I supposed to read that?” So I told the band director that I had finished it. We went to his office to discuss it, and it quickly became evident that he understood it to be a work of non-fiction, which had never occurred to me. I told him that I was having trouble understanding if the author was trying to convince me that a god exists, or if it was some other cosmic force that worked outside the laws of physics. I especially didnt understand the putting the two finger tips together to reveal a little “sausage” and how that was supposed to be proof of anything. The disappointment in his face was evident. I chalked it up to him thinking I wasnt mentally developed enough to get it. He allowed me to march and we never spoke of it again.
The sausage thing like the optical illusion you can teach a kid the same day you show them how looking through a paper towel tube puts a hole in their hand?
That seems…super sketchy and kind of coercive. You were a school student who was told that they weren’t allowed to play in the school band until you’d read the spiritualist gumph that your teacher believes in and wants to convert you to?
That’s a hard “yikes”.
No offense but thinking it is coercive for a teacher/coach to make a kid read a book is kinda naive and spoiled sounding
Let say football coach ban anyone from joining the team if they don’t read Quran and practice 30 minute text dicussion.
It wasn’t an educational text, it was conspirituality woo woo nonsense that the coach apparently took seriously. Weirdo shit
Admittedly I enjoyed reading this book many years ago.
To be fair, I was only eleven or twelve at the time.
I got about a third of the way through this book before throwing it out of a train window in India.
I asked a friend who was reading if I could have it next, having bought into the hype and she tried to discourage me, saying it wasn’t that good and would it annoy me.
She wasn’t wrong.
Written like an 8 year old trying to string a story together about some hippy nonsense found in a fortune cookie.
I agree with you, but I did get something from it. Their description of how people need to get energy in different ways resonated with me. The actual idea of energy transfer is bogus, but there are people who seek to create negative experiences and others who seek to provide positive reinforcement. Learning to spot them can improve your interactions with them.
This book sucks!
Jesus christ! Thanks for bringing back bad memories of me in h.s. or college ditching my friends, job, my LOVER, and chik FIL et to read this ridiculous and stupid beyond all compression fairy tale that would have -6% on rotten tomatoes. I could have lived another 50 years without this reminder. I’d blocked it ya know. Have an FN day!
Haha, sorry! Maybe it’s best to be reminded so we don’t repeat the mistakes of the past!
Yes. We have to warn ppl. I can’t believe it’s still in print! Oh m gee !
And very boring and badly written. Codswallop!
Content aside, that guy sold 100k copies out of the trunk of his car before he found a traditional publisher for it. I’ve got to respect that hustle.