Which books are you reading for your personal growth?

How to Lose Friends & Alienate People is Young's humorous account of his failures as a British journalist who travels to America. His goal: to relive the early-20th-century fantasy of crusading American journalists such as those featured in the films The Front Page and It Happened One Night.

But living out his fantasy isn't as easy as he thought. Young, an Oxford and Cambridge grad, is bowled over by the ritzy lifestyles of New Yorkers. Instead of working on his reporting and writing, he pays more attention to networking and getting past the "clipboard Nazis" of VIP parties.

It all starts when Graydon Carter, editor in chief of Condé Nast's Vanity Fair, offers him a job. Young leaves London to become someone important but discovers that his self-indulgent goals are no match for the elitism of the publishing empire's "Condé Nasties."

Young mortifies anyone he tries to impress, offending them with his uncouth assertiveness, such as the time he tries to "out" a celebrity during an interview for Vanity Fair. "Toby's a piece of gum that stuck to my shoe five years ago and that I still can't get off. ... I basically forgot to fire Toby Young every day for two years," Carter says in the book. Inevitably, Young gets fired from several prestigious publications.

And Young soon learns that journalists aren't as heroic as the '30s movies made them out to be. As one publicist tells him, "I have no respect for writers. They never make money. They're like poor people looking in the windows."

Young goes on to embarrass celebrities, crash an Oscar party and strike out in every attempt to find romance. His failure to blend in with Manhattan's unique panache and success-driven mentality brings a heaping dose of humor to this memoir. He vividly captures others' annoying viewpoints of him and offers firsthand accounts of his relationships with celebrities such as Hugh Grant, Sylvester Stallone and Anne Heche. Those encounters give the memoir a gossipy appeal.

But what works for this book also hurts it. Name-dropping of celebrities is interesting, but the book becomes a bit bogged down with names of publicity people unknown to most readers. Throughout it all, though, Young deftly describes what it is like for a typical nobody to try to live in a celebrity culture.

Although his failures echo through every page, Young's determination and persistence are possibly the only traits that lead him to overcome defeat and find himself as a writer. And, after all, he did get a successful book out if it.

Interesting!


Well, its always encouraging to learn about people who fought their way to becoming successful writers, as I have taken the same road.

I decided years ago that I was beyond help and thus ignore the self-help books.

What never ceases to amaze me is that people actually read these books and that they even become best-sellers. I'm with Gus. If I'm too dim-witted to figure out on my own how to adjust my behavior, ain't no book gonna help me. I shall remain resolutely dim-witted, just lining the pockets of the con men who write and publish this stuff.

There was one book I read a few years back that helped me out a little.

It was entitled "Find the Capybara Within", by Jean Blanc Remaires.

A fascinating tutorial on releasing the wild beast that resides within us all.

Not actually book, but Peter Gabriel's Still Growing Up - Live and Unwrapped gave me really a kick recently.

Gus, my favorite was "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in the Womb."

I once had a "jean blanc" (white jean's) but it never wrote books...

"365 Ways To Serve Bacon."

I've grown considerably since coming across this fine book.

But ink is seen on that better than on Jean Bleu!

Do you know that for a fact, Francis? I mean, what was it doing when you were wearing something else and away from your home? These jeans blanc are sneaky, you know, and have a life of their own. So do jeans bleu, come to think of it.

MA- Unless it had some pseudonym..

Thinking about that, maybe it was inspired when the "Jean see berg".. and dont make a mountain of that...

Not really a self help book, more of a parenting/sociology type thing called "Harmful To Minors: The Perils of Protecting Your Chldren From Sex".

Fascinating stuff.

The cover blurb says "... convincingly arguing that socially conservative beliefs and policies are largely to blame for the problems they purport to address."

That about sums it up.

<groan>

ok, how about 7 Habits of Highly Effective People?
Anyone read it?

I got about three quarters of the way through it and lost interest...

The magic of Thinking Big is intersting though...

Read Martin Seligman's book if you have time. His books are actually scientifically proven to work, not just stand alone best sellers.

There'll be a motto for every pot.