Saturday, January 8, 2011

Paperback 379: How To Win Friends and Influence People / Dale Carnegie (PB 68)

Paperback 378: Pocket Books 68 (26th ptg, 1944)

Title: How to Win Friends and Influence People
Author: Dale Carnegie
Cover artist: photo

Yours for: $6

PB68.HowToWin

Best things about this cover:
  • LOVE the individualized book count number up top (in red). You can see that my copy (beat to hell) is the 26th printing–first printing was just three years earlier.
  • This guy looks like a tool. A smug tool. Also, how are his glasses staying on his face?

PB68bc.HowToWin

Best things about this back cover:
  • Sorry about the (considerable) soilage.
  • This book apparently succeeded by preying on people's (massive) insecurities. There should be some caveat somewhere indicating exceptions for people who are just plain assholes. No amount of book is gonna get that out.
  • I love how unrepentantly practical this book is—as if success were simply a recipe.
Also, time, or perhaps a small rodent, has eaten away the corners of the book, giving them a jagged yet neatly rounded appearance.

Page 123~

While we have been waiting for you, Mr. Eastman, I have been admiring your office. I wouldn't mind working myself if I had a room like this to work in. You know I am in the interior-woodworking business myself, and I never saw a more beautiful office in all my life.

This is evidently from the section on Advanced Ass-Kissing.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Perhaps "pince-nez" is the solution to the glasses situation.

"Three ways" ... "six ways" ... "12 ways" ... "12 things". Is there a magic number involved in this recipe?

borky said...

Aha, the REAL secret behind 'Dull' Carnegie's famous method's finally revealed: look like Heinrich Himmler wearing a wig and everyone'll be too frightened not to be your friend or be uninfluenced by you!

pious agnostic said...

When I was a young, lonely, self-centered asshole, my older sister's husband managed to slip me this book in a way that didn't offend. Clearly, he'd read the book cover-to-cover.

It wasn't all scam advice and suck-up.

Now I'm a self-centered asshole with lots of friends (on the Internet).

Michael5000 said...

4. What are the five ways of shifting the blame for your failures to others? See pages 244-267.

5. What are the eight ways of getting a dame out of her skirt? See pages 268-287.

6. What are the ten ways of forcing people to obey your will, even when it goes against their own self interest? See pages 288-307.

7. What are the six ways of disposing of a body? See pages 308-337.