Books about Bullshit from Amazon.com

One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern. We have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves. And we lack a conscientiously developed appreciation of what it means to us. In other words, as Harry Frankfurt writes, "we have no theory."

Frankfurt, one of the world's most influential moral philosophers, attempts to build such a theory here. With his characteristic combination of philosophical acuity, psychological insight, and wry humor, Frankfurt proceeds by exploring how bullshit and the related concept of humbug are distinct from lying. He argues that bullshitters misrepresent themselves to their audience not as liars do, that is, by deliberately making false claims about what is true. In fact, bullshit need not be untrue at all.

Rather, bullshitters seek to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true. They quietly change the rules governing their end of the conversation so that claims about truth and falsity are irrelevant. Frankfurt concludes that although bullshit can take many innocent forms, excessive indulgence in it can eventually undermine the practitioner's capacity to tell the truth in a way that lying does not. Liars at least acknowledge that it matters what is true. By virtue of this, Frankfurt writes, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.

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Don't Count Time, Make Time Count!

Tick ... tick ... tick ... can't find enough time? Find out how to use it far more wisely by the man who successfully run multiple business ventures simultaneously. Dan Kennedy has been called the "Professor of Harsh Reality" because he doesn't deal in glib, pabulum solutions and eye-rolling cliches you've heard incessantly on time management.

He takes on the world of cell phones, PDAs, faxes, e-mails, and every other communication device that pervade our lives, suggesting when to tap it, and when to give it the heave-ho. This entrepreneur/consultant/author/speaker has a whirlwind business life, yet manages to fit everything in using a handful of home-brewed time management tools he swears by.

He shows how to maximize your time with a fresh take on the mantra that "time is money." It's all about using disciplined productivity strategies Kennedy has devised over 30 years of managing highly-profitable businesses with only minimal help.

Who is Dan Kennedy?

His business adventures have included ownership of six businesses. He appeared for nine consecutive years on THE #1 seminar tour in America sharing the platform with former U.S. President Reagan, Ford, and Bush, General Colin Powell, and business leaders such as Debbi Fields and Jim McCann. He was been in trenches and survived.

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Sales Advice Not Swiped From Other Books!

This book is about getting rich by becoming far better at the selling process that your competitors What it is NOT is the kind of warmed-over, cliché-ridden advice you find replicated in a jillion other books on selling. Dan Kennedy would never have it that way.

He offers a set of No B.S. strategies for overcoming obstacles to success, many of them self-imposed. Provocative, sarcastic, and irreverent, the book reads like the seminars Kennedy conducts around the world - events that cause a stampede to the back of the hall for his materials after he finishes his presentation.

Learn:

• Dan's 13 Eternal Truths About Selling
• The Surprising reasons you should "position" instead of prospect for sales
• How to structure a sale in six simple steps
• The secrets to becoming a true master at the art of persuasion

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"A stunningly beautiful new memoir…a near-perfect work of literature "—Stephen Elliot, San Francisco Chronicle

"Sometimes I'd see my father, walking past my building on his way to another nowhere. I could have given him a key, offered a piece of my floor. But if I let him inside the line between us would blur, my own slow-motion car wreck would speed up."

Nick Flynn met his father for the third time when he was twenty-seven years old, working as a caseworker in a homeless shelter in Boston. As a teenager he'd received letters from this stranger, a self-proclaimed poet and con man doing time in federal prison for bank robbery. Nick, his own life precariously unsettled, was living alternately in a ramshackle boat and in a warehouse that was once a strip joint. In bold, dazzling prose, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City (a phrase Flynn senior uses to describe his life on the streets) tells the story of two lives and the trajectory that led Nick and his father into that homeless shelter, onto those streets, and finally to each other. With a new postscript for the paperback edition..
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This caustically funny Webster’s of the workplace cuts to the true meaning of the inane argot spouted in cubicles and conference rooms across the land.

At a price even an intern can afford and in a handy paperback format that won’t weigh down your messenger bag or briefcase, The Dictionary of Corporate Bullshit is a hilarious guide to the smoke-screen terms and passive-aggressive phrases we traffic in every day. Each entry begins with a straight definition followed by a series of alternative meanings that are, of course, what is really meant.

Take, for example, the widely used, seemingly innocuous term brainstorming:

1. to generate ideas as a group in an accepting environment and in a free-form manner
2. a supposedly relaxed forum in which no idea is a bad idea – that is, until you generate a bad idea and are met with uncomfortable silence/looks that suggest you are retarded or really uncool/the feeling that you are about to be fired

Beyond deciphering corporate commonplaces, you’ll learn the PC term for secret Santa (Holiday Harry); why the Blackberry is “most commonly referred to as a ‘Crackberry’ due to its highly addictive nature”; and that when a co-worker says “Have a good night”, they really mean: “this meaningless, seemingly interminable exchange of small talk is now over. I am no longer speaking to you, and will now flee this awkward social situation. Don’t even think of asking which way I’m walking.”

Just remember to read this only at COB (close of business) to avoid being busted (caught idling by your boss)..
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Introducing the calendar certain to pop up in cubicles all over America. If you've ever wondered how to "harness intellectual capital," why that MQNWSMEWGABHANG (Moderately qualified, non-threatening white straight male employee who gets ahead because he's a "nice guy") was promoted ahead of you, or what your boss really meant when she said "keep me in the loop," this calendar belongs on your desktop. Based on the book The Dictionary of Corporate Bullshit, the calendar features hundreds of caustically funny definitions for the clichéd, meaningless, and euphemistic jargon and "buzzwords" that supplant actual communication in offices every day. Size: 6" w x 5.5" h..
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Gurvitz presents a corrosively funny insider's look at what being a television writer is really all about. In his personal journal, he details two years of his life--the dizzying ups and downs, the rewrites, the executives, the pitch meetings, the table readings, the studios, and the networks in a riveting expos..
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The scholarly discipline of Bullshit Studies has blossomed in the last several years, fertilized by a number of critical works on the subject and the growing importance of the issue across a wide range of professions. Now, best-selling author and lifelong practitioner Stanley Bing enters the field with a comprehensive look at the many attractive jobs now available to those who are serious about their bullshit and prepared to dedicate their working life to it.

What, Bing inquires, do a feng shui consultant, new media executive, wine steward, department store greeter, and Vice President of the United States have in common? What, too, are the actual duties performed by a McKinsey consultant? Other than sitting around making people nervous? Could that possibly be his core function? Likewise, what does an aromatherapist actually do, per se? Sniff things and rub them on people, for big fragrant bucks? Is that all?

The answer in all cases is "Yes." They all have bullshit jobs.

These few, of course, are just the beginning. Across the length and breadth of this shrinking globe, skillful bullshit artists have secured pleasant, lucrative employment, and are enjoying themselves more than you are. In virtually every occupation, from Advertising to Yoga Franchising, lucky individuals who "work" in these coveted positions enjoy the best lives imaginable -- they are paid well, they rarely break a sweat, and their professions are highly respected, because nobody really knows what they do.

At once funny, useful, and tolerably philosophical, this groundbreaking work takes a close look at 100 bullshit jobs -- the money they bring with them, the actual tasks and activities involved (if any), and famous and successful examples of each position, who will provide the neophyte with inspiration. Most crucially, Bing goes on to offer what others so far have not--a clear, concise strategy to help job-seekers at every level reach for that brass ring, knowing full well that it may be attached to the nose of a bull.

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