I have a conflicting relationship with "How to Win Friends and Influence People," and maybe some of you may relate to this.

Disclaimer: I only read a small, initial part of the book, and I'll explain the reasons behind this.

For one, I liked the initial parts of it; for example, remembering first names is a nice and very attentive thing to do, and in general people appreciate it when I can remember their first name after meeting them a second and third time.

On the other side, I found it to be of a very manipulative nature (shouldn't be a surprise; the title contains an "influence people" part), which rubbed me the wrong way; the book presents some techniques that help you get "what you want," but are quite superficial and hollow, i.e., you only pretend to be interested. That's why I decided to stop reading the book.

The conflicting part in all this is the fact that I see this book recommended all the time (and it's one of the best-selling books of all-time), but I just cannot ignore its manipulative nature.

It might be that I'm simply not part of its target audience or that I'm misinterpreting the messages in the book.

Nonetheless, I'd be interested to read your (and other fellow HNers) comments on this book.

It's probably been 32 years since I read How to Win Friends, but my take on it was that it is like many things we learn throughout life - first we model, they we practice, finally we make it part of our nature, and eventually we achieve mastery.

I didn't come away with the impression that the techniques are intended to be used in a hollow, phony way, so much as to show the reader a set of steps to get started toward genuinely showing interest in other people.

Not everyone can jump right in to Siddhartha or Zen and the Art or some of these heavier books that might take people out of their default self-absorption towards greater awareness of other people and their needs, but Carnegie wrote something that is easy to access and get people started down a path.

> i.e., you only pretend to be interested.

No. The book requires you to take a "genuine interest in people" and must repeat that seven dozen times. It also dismisses flattery and smoke-blowing and favors legitimate praise. I think sincerity is one of the key takeaways (and also the hardest parts to master) of that great book.

I think the book is very polarizing. You either read it as “compassionate” or as “manipulative”.

For me, I’ve often been teased for missing certain “obvious” gestures my whole life. But I’m not bad with people.

Since I’m naturally an optimist and compassionate, I read it as the former category. It was helpful for me to help identify what behaviors I already do that I should reinforce to help strengthen my relationships with other people.

I find a lot of self-help books are (sort of) “common sense” already, but that by reinforcing certain “nodes” in my brain’s “knowledge graph” I’m better able to reason about the knowledge later.

Put another way, if I’m interested enough to read a book about making friends, by reviewing information about “successful patterns” to makes friends I’m better able to reason about _how I can make friends_. It isn’t manipulative to start a conversation in a coffee shop with somebody! (Unless I’m “manipulating” somebody by asking for their contact info..?)

I agree with what you said. The book encourages all kinds of shortcuts (not explicitly though), and later on I found other books to be much better on the same topics.

However, it is very very easy to read and follow. And if you are not a social person, the book is a good first read.

Years ago I read an interview with Marlon Brando in Playboy. He remarked that How to Win Friends and Influence People was "a book on hustling."

In China, the book is very popular and is sold under the title "The Weaknesses of Human Nature."

Two things -

1. Seven habits - I can't get past Covey's personal 'experiences'. They are just seemingly so contrived and fake that they just ruin the entire thought process for me. It seems like he had to make up things that related to the covenants. Is that just me?

2. For writing - I would also suggest 'On Writing' by Stephen King for this as a different take. It's probably the best 'how to write' book ever made. It's King's personal take on the theory of writing, with lessons sprinkled throughout. So good.

> 1. Seven habits - I can't get past Covey's personal 'experiences'. They are just seemingly so contrived and fake that they just ruin the entire thought process for me. It seems like he had to make up things that related to the covenants. Is that just me?

Lots of self-help and pop-business books do this and above other factors like all the padding (so very much of it), it's ruined the genre for me. Hate that crap. Makes me think their advice is bullshit.

I made it a ways into Never Split the Difference and got a little useful material out of it, but bounced off when I reached a can't-possibly-be-real story about the author buying a car and getting a great price by (he claims) just repeatedly asking "how can I do that?" (or similar) when presented with a price above what he'd offered. Give me a break. "Well, you're in luck, our rates on 5-year loans are great right now, let me introduce you to our finance guy", the salesman, implausibly, never says, instead just acting confused and stupid the whole time and eventually giving in. Dafuq? Either the author actually got had and didn't realize it, or that story was at best a half-truth.

My issue with King is that to me at least, he’s a terrible writer. Prolific doesn’t mean quality. I’m suspect what someone can get out of a book about writing from someone who writes poorly.

Read the book. I was in the same camp as you. Most of his writing is just hack nonsense. But, some is well written (The Stand, Misery, Shawshank, The Green Mile, Cujo, for example). He's just inconsistent.

Seriously, read the On Writing book. It really set his theory up for me to understand exactly why he's inconsistent. You can read his books and tell when he's thinking and processing, versus when he's writing to pay for a car or house or whatever.

"Thinking, Fast and Slow" was pretty underwhelming to me given the hype. There's much better stuff out there if you're interested in cognitive biases, behavior, etc.

Can you enumerate the better stuff if possible?

Sure. Stuff like Taleb's "Fooled by Randomness" or Caldini's "Influence: the Psychology of Persuasion" stand out as much better off the top of my head. There's more, but I'd have to go back to my notes.

Please do, those are both excellent choices.

Amusingly, the introduction to "Seven Habits" starts off arguing against a hollow "personality ethic" approach pushed by other self-help books. I could be misinterpreting, but I believe that this is Covey insulting "How to Win Friends."

I found both books full of obvious things, but also found that reading and reflecting on obvious things can still go a long way for self-improvement. Personally, I didn't like "7 Habits" though because Covey is always saying his methods/truths are "self-evident" and he uses the "this is true because it would be dumb to think otherwise" line of reasoning at the points in the book when I thought his argument was weakest.

Thinking, Fast and Slow is good if you like pop-sci, but has aged like milk if you are into the science.

I respect Kahneman for walking back some of his claims since but he needs to publish a revision.

Agreed. I ate that book up for the first half, and when I came across the concept of "priming" I was obsessed. I looked it up only to find it had been largely debunked. Immediately lost interest. There are some great concepts in there, but it's not worth my time to tease out what is and is not legitimate.

I'd also want him to publish a revision, I've enjoyed listening to Kahneman on podcasts and have nothing against him as an author

On "Thinking Fast and Slow", you may want to read criticisms of the book. For example, "Reconstruction of a Train Wreck: How Priming Research Went off the Rails", https://replicationindex.com/2017/02/02/reconstruction-of-a-...

"Thinking, Fast and Slow" is a book I buy for every person for their first birthday after I met them. It is the book that has had the most profound impact on me thus far.

Is there some mind bending revelation in the second half? I read the first half and have not mustered the will to read the rest of it. It just seems so... "obvious" for lack of a better word. Maybe I've had too much psychology lectures or something, but nothing in the first half was remotely new to me.

I read part of it as well, and it came across as one of those books that is basically a fairly simple premise that can be summarized in one paragraph, padded out to fill a book.

I mean "how to win friends" is similar, it can be summarized with just the 12 chapters, and it's padded out with anecdotes putting it in practice.

I'm sure Seven Habits is the same, I have it on my bookshelf (mandatory reading from my previous employer) and I think I started reading it but I lost interest.

I'm with you. I tried to get into that book - but felt it was a lot of verbiage and new phrases to describe things that already had terms. I gave up about a 1/3 the way through.