Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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75 of 83 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Morally bankrupt, 9 Dec 2008
Life, points out Macbeth, is a tale told by an idiot. The same, of course, is true of books written by Oliver James. Britain's most self-publicising pretend psychologist (does the British Psychological Society recognise his 'expertise'? Does it heck!) has been writing drivel for years, garbage purporting to be scientific but mainly the product of his distinctly peculiar mind.
The difference between this and some of his other books is that the central idea (money can't buy you happiness) is actually quite an accurate one which has been well researched by real psychologists. Granted, it's not original and even his title is stolen from another book, but he has the germ of an idea here - even if it's someone else's.
However, he is so hopeless with his arguments that he leaves you less convinced of even the most self-evident aspects than you were before you started reading. So Nigerians spend less time on the couch than New Yorkers? No kidding! They're probably busy wondering where their next meal is coming from. The World Health Organisation, which provides some of the data he mangles so incompetently, stress that the data should not be used to make like-for-like comparisons of states of mental health across countries. That doesn't stop Mr James, though.
A lousy book by a terrible author. Perhaps he should give some of his money away? He might feel better.
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66 of 73 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Facile, patronising drivel., 29 Aug 2008
What a ghastly book this is. For the best part of five hundred pages, the author presents a paper-thin thesis supported by conjecture, selective reading of evidence and, if all else fails, mind reading. He does so in a dreadful matey style, and the whole is shot through with sexism, snobbery and unthinking anti-Americanism, topped with a hefty dollop of cultural cringe. Whether it's showing us the jolly, happy Nigerian taxi driver who just loves life despite being beaten up and ripped off, or the stunningly gorgeous Russian girls with their tiny bodies and huge boobs who adore to wear short skirts and tight tops for their own fulfilment rather than to attract men like Western slappers do, or the miffed ex-employee whose account of his former employers' ways somehow finds its place among so-called evidence of the misery of the affluent, the whole thing is so astonishingly bad it's hard to believe it's not an extended parody of the worst kind of intellectually bankrupt handwringing Sunday-supplement trash fluff.
Do you, gentle reader, know what 'utilities' are? Mr James assumes you don't, and kindly gives you a definition. Do you slavishly follow fashion and do the bidding of advertisers? Mr James thinks you probably do. Will you burst with frustration if your car is not new and shiny? Is your life one big lurch between your des-res house, your sparkly motor, Starbucks (witches! devils! burn them!) and your high-pressured, seventy-hours-a-week job as a corporate drone, with nary a thought for your inner soul until you divorce, burn out and get made redundant at thirty-five then spend ten years wondering where the real you went? What? No? What's that you say - you're a complicated human being, not a stereotype? Fret not: it's unlikely you'll ever be interviewed by Mr James.
It's dreadful stuff, it really is. Avoid it. If you want to learn anything about the human condition rather than be hectored by a strange man with a dull agenda and some bizarre notions about how people live, read a good novel instead. Actually, read any novel - you're likely to get more enlightenment from the most trite story than you are from Oliver James's myopic ramblings.
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201 of 225 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
A book to be sneezed at, 13 Feb 2007
In the first chapter it becomes clear that the author set out with an answer, and didn't need to ask the questions. For me he lost credibility by using a conversation with a Nigerian driving a Taxi in New York to 'demonstrate' that Nigeria is a happier place than NY. So what was 'Chet' doing in Big Apple? Having been to Nigeria I know the answer. The author asked 'Chet', this very nice,decent man, if he had ever cheated on his wife. Did he really expect a truthful answer?
I found the writing lightweight, and the 'research' banal. Sorry, but I prefer Fromm undiluted.
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