Book Reviews » Roosh V

By Roosh

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The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich

This doozy of a book, clocking in at 1,280 pages, chronicles the rise of Adolf Hitler from homeless vagabond to warlord of Germany, which he came to control for 12 years. Hitler was legally granted power by the state thanks to his political genius, his use of terror, and his masterful lies, where a million things had to fall in his favor for him to succeed. Statistically it shouldn’t have happened, but it did and the entire world had to deal with it.

“That one day he would build [Germany] and rule it he had no doubts whatsoever, for he was possessed of that burning sense of mission peculiar to so many geniuses who have sprouted, seemingly, from nowhere and from nothing throughout the ages. He would unify a chosen people who had never before been politically one. He would purify their race. He would make them strong. He would make them lords of the earth.”

He laid out his full plans in Mein Kampf, a blueprint for how the war would proceed. If Western leaders at the time read the damn thing they wouldn’t have pursued the policy of appeasement, led by the British. The later performance of the Brits during the war was admirable, mostly thanks to Churchill, but it could have been prevented had they not let Hitler take over Austria, Czechoslovakia, and the Rhineland, whetting his appetite for conquer.

While a pass should not be given to the German people, imagine a politician feeding your ego by saying you’re a member of the master race who deserves more land and wealth after your country just got whipped in a war and had to bow down to concessions you thought were humiliating. Hitler was selling the dream and the people happily bought. The bitter irony is that upon the German defeat, “subhuman” Slavic Russians came pouring into Germany to begin the biggest mass-rape in world history of the so-called master race.

The book became more interesting as the war hit, but even then it focused more on diplomatic and political developments than battle action, giving you an eagle eye view on how statecraft is done. Very little detail is given to the major battles of the war. If you like battle scenes, this book will be unsatisfying.

The reader gets a clear picture of how Hitler’s disastrous decision to invade Russia spelled the beginning of the end. Here was a man who thought he was infallible and unbeatable, walking into the Russian war machine that, after some initial defeats, came back to crush Germany (there was a lol moment when the Germans realized that Stalin had twice the number of divisions they thought he had). Even when Hitler’s officers warned him about Russia’s power or his own stupid war tactics, he dismissed them. His judgement could not be questioned.

The Nazi terror wasn’t just against the Jews. The Germans literally enslaved conquered peoples to work in factories, camps, and farms. They also had a medical testing program that, for example, wanted to see how long a man would survive after being dipped in freezing water. The chapter on what the Germans did to civilians and POWs is a sad stain on the human race. Mass executions were the norm. Only the Germans, with their famed efficiency skills, could have killed so many people in such an expedient manner.

“Nazi degradation sank to a level seldom experienced by man in all his time on earth.”

Nazi Germany was a time for crazy people to shine. In most countries the medically insane are not given state power, but in Germany they were the cream that rose to the top. Sixty million people died as a result of Hitler’s war, about 2.5% of the world’s population.

This book contains no American propaganda saying that we won the war. While we played an important role, the Russians won it for the allies in Europe. The reason Stalin got so much of Eastern Europe was because of the immense sacrifice the Russians made in the war, more so than any other country.

What I liked most about the book was that it highlighted the mistakes that leaders made which contributed to setbacks and losses for their side. The 20/20 hindsight nature of history makes it clear to see how randomly made decisions can have profound consequences that weren’t previously considered. War really is a chess game that requires you to see several moves in advance if you want to come out victorious.

This isn’t a history book for newbies because of its exhaustive attention to detail. It’s essentially a Nazi diary that often gives you hourly updates as events unfolded, almost like watching a live news feed. It took a couple hundred pages alone just to get to the war. The minutiae was tiring at times when the author gave mini biographies on tertiary characters who played the most minor of roles, but it was always just interesting enough that I wanted to continue reading. If the point of a history book is to inform and transport you back into time, then this is one of the best there is.

King Leopold’s Ghost

This is a book about how tiny Belgium came to colonize the vast Congo in the early 20th century thanks to their crafty king. Using marketing and political genius, he grabbed a land rich in rubber, ivory, and minerals, enslaving the local population to fill up ships headed back to Belgium. Researchers estimate that 10 million Congolese died. Such a large percentage of the population had perished that the Belgians had to let up on their brutal methods to prevent their extinction.

Today’s consensus view is that what the Belgians did were horrible, but if we were Europeans living a couple centuries back, would we have thought slavery was evil? In another 500 years, what behavior that we do today, without question, will be seen as evil by humans of the future? How much are we a product of our times?

Initially there was little sympathy for the plight of Africans because they used slavery themselves. It made it easier for Europeans to write them off as “savages.” The great white man got little resistance in their efforts to “civilize” them, ironically by being uncivilized savages themselves through mass murder and torture, in particular the chopping off of hands as both a punitive and accounting measure. I find it interesting how every atrocity has its own flavor. The Nazis had the gas, the Communists had the frozen gulags, and the Belgians with the cutting off of the hands.

“In the Congo, as in Russia, mass murder had a momentum of its own. Power is tempting, and in a sense no power is greater than the ability to take someone’s life. Once under way, mass killing is hard to stop; it becomes a kind of sport.”

In perhaps a low point for humanity, the Belgian king brought a couple hundred Africans and put them on display for the world fair:

“When the king was told that some of the Africans were suffering indigestion because of candy given them by the public, he ordered up the equivalent of a zoo’s don’t-feed-the-animals sign. The placard said: ‘The blacks are fed by the organizing committee.’”

This occurred less than one-hundred years ago.

Some men who visited the Congo began to spread the word of what the Belgians were doing, leading to one of the most successful humanitarian movements of the 20th century. The second half of the book describes the series of events that eventually led to Congo’s independence. This is where the shining light of America—the CIA in particular—makes its appearance to keep corrupt dictators in power that are friendly to U.S. interests, with the Congolese forever suffering.

In the end this isn’t just a history book but a story of will, how one man from an insignificant country landed a colony the size of America east of the Mississippi to become exceedingly wealthy. He used much of that wealth to construct magnificent monuments that today will impress many foreign tourists in Brussels. On their organized tours through the capital, however, they will not learn that the targets of their many photographs cost millions of African lives.

“The urge for more can become insatiable, and its apparent fulfillment seems only to exacerbate that early sense of deprivation and to stimulate the need to acquire still more.”

An American In The Gulag

Say hello the real life version of 1984. An American working in Moscow’s United States embassy after WW2 was kidnapped on the street and declared a spy. He was put through unspeakable suffering and torture until being shipped off to the gulags where it became a game of survival. The U.S. government completely sold him out and even lied to his family about the circumstances involving his capture, all to maintain smooth American-Soviet “relations.”

In this book I learned what to do in case I get imprisoned:

Keep yourself busy by creating little tasks, no matter how meaningless they may be.
Try to outwit your captors to have the feeling that you still have control over your life. Don’t give them the satisfaction. (“I often wanted to cry for relief but I knew that if they saw me crying through the peephole then they would know I was beginning to crack.”)
Review all your memories to take your mind off the suffering you’re facing.
Never lose the will to survive. Many gulag prisoners dropped dead for no apparent reason because they lost that will.

What struck me about this book was how there was a system created for the sole purpose of crushing the human spirit. And it worked. It’s hard to comprehend how so many millions of lives were destroyed because of the power that Stalin was able to attain.

I highly recommend this book, especially if you’re the type of person who is prone to complaining about stupid shit and have lost touch with reality in your comfortable iPhone existence. It was one of the more powerful books I’ve read.

“I believe it was at that time that my eyes and my mouth began to settle into a grim cast which is still my normal expression when I am not excited or laughing, and even then I am told it lingers around my eyes. My iron mask never came off, and I can see that it never will.”

Worthless

This book is meant for guys in high school and college who have not received good advice on what to major in. It tells you which majors to avoid (liberal arts, business, psychology) and which to study (STEM), assuming you want a good income without depending on your parents or the government.

It is no accident that majors involving math have the best opportunity for employment:

“It is through math you will achieve financial stability and an increased chance of life-long happiness.”

Majors with math—particularly engineering—are hard and avoided by most college students. Even college administrators are eager to push you into a useless liberal arts degree because of the lower cost for them in doing so (no laboratories or special computers needed). Lots of parents let their students major in something dumb like Communications and then wonder why their kid can’t find a job four years later.

If the main source of employment for your major is teaching, like in philosophy or women’s studies, that means your field is a ponzi scheme that requires ever more students to keep it going. Ultimately, it offers no tangible value to society. The author cites starting salary figures to support his arguments, but one only needs to read a college graduate sob article to see that just about all the unemployed have a liberal arts degree.

“Why spend $5,000 a quarter on tuition to pay some old, bitter washed-up professors who got suckered into this “profession” 20 years ago to tell you about “Women’s Studies” when you can simply pick up a book at the library and read it for free?”

The author doesn’t pull any punches, trashing majors such as education, political science, and general biology. He holds strong contempt towards the university elite for not giving the young generation skills needed to survive on their own.

“The real reason they make you take prerequisites is to generate more money for other departments, notably departments of worthless majors. Understand worthless degree programs are like zombies. They always need new bodies to enter the program, otherwise the program goes away. So to ensure there’s enough demand to keep these worthless programs going, they force all of you non-worthless degree people to take some token class in those fields.”

I knew the author was plugged into the manosphere because of his many attacks on the women’s studies major (here’s his blog). If you have any doubt that the author is one of us…

“A ‘sexual abuse center’ or ‘shelter’ is usually set up on campus, not primarily for genuine victims of sexual assault, but rather to create jobs for otherwise unemployable women’s studies majors. Worse still, in order to receive additional funding these feminists will lower the bar in terms of what constitutes ‘sexual assault’ on campus to include innocuous things like an unwanted advance from a guy, thereby making it seem like there’s an ‘epidemic’ of sexual assaults on campus.”

The author argues that today’s economic stagnation is partially caused by kids picking the wrong field of study. Those who major in liberal arts become parasites on society because they take away value through their need of massive help in the form of government programs.

“It’s nice and kind to think about society and do charitable things, but the single best thing a person can do for society is simply support themselves and enjoy life.”

I’ve been out of college for ten years but still thoroughly enjoyed this book, which gave me a renewed perspective on the Occupy protesters and the anger they have at holding a psychology degree that can only get them a job at Starbucks. The finance industry should rightfully be blamed for raping taxpayers, but who should be blamed for educating American youth in majors that can’t get them a good job?

The first thing I did after reading this short book was buy a copy for my 15-year-old brother.

The Autobiography Of Malcolm X

This book chronicles his life from birth until his assassination. It’s primarily a biography but also throws in a lot of his beliefs and politics, much of which I read in Malcolm X Speaks. Here we get a good look at the events of his life that led to his activism.

One surprise of the book is his description on female psychology when he was essentially a gigalo to a white woman.

A woman should occasionally be babied enough to show her the man had affection, but beyond that she should be treated firmly. All women, by their nature, are fragile and weak: they are attracted to the male in whom they see strength.

…

Sophia always had given me money. Even when I had hundreds of dollars in my pocket, when she came to Harlem I would take everything she had short of her train fare back to Boston. It seems that some women love to be exploited. When they are not exploited, they exploit the man.

Yes, Malcolm X was a player. He toned it down after converting to Islam and becoming a dedicated husband, but he never forgot about a woman’s true nature:

Now, Islam has very strict laws and teachings about women, the core of them being that the true nature of a man is to be strong, and a woman’s true nature is to be weak, and while a man must at all times respect his woman, at the same time he needs to understand that he must control her if he expects to get her respect.

He correctly described the entitlement of American women:

I don’t know how many marriage breakups are caused by those movie and television-addicted women expecting some bouquets and kissing and hugging and being swept out like Cinderella for dinner and dancing than getting mad when a poor, scraggly husband comes in tired and sweaty from working like a dog all day, looking for some food.

If only he knew how bad things have gotten in 50 years.

Malcolm X has become a sort of role model for me, not as much as for what he did for black people, which of course was admirable, but for his relentless, fearless pursuit of the truth in the face of intense criticism and later, death threats. He had a cause that he believed in, that knew would lead to his end, but he kept going anyway. He wasn’t in it for the money or the women, but a belief on how a better world should be. If I can accomplish just 1% of what this man did, it would be something I’d be immensely proud of.

“I have been more reassured each time the white man resisted me, or attacked me harder—because each time made me more certain that I was on the right track in the American black man’s best interests.”

Catch Me If You Can

If you’ve never heard of Frank Abagnale, he was perhaps the greatest American con man of his time. He stole millions while impersonating a pilot, doctor, and lawyer, all before he was 21. Through uncanny street smarts and masterful social engineering, he was able to attain a high-wheeling lifestyle full of travel, women, and expensive clothes, solely by using his cons.

Even when he had enough money and could retire in some tropical locale, he kept doing things for the challenge and personal glory. For some men it’s never enough—they keep going until their ruin. Frank was caught and inevitably sent to jail, but he got a second chance in working for the government to catch guys like him.

The lesson I took from this book is to realize that every system, no matter how secure it looks, has a flaw which can be gamed. When I travel, I look for such flaws or loopholes in the dating culture, where a woman is likely to put out quicker due to some behavior you show to her. Sometimes I find it, sometimes I don’t.

I initially hesitated to read this book because I already saw the movie, but it turned out to be an entertaining read that did a good job of describing Frank’s motivations and thought while performing his brilliant scams.

“The transaction also verified a suspicion I had long entertained: it’s a not how good a check looks but how good the person behind the check looks that influences tellers and cashiers.”

“As long as a man knows what he is and who he is, he’ll do all right.”

From Pieces To Weight

I enjoyed The 50th Law so much that I went ahead and bought 50 Cent’s autobiography, focusing on his life before hitting it big with his first album Get Rich Or Die Trying. He talks about how he learned to hustle on the streets of Queens by selling crack, later applying those “business” techniques to when he wanted to be a rap star.

50 gives you a first person view of the inner city and how a life of crime, after doing the cost-benefit analysis, is the best option. Rising above the ghetto, while a romantic notion for those in the white middle class, has about the same odds as winning the lottery. I’m not saying that to excuse thuggery and law-breaking, but this book shows how much men are a product of their environment.

“When we got there, I saw a bunch of niggas with baseball bats and two-by-fours. A few niggas had knives and brass-knuckled fists; one guy had a dog chain. I couldn’t believe it. I was like, Awww, fuck that. Let me out—I’ma shoot all these motherfuckers just on principle. They were out there like it was the seventies, like we were going to rumble or some shit.”

It wasn’t as educational as 50th Law, but sort of like how 30 Bangs was to Bang, it gives you an idea how 50 developed his beliefs. I highly recommend it for its entertainment value, especially if you already like 50. I knocked it out in only a couple days.

“The hard times only seemed hard when I was going through them. Now, they’re just memories. Besides, if I didn’t go through the hard times, I probably wouldn’t be able to enjoy the good times.”

Ghost In The Wires

I’m not a hacker or computer programmer but I picked up this Kevin Mitnick autobiography on impulse. Surprisingly, I couldn’t put it down.

Like Frank Abagnale, Mitnick was always obsessed with finding a hole in the system. He started hacking into the telephone system and then later computers. Most of his hacks were not due to code but to social engineering, where he pretended to be someone with authority to extract secret information. It took a lot of charm and social know-how to pull of his hacks, something that is at odds with the stereotype of hackers being fat guys in the basement poring over volumes of code (though in the book he describes such guys). With his ability to create false papers and identities, to use cloned cell phones, and to gain access to just about any computer network, Mitnick came pretty close to a real life James Bond figure.

His hacker stories were interesting without being too technical. Only in a few instances did it really go over my head, but I understood them enough to get the main idea. When he wasn’t describing his hacks he went over the many stints he had in jail, including time in solitary confinement. Even when he knew getting caught again would send him back for a long time, he couldn’t resist one more challenging hack. Because of the way his brain was wired, he would find hacks when not consciously trying. Hacking became a part of him.

What interested me most about the book was the amount of failure that went into a specific hack. There’s a lot of “rejection” when you fail to get access or get discovered by a system administrator. Mitnick didn’t care—he just kept trying until he got in. If one approach didn’t work, he simply tried another. I notice this mindset in a lot of players that I meet.

His ultimate downfall was that his inability to stop hacking constantly supplying the Feds with clues. After getting caught for the last time, he served a few years in jail and is now rehabilitated as a security consultant. Entertaining read.

39 Comments • April 20, 2012

More Book Reviews 10

By Roosh

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Alexander The Great

This is an entertaining book about how Alexander conquered the Persians to create one of the largest empires of the ancient world. The author takes you along all the key battles while giving you insight into the personality of perhaps the most known man to have ever lived.

What struck me most about Alexander was that all he cared about was glory and conquest, not money or women. He was the human incarnation of the saying, “If it’s not hard, it’s not worth doing,” and simply wanted to accomplish what no other man had done. He even preferred winning when disadvantaged because he know it would increase his glory. He wanted to be a legend, and on that front he succeeded.

Even though he killed an untold number of people, I couldn’t help but root for him along the journey. Perhaps an unfortunate quirk of human nature is that we love winners, no matter what they have to do in order to win. Those who consider him a murderous tyrant must realize he was a man of his time, no more brutal than other generals who conquered the lands before him.

The only problem with this book is that writer goes on historical tangents that don’t relate to Alexander, needlessy listing names of historical extras and foreign lands without giving you much context to work with. Other than that, I had trouble putting this book down. If you like reading about war or history, you’ll enjoy it.

“Alexander was seeking the glory that comes from taking an unexpected risk—and winning.”

“Brave deeds are what true men do.”

“To truly understand Alexander we must realize that—perhaps more than any man in history—he hated to lose. Alexander was and is the absolute embodiment of pure human ambition with all its good and evil consequences.”

Poorly Made In China

“This is a book about Chinese obfuscation and subterfuge. It is about gaming, strategy, and tactics.”

The author of this book worked as a consultant for American importers who wanted to manufacture in China, acting as translator, inspector, and local expert. He has written a surprisingly entertaining book about how the crafty Chinese try to squeeze importers through a variety of tricks, either by producing goods using inferior raw materials or gradually raising the cost of production. With some of the stories I was on the edge of my seat wondering which party was going to get screwed, and at times it read like funny travel memoir with episodes of tourist scams and culture clash.

“Chinese factories often engaged in quality fade—the incremental degradation of a product over time. They quietly reduced the amount of materials or else manipulate the quality of raw inputs. The changes were gradual, almost imperceptible. The importer was neither asked for permission nor told.”

I can never look at common items the same way. Essentially everything you buy that is made in China is prone to faulty, deceitful, and unsanitary manufacturing practices. In one of many examples, a Chinese factory changed the formulation of liquid soap so that it congealed under cold temperatures, coming out of the bottle in clumps of jizz. The importer could no longer say with confidence what the ingredients were after the factory owner tinkered with the recipe. Through trickery and superior negotiation skills, Chinese factory owners made importers so dependent on them that in essence they becomes the boss while the Americans became middlemen, mere agents.

In a passage from Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle,” which took place in the early 20th century, a poor young mother goes to the store to buy milk that has a blue tint. It was obviously tainted, but there were no regulations or enforcement in place to ensure she was getting a quality product. There is an assortment of agencies now to help prevent that sort of thing, but just a tiny percentage of goods coming from China, some of it food, is being inspected. We’re back in the wild west where buyer must beware. While you probably trust big brands, you shouldn’t trust the factories those brands outsource to.

The book also points out that shaming companies who outsource isn’t the answer to America’s problems. If just one company in your field successfully outsources work, you will go under if you don’t find a cheaper way to do business. A problem is that Americans don’t give a damn about Made In USA, and will happily purchase the Chinese product if it’s a nickel cheaper. Every American whining about there not being enough manufacturing jobs—while shopping in Walmart or Target—have to do some soul searching, because it’s that behavior which began the exodus of jobs to Chinese shores.

It was bittersweet to read about the economic implications of China’s success because ultimately globalization is a zero-sum game. One country’s gain is another loss. While Americans currently get to pay less for goods than the rest of the world, they give up their factory base in the process. Cheap crap at Walmart will end once our credit line runs out. Then we will have no cheap imports or jobs. We’ll have to depend on China for the most basic of necessities. China is in it for the long-term while Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, quarterly report to quarterly report.

“Importers were thinking checkers, while manufacturers were playing chess.”

All that’s left is checkmate.

Watch My Back (Kindle) / (Paperback )

“My goal became to control and master fear, rather than erase it.”

This is a memoir of an Englishman who grew up having intense anxiety and fear of physical confrontations. He decided to face his fear by becoming a bouncer, ending up in a rough club called Busters. The book features exciting tales of bouncing and fight stories combined with his personal development.

The bulk of this work features simple stories of him beating people into a pulp. The knockouts never got old and I laughed out loud many times throughout the book. With this great power of destruction came his transformation into a bully, where he was ready to hit anyone at the slightest provocation. In spite of that, you root for him to continue knocking people out.

Towards the end of the book, the author talks a lot about the physiology of fear and how to deal with it. Many times he stated how he had trouble dealing with the fear before every fight, that a new match could lead to his end. He repeatedly stresses that fear can be tamed but not completely eradicated.

This is a book of one man facing his fears and getting what he wanted out of life. My only complaint is that he goes off on little side-jaunts while in the middle of the action, but otherwise it’s a captivating story that I recommend.

“Your own mind can be your worst enemy and that as soon as you give in to these thoughts, even a little bit, they grow stronger and stronger, feeding on each little victory, making you weaker and weaker.”

Stuff Parisians Like

This is the Parisian version of Stuff White People Like, best for people who are planning a trip to France. I bought it as a temporary substitution for going to the country. The book portrays French people as insecure and snobby, obsessed with what other people think of them (I guess you could say the same thing about Americans). Overall I found it interesting from a cultural standpoint and sometimes funny, but it’s a better read if you know some French since the author sprinkles many French words throughout without giving English equivalents.

“Rule number one is that jeans are never to be worn with sneakers in Paris. A person walking the streets of Paris wearing jeans and New Balance shoes is American.”

Guilty as charged!

(I thought the author’s biography was interesting. He seems like a go-getter.)

The Pomodoro Technique (free download)

The Pomodoro technique is for managing your time and getting shit done, based on doing uninterrupted 25-minute periods of real work that you time using a basic kitchen timer. I already do a remix of this technique from various productivity tips I’ve implemented in the past ten years where I work for periods of 60 or 75 minutes instead of 25 (I also take longer breaks). When it comes to writing books, I find that 60 minutes should be the minimum work unit because of the time it takes to get into the writing “mood.” For regular office tasks which the book seems geared to, 25 minutes should be sufficient.

It also contains a system for helping you deal with distractions and eliminating bad work habits like getting up for a drink you don’t need or “quickly” checking something on the internet. This book reads like a technical report, but it contains a lot of useful tips if you’re interested in improving your productivity.

The Complete Idiot’s Guide To Understanding Islam

I read this book because I’m converting to Islam. Just kidding, I read it before launching Fat Girl Jihad so I could make better jokes. However I did read it with an open mind to try and understand one of the world’s largest religions.

The book was mostly a disappointment. It offered a rosy propagandist view of Islam that did a horrible job of batting down counter-arguments to some of the religion’s problems. The story of Islam presented here is just as silly as Christianity’s, but you got to respect how efficiently the religion commits its disciples through a ridiculous amount of prayer and a yearly fast. Having to pray five times a day means god and his potential punishments will be constantly on your mind. You become obsessed with god.

The argument made here is that Islam is awesome and peaceful and any negativity you perceive is from media distortions, extremist groups, and misrepresentations by backward cultures. In other words, Islam can do no wrong. Unconvincing elementary school logic is used throughout, such as: “If [Muhammad] was addicted to sex, he would have married all young women. Instead, they were mostly old and/or widowed. Each wife had a special status in the community.”

The most disturbing part of Islam is that it declares humans to exist merely to serve god, placed above your family and even your own life. Every negative thing that happens to you in life is god’s way of testing your faith to him. You are his pawn, his slave, and he is the puppet master of your existence. Your earthly life is his way of testing you to see if you should be admitted to Paradise, but entering is a little tricky.

When you die, your soul enters a sort of purgatory, or soul storage. You chill there for a while until Judgement Day when you line up in a huge hall where every human who has ever lived, regardless of their faith, waits to be judged by god. That “day” of judgement actually takes 50,000 years, so all those suicide bombers who are aching for their 72 virgins, which the book does not mention, still have to wait a little while longer. Can I take my Kindle while I wait?

Another problem with Islam is that your life is more or less pre-ordained by god. It is his will for you to be who you are, which is why most believers say “god willing” when they want to improve their lot. This squelches most forms of ambition and achievement in its followers. While Muslims don’t prefer poverty, it’s better to accept god’s will than work your way out of it since you’ll be rewarded in the afterlife anyway.

Islam believes that a woman’s natural state is very seductive and distracting to men, and that efforts must be made to temper their allure so that men will not be urged to sleep around outside of marriage. For example, during prayers women must line up all the way in the back so that men do not get excited at seeing them bend over in front of them. While I consider that extreme, I do agree with Islam’s view that a woman’s vagina must be protected before marriage. As American culture has shown, a woman should not be trusted with what to do with her vagina from the standpoint of securing long-term relationships (they give it up easily during their prime years when they should be using it as leverage to land a male provider).

In most countries that practice Islam there are no unchaperoned dates. There is no drinking at the club and no sex before marriage. The man pays a dowry to invest himself into a marriage with his virgin bride. While virgins make for horrible casual sex partners, I would pick them over the slut for long-term commitment any day. Islam gets it right in this regard.

Finally, this book documented the first historical case of trolling: “Some Jews actually pretended to convert just so they could gain entry into Muslim meetings and ask confusing questions to sow doubt into the minds of recent converts.” Obviously the trolls did not succeed (do they ever?). I suspect it only inoculated the believers against further criticism.

I’m glad I read the book from the standpoint of being more learned about Islam, but I can’t say it was an enjoyable read.

Natasha’s Dance

I’ll be honest: I picked up this book so that I could learn more about Russian culture in order to bang the women. On that respect, the book failed. It was what it said it was, a cultural history that reviews the intersection of art, the common man, government, and foreign influence, starting with Peter The Great when he built Russia’s first “European” city, St. Petersburg. It gives a blow by blow account of various artists and dandies with muted action and cutesie anecdotes.

The book started off describing the Russian duality of being Russian versus being European, which comes from Peter’s modernization push in the early 18th century. At one point, Russian aristocracy were better at speaking French than their own language, but the whole thing about Napoleon invading the motherland soured them on French culture.

I got so bored with this book that I had to stop reading (it’s almost 800 pages long). I don’t want to be harsh and say it sucks, but it definitely didn’t serve my sexual needs. Unless you’re interested in old Russian culture and art on a scholarly level, skip it. It will not help you bang Russian broads in the year 2012. I repeat: it will not help you get your Russian flag.

30 Comments • February 8, 2012

More Book Reviews 9

By Roosh

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REVIEWS:

Ancient Rome

This is one of the most interesting books I’ve ever read. The author does a great job of turning ancient history into a page turner full of drama and intrigue. Assuming your Roman history knowledge is as poor as mine (public schools), over 90% of the information in this book will be new. It describes six of Rome’s most important periods: the revolution inspired by Gracchus, the rules of Caesar, Nero, and Constantine, the Jewish rebellion, and the events that led to Rome’s fall.

What I got most out of the book was identifying the rhyming nature of history. Do any of these points sound familiar?

“In becoming a superpower, Rome, so it was said, abandoned the very values with which it had won its supremacy.”
Roman rulers used “self-defense” pretexts to invade other countries, with hawks criticizing doves for not being patriotic.
War benefited the Roman elite before the masses.
The aggressor nation will state conditions to avoid war that are impossible for the antagonist country to comply with.
“The battle ahead was about liberty and justice winning out over tyranny.”
Roman elite hated to make concessions. They’d fight to the death instead of give an inch to the well-being of the masses. They felt that they earned it, even though they used hook and crook to amass their wealth.
The people seen as “barbarians” gradually wore down the empire, causing it to spend itself into bankruptcy.

There is a constant battle between the elites and masses, with ebbs and flows of power over an empire’s life. Great leaders pick a side to further their own glory, changing the course of history. What’s sad about America is that we haven’t even made it to the 250 year mark yet are already suffering from signs of decline. Carthage, an empire that most people have never heard of, survived for 700 years. Hell, there are coffee shops in Italy that are older than America.

If you liked The 48 Laws Of Power, reading this book is like going directly to the source. Buildings grow taller and technology get ever more advanced, but the human need for power and domination remains the same. Men must seize power when the opportunity arises because if they don’t, they will languish alone in bitterness to watch others take what they could’ve had.

“Rome had been on a slippery slope of moral decline ever since the sack of Carthage in 146 BC. Without the fear of that Mediterranean power to keep it in check, Rome had free rein to indulge in the selfish passions of greed and domination. Now, in the sack of Rome, that process had come to its logical, revolutionary conclusion. All human, earthly cities—even the new Christianized Rome of Constantine—were transitory and ephemeral…”

Highly recommended.

The 50th Law

This book is like a sequel to The 48 Laws Of Power, using 50 Cent’s story as a backdrop on how power can be gained or lost. If you loved 48 Laws, which most of you have, just stop reading this review and buy The 50th Law right now. It’s written in the same style, where real-life examples are used to bring home the author’s points. A lot of what the book had was review for me, but I was still unable to put it down, soaking up the wisdom as fast as I could. Here are some points you’ll read about:

Expose yourself to what you fear.
Soft environments make you soft.
If you depend on others for too long you lose the ability to take care of yourself.
You should be even more vigilant when things are going well.
Constantly adapt to your circumstances.
Don’t try to please others.
Always be willing to walk away.
Embrace death. Let it motivate you.
There is no perfect opportunity to strike.
You are only free when others are unable to disappoint you.
More preparation will not necessarily lead to a better outcome.
Talent and good intentions are not enough; be fearless and strategic.
Resist the temptation to want to depend on others.
“Never be a minion, always be an owner.”

This is an inadvertent manual on how to quit the grind and be your own boss. Read the list again; it’s practically a blueprint for location independent living.

One thing the book did was give me newfound respect for 50 Cent. I’ve always thought him to be a simple, if not silly, rapper, but turns out he’s one of the sharpest men that has ever come from the hood. If you forget about him selling crack to his community, he’s a classic American success story (he makes Drake seem like a member of the table tennis team).

With 50 Cent’s story in my head after reading the book, I wanted to make shit happen. You want to be a success like 50. In that respect, this book is definitely more motivating than 48 Laws.

The book also has tons of motivational quotes, which I think is worth the price of admission alone. My only complaint is that Robert Greene has stuck to his style of writing in generalities, almost like a cheesy psychic. He has an outcome that he wants to go for and will speak in vague terms to back that outcome up. You wonder if he just made it up as he went along. Nonetheless, this book gets my stamp of approval and should be required reading for all men.

“People who cannot suffer can never grow up, can never discover who they are.” —James Baldwin

“I was born alone and I will die alone. I’ve got to do what’s right for me and not live my life the way anybody else wants it.” —50 Cent

“The kid in the school yard who doesn’t want to fight always leaves with a black eye. If you indicate you’ll do anything to avoid trouble, that’s when you get trouble.” —50 Cent

“When fortune wants to advance a new prince… she creates enemies for him, making them launch campaigns against him so that he is compelled to overcome them and climb higher on the ladder.” —Niccolo Machiavelli

“Events in life are not negative or positive. They are completely neutral. The universe does not care about your fate; it is indifferent to the violence that may hit you or to death itself. Things merely happen to you.”

Black Passenger Yellow Cabs

A black man of Jamaican descent goes to Japan to teach English for several years. In the process he bangs over 40 women, goes through several abortions with his girlfriends, comes to grips with his inner demons and whoring ways, and finally begins the progress of settling down. This book offers very detailed cultural and sexual observations of Japan, along with brutally honest personal introspection.

Not only is the author an ass man who uses both day and night game to achieve his sexual goals, but he also likes banging raw. He uses sex slang similar to what I use to describe scores with my friends (it’s impressive how many metaphors he came up to describe a boner). He even has game moves that ring familiar. For example, he likes whipping out his dick, something that is part of any Virgle Kent sex story. His main opener, “You look like you speak English,” is something I’ve used many times in the past. The book was like a friend telling me his sexual exploits and addiction to Asian women, with asides that give you facts and analysis on the culture. It’s refreshing to see a natural player who grew up independent of the current game wave.

“Running counter to natural human thinking, the Japanese appear in general to minimize pleasure and maximize pain. All of life is an unending, character building shugyou (endurance course) to develop one’s strength.”

He paints a picture of Japanese girls that are not entirely favorable: bad teeth and breath, immature personalities caused by poor social development, inhibited natures, and backwards thinking from believing in ancestral rules meant to “save face.” On the other hand, Japanese girls have hyper-clean pussies that are easy to bring to orgasm. They’re also so insecure that they can’t leave the house without makeup or name-brand fashions. Most importantly, they love foreign men (especially white and black men).

The author eviscerates Japanese men. They are the most beta of the beta, sexual androgens who are more in love with their boss than their woman. The married ones essentially outsource sex with their wives to foreign men by turning a not-so-blind eye to the practice. The others simply withdraw from society into a world of manga, video games, and porn.

Like with many other Japanese expats, he came to find the country and its people hard to deal with, leaving after seven years…

“The thrill was gone and it was no longer exciting to have this revolving army of women flowing to and from my apartment. I had simply outgrown the need.”

There are two flaws in this book. First, he’s an admitted feminist. He constantly complains about how Japanese women are being subjugated by the men. At the same time he takes advantage of Japanese women for sexual gain, he cites studies that show Japanese women are being taken advantage of by the culture. He actually thinks feminism in Japan would lead to an increase in birth rates, not bothering to look at the low birth rates in countries where feminists dominate.

Second problem is the book is way too long. With most tension popped by the second half, I felt like I was reading a blog with long entries instead a book more tightly tied together. My interest waned towards the end as it seemed like escapades were being repeated. Other than these complaints, I consider this book a fun sequel of sorts to An African In Greenland, with enough sex stories to give you a complete picture on how it’s like to get laid in Japan. Reading it makes you feel like you’re already halfway to getting your Japanese flag.

The Breakdown Of Nations

(This review refers to the abridged version of this book which you can download here.)

“It is only in small states that there can be true democracy, because it is only there that the citizen can have some direct influence over the governing institutions; only there that economic problems become tractable and controllable, and economic lives become more rational; only there that culture can flourish without the diversion of money and energy into statis pomp and military adventure; only there that the individual in all dimensions can flourish free of systematic social and governmental pressures.”

In other words, smaller is better. The author makes a convincing argument that a country’s misery stems from its bigness, not its lack of power. The size is like a cancer, slowing killing the host until it either devours itself from within, gets subdued by another rising power, or splits into smaller states.

“The proposal of the national theory to cure the world’s misery by eliminating the evil-doing nation would lead us nowhere. For the moment one evil-doer disappears, the vacancy, as post-World-War-II developments have amply shown, will promptly be filled from the unsuspected but ever willing ranks of the previous defenders of better causes.”

The common denominator in nations committing atrocities is simply having the power to commit those atrocities. Aggressive humans will start wars because they think they can win and won’t be punished for it. The author believes that the problem lies with possessing great power, a phenomenon that occurs in large super states. If you reverse the trend towards bigness by keeping countries small, you’ll have more responsive governments that are less likely to try to dominate the world.

Small states have limited resources and power, making them unable to engage in a modern war that can cause more destruction than all medieval wars combined. The small state will also be more flexible and responsible in solving social and economic problems. A modern example of this is Iceland, which has already recovered after a collapse of its economy three years ago.

“Great power attracts by its very nature the strong rather than the wise, and autocrats rather than democrats.”

Big states don’t serve the individual, only a handful of artificially created population segments. It serves “society,” not you. This allows the super state to naturally drift to totalitarianism because it’s the most efficient means to control a large population of diverse tribes.

Written fifty years ago, this book not only predicted American imperialistic ambitions as a logical behavior of world power, but also the problems that coincide with those ambitions. The author, now dead, believed that America would spend itself into oblivion, resulting in an increase of state power that attempts to control the citizenry.

Into the Buzzsaw

This book argues that the American media is controlled by a handful of globalized companies obsessed with profit and ratings instead of truth. Several journalists contribute articles on a wide array of geo-political incidents that American people have been hoodwinked on, arguing that “responsible journalism” is now nothing but a euphemism for protecting institutions and the government.

“Oil context, geographical context, ruling-class context, historical context—all are hidden from the average American.”

A few things you’ll learn about…

The great oil game and how that affects modern conflicts in the Middle East.
Illegal activities by the CIA (Cocaine Importing Agency) in Bolivia, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Southeast Asia, and Afghanistan.
How the Washington Post sends sensitive stories to the government for approval before publication.
Strong evidence that TWA 800 was accidentally shot down by a Navy missile during a training exercise.
Government strategy for relentlessly pursuing those trying to uncover the truth.
How globalized companies that own media outlets depend on American hegemony for ever increasing profits, ensuring they will never take on the American government.

“The word ‘conspiracy’ is commonly used now to malign those who raise unpopular questions about sensitive issues. The fact is conspiracies do exist.”

Reading a book like this makes me feel that a curtain is lowered in front of all of us, that everything we hear in the “free media” is theater, not much unlike Russian or Chinese media. I have long since stopped accepting any report that gets most of its facts from the government. No one, including your leaders, should get the benefit of the doubt. Make them prove it.

Freedom Twenty-Five

This is a book that might as well be titled, “Introduction To The Red Pill.” In five chapters (Purpose, Wisdom, Sex, Money, Health), Frost gives you tips to escape the grinding Western cog. At the same time he offers a window into his journey to self-improvement and of dumping the 9-to-5.

This book is best served as an introduction to those either not heavily exposed to Manosphere writing or those who are new to it, since he spends roughly equal time arguing for the lifestyle as providing details on duplicating it. I consider it more of a gateway drug to digging deeper in other works, depending on what you need to work most on. For example, I mostly agreed on the section where he advocated for the Paleo diet, but I would still need to look up additional Paleo resources in order to fully implement it into my life.

If you’re knee-deep in my blog and others, the information will seem introductory in nature, but for beta males it’s an eye-opening work that will question the choices they’ve made in life, and then put them on the right path. Therefore I recommend it mostly for newbies who have not yet started their self-improvement journey. It will offer a stern wake-up to those who are coasting along and waiting for magic to happen.

This an ambitious work aimed to help men live better lives, and the first that I’ve seen that combines all features of “red pill” thinking into one work. While I think the book could use some more action item specifics, it was a strong effort that will help guys who aren’t yet there. I don’t think authors should be supported merely for self-publishing on their own dime, but Frost should be rewarded for trying to connect the lifestyle dots in this book, something that very few other authors have attempted. You can read his blog here.

“My problem was a lack of purpose. I was, like so many in this generation, adrift. I had no mission. No destiny. I was a sack of flesh and DNA waiting to expire, no matter what my job title was or what degrees I had.”

“We are the TL;DR generation.”

“We are rebelling against a culture of laziness, mediocrity and spiritual poverty. We are rebelling against a world that encourages us to be passive, risk-averse and unremarkable.”

The Art Of Love

“Women like being hurt. What they like to give, they love to be robbed of.”

I couldn’t help but read what is arguably the oldest game book is existence, written by Ovid around 2 CE. Ovid teaches you how to be a gentleman who understand’s what turns women on. While a lot of his advice is meant for a time where chivalry was rewarded, it’s not surprising to see that many of his lessons still hold true today. Here are some of them:

Don’t let her think she’s the only girl you’re working on.
Go where the women are.
The best place to meet women is the theater. It’s a target-rich environment with a wide variety to choose from.
The second-best place to meet them is the circus because you sit so close to other people. Start an elderly chat about the animals.
Some women want to sleep with men they fear.
Touch her by pretending to flick dust off her blouse.
Always try to speak with confidence. If you’re drawing a blank, make it up.
Loosen her up with wine; it’s fuel to the fire of attraction. But don’t get too drunk because you’ll make mistakes.
Be careful of beer goggles. Don’t judge her appearance until you get her out in the day light.
All girls want sex but they pretend they don’t.
There is no optimum strategy for disabling the maid cockblocker, but definitely don’t give her too much attention. Also don’t assume that someone close to you like a blood relative won’t block you.
Ignore her on her birthday. She will only think of the man who didn’t buy her a gift.
Keep her hopeful by making promises, then break them (i.e., flake on her).
Don’t be stuffy and business-like. Be engaging and say what you want to say.
Be persistent. She won’t tell you to seduce her.
It’s her loss if she rejects you.
Mirror her body language.
Make sure your clothes are well-fitted. Don’t look like a goof.
If you want to say something risky, pretend you’re drunk. You can use that as an excuse in case it’s not received well.
Customize your game depending on the girl you’re talking to.
Display your strengths to her while minimizing your weaknesses.
Compliment the parts of her that you think she’s insecure about.

This book could also be called Bang Roman Empire for its specific venue advice on where to find women.

Besides the novelty factor of reading an ancient game manual, the book itself was a chore to read. The list I shared with you above is the gist of the whole thing, though I must add that beta game is definitely the heart of Ovid’s style, even though it’s more tactical than the more pathetic variant we see practiced today. Back then, strategic compliments and effusive charm got the job done before there were one-night stands and the ability to isolate girls away from her entourage (in Ovid’s time women married exceptionally young, so every one of his approaches was on a married woman).

I wonder what someone in 2,000 years will think of us if they discovered a copy of Bang. My guess: “They had sex? Gross! Now where did I leave my sexbot…”

A Movable Feast

This book is an autobiographical account of Ernest Hemingway’s young life in Paris during the 1920s while mired in poverty trying to get his writing career off the ground. I became interested in it after watching Woody Allen’s excellent movie Midnight In Paris, about a modern man’s journey back in time to Paris during the same time that Hemingway and friends produced their finest works. The movie portrays Hemingway as a blunt, serious man who speaks in powerful bursts of straight talk.

The prose wasn’t exactly gripping, but I found it far more interesting than his boring work The Sun Always Rises. It simply contained thoughts and events of a writer’s life, along with descriptions of his friends Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, the latter of which would have been more prolific had it not been for his controlling, jealous, and bipolar wife.

You’ll be interested in A Movable Feast if you want to learn more about Hemingway or the artists who were famous during his time. Overall it was a pleasant read.

“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”

Time For Outrage

More an essay than a book, Time For Outrage puts the onus on you to fight the system. You can’t complain about injustices in the world unless you are fighting those injustices. Do something, and do it now. This essay is like your cranky grandfather telling you to stop being a pussy and fight for what you believe in.

“‘There’s nothing I can do; I get by’—adopting this mindset will deprive you of one of the fundamental qualities of being human: outrage. Our capacity for protest is indispensable, as is our freedom to engage.”

I’m doing my part by ragging on shameful women.

Thinking, Fast And Slow

Your brain makes decisions without conscious thought by using two mental processing systems. One is fast and intuitive (system one), controlled by your unconscious, and the other is slower and deliberate (system two), controlled by your conscious. Your brain does everything it can to process decisions using the first system since it takes less energy, but it’s often prone to error. People who are less rational and intelligent are more prone to using the first system for more complex situations, making them more likely to fall for logical traps and biases.

For example, when you’re driving you use system one, but when you’re looking for a specific address you switch to system two, which explains why you turn down the music or stop talking to a passenger (system two doesn’t like to be distracted). Since system two takes a high amount of self-control and mental energy, it actually can make you feel tired and depleted. This is why a night of talking to girls can make you feel exhausted even though you did very little physical activity (you’ve been using system two for many continuous hours). Your brain will do everything possible to avoid such dutiful thought, preferring to stay in auto-pilot, which takes the least amount of energy. In the book The War of Art, Steven Pressfield called this “resistance.” Your brain doesn’t want to stay in system two long enough to complete a large project like a book.

The problem with psychological studies, which this book is based on, is that it doesn’t duplicate real-world behavior. Most of the artificially created experiments are done in classrooms on Western students who want to get their study credit as quickly and easily as possible. I think they hint at how the brain works, but ultimately psychological studies are based on research that is not transferable or directly observable outside of the university. Plus even the author admits that most psychologists are morons when it comes to statistics, continually putting out studies with sample sizes so small that they say absolutely nothing.

Psychology also doesn’t give action items that can improve other people’s lives. This book says things like “Don’t be so trusting of your instincts” or “Be skeptical of sales tactics,” but those are vague pieces of advice you can pick up in an old issue of Readers Digest. More about psychology can be picked up in the biographies of great men than a compilation of studies.

I know you’ve read Malcolm Gladwell’s books, but have they helped your life? They were fun reads that gave you knowledge like “the tipping point,” but little to apply it with (e.g., how to create a tipping point). This particular book will not help you with your career, love life, or personal life. It was like reading trivia.

Ultimately the field of psychology has done little to make people happier or to uncover life’s wisdom. While reading this book’s run-down of cute classroom studies, I’m thinking, “Yeah, so?” An active life well-lived is all you need to understand how human beings think. Ironically, self-help business books like The 48 Laws Of Power or The 50th Rule, which are based on history and the experiences of man, give you far more wisdom that mainstream psychology books.

I got the point of this book in its first 100 pages and stopped reading.

28 Comments • December 28, 2011

More Book Reviews 8

By Roosh

PREVIOUSLY:

REVIEWS:

Dark Alliance

This book is about how the CIA turned a blind eye when Nicaraguan Contras (rebels) were selling cocaine in the United States to fund its war against a new Nicaraguan leader who was hated by the U.S. government. Tons and tons of those drugs were piped direction into inner cities, where they were processed as crack and sold to black people. The book provides more than enough evidence to show the government knew this was happening. They let it proceed because they felt overthrowing the Nicaraguan government was a cause worth sacrificing Americans who were already living on the margins of society.

At the same time Ronald Reagan was teaching you to Just Say No, he was letting cargo planes of drugs enter the U.S. (many owned by CIA contractors) in a program run by Oliver North, all because he was chafed by Congress’ decision to pull funding on the Contras, “freedom fighters” that were composed of human rights abusers and corrupt officials who looted Nicaragua when they had held power.

“The administration had allowed South Central’s biggest cocaine trafficker to call the United States his home.”

At the same time, crack hysteria by the media set the stage for the creation of extreme drug laws that locked up users and small-time dealers for long mandatory sentences. The government allowed the drug to enter the inner cities while locking up black men en masse who touched it, all while letting the big-time traffickers go. The black community was hit three times: they were flooded with drugs, they were further impoverished while buying those drugs (helping fund a war in Central America), and finally they were jailed in massive numbers, ensuring destruction of the lower class black family unit.

People who want to blame black people for their failings or addictions can do so all they want, but it doesn’t make it right that the government allowed this to happen. From the beginning they knew where those drugs were going but carried out their illegal program anyway. Things Malcolm X said over two decades prior about white participation of black destruction eerily went down exactly according to his words.

The media was complicit in all this:

“One truly remarkable thing about the crack scare was the degree to which the national press—particularly the New York Times—walked in lockstep with the federal government on the issue, fanning the flames of hysteria and unquestioningly parroting the official line, a media phenomenon usually seen only in times of armed conflict.”

Attacking crack and being “tough on crime” was a great way to score votes at the polls, leading to many easy re-election campaigns in the second half of the 80s. You couldn’t find a politician who didn’t think crack was going to destroy the country.

Once this “dark alliance” was exposed, the government repeatedly lied and stonewalled. The Justice Department should be renamed the Obstruction of Justice Department. The DEA is the Drug Enabling Agency. It was almost amusing how many government agencies did the very opposite of their publicly stated missions.

This book confirmed to me that the CIA is independent of U.S. law, with tentacles in ever major media organization and federal agency. It’s an enterprise that funds its own projects through illegal means if need be, using contractors, front companies, untraceable bank accounts, and layers of agents to evade detection in order to support programs that the American people would unquestionably be against. They are the most powerful group in the world, with no accountability and near unlimited power to accomplish its covert goals in the name of preserving “American interests.” They especially love using drug money to support paramilitary groups that aren’t big fans of human rights (Laos and Afghanistan are other countries suspected of CIA involvement when it comes to drug trafficking).

The depressing part is that this is only one program that got exposed, though every once in a while there is a mistake that suggests the CIA is still involved in drug trafficking. The author’s efforts to expose the CIA sadly contributed to his suicide. He wrote a powerful book that makes you lose whatever remaining faith and trust you had in the government. Highly recommended.

Kill the Messenger

This book is basically a summary of Dark Alliance with additional reporting that gives more insight into the life of Gary Webb until he committed suicide. It describes how the mass media, particularly the Los Angeles Times, wrongly attacked Webb’s credibility and ensured he could never again get a job in journalism. They set up a straw man saying that Webb failed to prove that the CIA sold crack cocaine, when in fact Webb never said that (his argument was that the CIA knew where the drugs were going but didn’t put a stop to it). The media were ten times more focused on combing through Webb’s past than actually advancing the CIA-contra link that he provided solid evidence for.

I felt like the book was forced to adopt a more nuanced view on the CIAs role in drug trafficking. It’s one of those things where unless you have a copy of a drug contract printed on CIA letterhead and signed by the director, you have insufficient evidence and therefore are a loony conspiracy theorist. On the other hand, when the U.S. wants to invade a country, all it needs is to find one disgruntled soldier to say that he saw weapons of mass destruction to get the war drum beating. If you want to take down the CIA you need HD video with sound and nothing less.

Gary Webb was just doing his job, but unfortunately he had some existing character weaknesses that made his banishment from the profession he loved result in depression and then tragedy. It looks like he died in vain, for nothing has changed.

Anything You Want

I met the author of this book in Rio, after already having been a fan of his blog. We talked a little about life, business, and travel, surprised that so many of our beliefs were similar yet our paths so different. He poured his energy into music and business while I poured mine into women and writing. I hold him up to be a business role model, a guy on the same page as myself who brought value to his customers over several years and was greatly rewarded for it.

I bought his book the day it came out and read it in a couple hours. It’s an inspiring and practical story of how he took a hobby and turned it into a business that later sold for $22 million, including the gut-wrenching mistake he made that cost him $3.3 million. He tells you what worked for him, knowing full well that his strategies go against what they teach you in business school. I highly recommended it if you want to start your own business.

“When someone’s doing something for the money, people can sense it, like a desperate lover. It’s a turnoff.”

Ask The Dust

This book was a strong inspiration to Charles Bukowski, so I thought it deserved a read. It’s a semi-autobiographical story of an insecure young man trying to crack it as a writer in Los Angeles during the Great Depression, written in a stream-of-consciousness style. Most of the book revolves around his attempts to get paid for his writing while trying to seduce a Mexican girl who happens to be in love with another man.

I couldn’t sympathize with the protagonist because he had absolutely no game. He came across as a loser with a level of betatude that made me cringe at several points throughout the novel, not at all deserving to get the Mexican girl. The little action in this book stems from his attempts to come to terms with his feelings for her while she uses him as a tampon again and again.

The bright side of this book is the prose; the writing completely won me over. It’s up there with the best I’ve read, though it’s hard to describe why. It’s not too descriptive, it’s not too floral, but it just flows, and you want to keep reading even though you don’t care about the story or the characters. If you like Bukowski or Henry Miller then you’ll like this book.

City Of Thieves

This is a historical fiction novel using the Siege of Leningrad as a backdrop, when the Nazis surrounded the city for nearly three years in an attempt to destroy it. It’s about two men (a soldier and a teenager) who got into trouble with the Russian secret police. Their “crimes” would be usually punishable by death, but a general decided to spare their lives if they can find a dozen eggs so he can use it for his daughter’s upcoming wedding. Under normal times this is not a hard task, but during the blockade, when people were resorting to cannibalism to survive, eggs were worth their weight in gold.

In a capable story that is both entertaining and engaging, the reader is whisked from one scene to the next in the characters’ futile attempt to find eggs. It’s a good book written by someone who followed his writing workshop notes to a T, but it’s not great for two reasons. The first is that the main character is a pathetic beta who falls in love with a girl who is stronger and more masculine than him. At several points in the book I was hoping he’d die.

The second problem with the book is that the author keeps interrupting the best action with lame and irrelevant side stories. Just tell me the fucking story and spare me from your hack attempt to build suspense.

Other than that I recommend the book as a fine read, especially if you have any interest in Russian history or World War II.

How To Learn Any Language

I was looking for a language learning blueprint that could help me learn any language. I believe I found it with this book, which was written by a guy who has mastered 25 languages. He gives you practical advice on how to tackle new languages with the goal of helping you gain fluency.

The book had two strong tips that I immediately implemented while studying Polish. The first was to take a stack of blank notecards wherever you go and write down the things you wanted to say but couldn’t so that you can later get a translation. This tip understands that you won’t later remember at home what you wanted to say at the grocery store, for example. I’ve even started taking pen and paper to me with the club, writing down game lines that I want my Polish teacher to help me translate.

The second tip was using mnemonics to memorize tough vocabulary. He teaches you how to make a story out of each word, that while labor intensive on the surface, is the fastest way I’ve found to get words to stick in my brain.

My only complaint with the book is that it was somewhat contradictory. At one point he says don’t worry about grammar, but at another he’s saying to do your best to learn proper grammar. It was a minor issue in an otherwise fast read of one man’s journey through the world of language learning. If you’re trying to learn a language right now, this book will definitely motivate you.

If You Survive

This book is one foot soldier’s experience in World War II, from his landing in France after D-Day to his injury a few months later. The story unfolds battle to battle as the author tells you how the war was fought and what he did to survive. Instead of talking about war through the sweeping eye of a historian, this book gets at a micro level of detailing logistical issues like transport and reloading on ammunition in the thick of battle.

What struck me most about this book was how an inconsequential act, like picking up a pack of cigarettes, would lead to death. Just one inch to the left and you might have lived. More than anything else, reading about war teaches me how insignificant human life really is.

While it contained a lot of technical descriptions that sometimes made it hard to visualize the battle scene, If You Survive was a riveting story that avoided editorializing about the evils of war. It simply told you how it is.

A Concise History Of The Russian Revolution

The crux of this book is that Lenin and his cronies managed to take over a country with a small minority of support from the people. Once in power they resorted to permanent use of terror and absurd governance that almost destroyed a “great” nation.

Lenin made it up as he went along, especially since the idealistic writing of Marx didn’t work out so well in practice. He was great at winning the game of politics but horrible at managing a country with a goal of increasing his people’s standard of living. His efforts to abolish money for a barter system and to eliminate the laws of supply and demand seem comical in hindsight. He treated Russia as one big laboratory that destroyed the economy and resulted in a famine that cost millions of lives along with untold human suffering. His crackpot schemes make you feel sorry for the Russian people.

Many historians say Stalin was one of the most ruthless men the world has ever seen, but his whole ideology came from Lenin. The only thing that stopped Lenin from killing millions more people was his premature death.

“Soviet Russia was the first state in history to outlaw law. This measure permitted the authorities to dispose of any individual who stood in their way.”

This book has a couple of strange features. The first is that it’s suspiciously pro-Jew. I don’t care either way of Jewish participation in the rise of Russian communism, but the author went out of his way to make sure they came out favorably. Secondly, the author is vehemently anti-Communist, repeatedly asserting that life under the tsar was better for Russians. I looked into his Wikipedia biography and turns out that he is indeed Jewish, with ties to both the CIA and Council of Foreign Relations. When he was accused of writing “the Polish version of Russian history,” he called his attacker an anti-Semite.

Overall this was a dry work full of facts that kept me engaged only because of my interest in Russian history, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was reading propaganda.

Improv Wisdom

Call me a sexist but I hesitated to buy this book because it was written by a woman. I can’t think of the last time any woman has given sound life advice that has helped a man, but the 5 out of 5 stars it got on Amazon convinced me to drop my cash on it. That was a mistake.

This book has several problems:

Straight-up bullshit, such as “When we train our minds to accept whatever arises, ideas grow, and we nourish the garden of our imagination.” I think I saw that sentence on the back of a milk carton.
Real-life examples are about women, often the “busy mom” variety.
Beta male advice about caring for others, saying yes all the time, leaving thank-you notes for trivial reasons, and paying tolls for random strangers.
Cheesy hands-on exercises that I doubt the author did herself.

The author admits she has brought forth no new wisdom at all, but collected a bunch of feel-good tips she gleaned from Buddhism and other self help works. This book is entry-level self help for women who need an easy follow-up to Eat Pray Love. The best thing about it is the title.

1984

I already read this book twice before but wanted to hit it one more time. From reading Russian history in the past year, I feel like this book was “based on a true story.” The only difference between the Bolsheviks and their stranglehold on Russia for so many decades and 1984 are names and technology. If the communists wrote a manual on power I believe it would not be far off from this.

Unfortunately for us, 1984 does act as a manual for countries where “freedom” and “liberty” rein today.

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears.”

Even though WTC7 looks like a controlled demolition, it fell because of office fires.
Even though WTC7 looks like a controlled demolition, it fell because of office fires.
Even though WTC7 looks like a controlled demolition, it fell because of office fires.

I have to ignore what my eyes and gut tells me and tote the Party line. Nineteen terrorists, box cutters, Osama, jealous of America, and so on.

“The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent. Even when weapons of war are not actually destroyed, their manufacture is still a convenient way of expending labour power without producing anything that can be consumed… The object of war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact.”

1984 is easily my favorite book. I like to revisit it occasionally to help remind me of government’s true goal, its boot pressed against my face.

72 Comments • October 7, 2011

More Book Reviews 7

By Roosh

PREVIOUSLY:

REVIEWS:

Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943

I actually intended to buy a book on the siege of Leningrad, but by the time I realized my mistake I was already a third way through and unable to put it down.

The Battle of Stalingrad was the decisive battle of World War 2, not D-Day as American propaganda may have led you to believe. By the time the battle on France’s beaches occurred, the German army was already in full retreat on the Eastern Front and severely weakened in the West. As awful a man as Stalin was, he won WW2 for the allied powers. The American loss of 0.32% of its population doesn’t begin to compare to Soviet Union’s 13.88%.

The closest humanity came to hell on Earth was Stalingrad. The loss of life and suffering was staggering, and decades after the battle they were still finding human remains. For Russian soldiers crossing the Volga River to defend the tiny sliver of city they still controlled, it was guaranteed death. Many wouldn’t survive even a day. There was no escape from the reaper because the Soviets put NKVD secret police soldiers in the rear to shoot anyone who tried to run away. That’s what it took to defeat the Germans, who got overconfident against the “inferior” Slavs. The Americans or British would have surrendered had they encountered the same situation.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. If you like to read about war then you’ll like it, too.

“Women were often forced to offer their emaciated bodies to survive or to feed an infant. There are reports of improvised brothels in the ruins. In several instances, love of a sort grew in the unpromising circumstances between Russian women and German soldiers. It was almost invariably a fatal liaison.”

“The survivors were so badly starved that when their rescuers gave them bread and sausage from their rations, most died immediately.”

“Survival often ran counter to expectation. The first to die were generally those who had been large and powerfully built. The small thin man always stood the best chances.”

The Alchemist

This is an allegorical novel about a young man trying to find purpose and meaning in life. If you liked Siddhartha then you’ll like this short book, especially since it appears that the author has studied Buddhism.

I think the writing is just average, but the message is strong and it will encourage you to keep at whatever project you’re trying to succeed in.

“The secret of life is to fall seven times and to get up eight.”

“When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision.”

“Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.”

To Be Or Not To Be Intimidated

Recommended by Ricky Raw, this is the best sales book I’ve ever read, written by a real-estate agent who shares what he learned from being a broker for large apartment deals. Some of the methods he uses to close deals are nearly identical to what I use to close pussy.

I like how the author stresses getting paid instead of just closing the deal. Many times you hear a guy say, “I went out to the bar and got a number and make out.” That’s nice, but he didn’t close shit. I don’t care how many numbers and make outs you have, but until you fuck, you are not a closer—you’re merely accumulating prospects. He also urinates on “be positive” advice that is common in self-help circles. His ruthless, no-bullshit take on deal closing was very refreshing.

The author teaches you that in sales it’s important to:

-hope for the best but expect the worse
-build a few solid prospects instead of dozens of bad prospects
-be able to recognize the types of people who will “steal your chips”
-not worry about offending someone in the pursuit of your interests
-establish a strong “posture” that ensures the deal will be closed
-make your target think that closing the deal isn’t a big deal for you, that you have a lot of other deals going on
-be able to judge how desperate sellers or buyers are
-be both willing and determined to walk away
-understand that you’ll always get burned from a deal gone bad even if you guarded your chips carefully
-become best friends with the law of averages

The book was a great, entertaining read, that while is better served for business use, has principles that directly apply to game. I highly recommend it.

To Travel Hopelessly

This is a compilation of short stories by English Teacher X, an American guy who has taught English abroad before I even knew what travel was. His stories of traveling, teaching English, and chasing girls give a great taste of what it was like to be on the road during the 90′s and 00′s in those former pussy paradises that are now inundated with hordes of gash hounds like myself.

“I can’t say the world had disappointed me exactly, but I’d disappointed myself in how little I’d seem to get out of it. So you go to India and stay in a cheap hotel, see a sight or two, eat some local food, talk to some locals, but not many because they’re inevitably trying to rip you off by getting you to buy a carpet or something from their cousin’s souvenir shop. Was this enlightenment? Because it felt like the same old shit.”

At times I thought that I was reading something that I had written.

“He was typical of the ‘new breed’ of English teacher—hated everything about it, but could live a lot better and get laid a lot more abroad, so he wasn’t going home anytime soon.”

His crisp writing wastes no words. If you like my travel writing, you’ll enjoy this book.

English Teacher X Guide To Teaching English Abroad

I have absolutely no interest in being an English teacher, but I was thirsty for more of his writing style so I bought this book and knocked it out in two days.

“Why are [foreign] students all over the world studying English? To get right in that big rat race that you’re so eager to leave behind.”

He goes over the state of teaching English abroad, his experiences, and some specific teaching techniques. You’re more likely to enjoy this book if you have some interest in language or travel. That said, there were plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, usually involving excess drinking or trying to sleep with female students.

Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae

I was on a war kick so I decided to take a look at this piece of historical fiction, which is basically the book version of the movie 300 without all the homoerotic imagery. It gives you a good background of the Spartan war machine, their society, and the logistics of war in that era. It was an entertaining book with well-written action scenes.

“Dienekes says the mind is like a house with many rooms. There are many rooms one must not go into. To anticipate one’s death is to go in one of those rooms. We must not allow ourselves even to think it.”

How I Found Freedom In An Unfree World

This book is an attempt to apply libertarian philosophy as a template for a person’s entire life instead of just for the political realm, with most of its advice concerning personal relationships.

“You have tremendous control over your life, but you give up that control when you try to control others.”

The author tells you to embrace other people’s natures while listening to your own, and to go after your own interests above all others, even that of your family. This book could be retitled “Finding Freedom Through Selfishness,” and it’s pretty close to how I’ve been living my life the past ten years.

Instead of trying to change the broken culture I come from, change American women, or change bosses I didn’t like, I simply constructed a lifestyle from the ground up based on my personality and needs. Instead of protesting and trying to change the world, I changed myself (starting with learning game) and worked around the system to get what I want. This strategy has worked for me.

“You’re in the identity trap when you try to be interested in something because it’s expected of you, or when you try to do the things that others have said you should do, or when you try to live up to an image that others say is the only legitimate, valid image you’re allowed to have.”

The book encourages you not to bother trying to change the world. Work on changing yourself and finding your own happiness. Let other people waste their energy in fruitless endeavors where they must convince thousands or millions of people in order to make small, incremental changes. Fuck the herd and beat to your own drum.

“Improve your own situation without having to go to the trouble of making others agree with your way of thinking.”

Read this book if you want a great motivator to get off your ass and make a big change. All the excuses you probably make to prevent yourself from acting will be addressed in this book, which is like a 4-Hour Workweek from the 1970s that covers all aspects of your life instead of just money.

“There’s always a way [to happiness]—as long as you’re not looking for ways to change others.”

While the book is out of print, the PDF was available in the first page of the book’s google results last time I checked.

Hell’s Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga

This is the story of the Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang when they started gaining nationwide notoriety in the mid 60s. They were both feared and admired by the suburban stiffs who were fascinated by their drunken and violent ways. Many a “good girl” would throw herself at the Angels for sex, and during their peak they had as many groupies as famous rock stars.

The book is one of the earliest I’ve read that goes into false rape accusations. A girl would want to get fucked by some bad boy Angels, realize that it was a less romantic experience than she had hoped for, then cry rape the next day, sort of like what happens these days. One passage painted a vivid account of a gang bang/rape that gave me a little boner:

“A hard core of eight or ten kept at her for several hours. In all, she was penetrated in various ways no less than fifty times, and probably more.”

If you’re a fan of Hunter S. Thompson’s other work then you’ll no doubt enjoy this one.

Women

A semi-autobiographical book by Charles Bukowski. It’s about an alcoholic writer who becomes mildly famous and suddenly has young, beautiful women throwing themselves at him. The story is essentially a bunch of field reports of girls he fucked, written in the Hemingway style of short declarative sentences. This book will be most interesting to you under three conditions:

1. You personally knew Charles Bukowski.
2. You’re a man who doesn’t know what it’s like to easily fuck a lot of girls.
3. You’re a woman.

I felt like I was reading the blog of an old guy excited to be getting laid. It contains fine writing, but it’s really hard to read a book about a guy’s life when it’s less interesting than yours. This is one of those books that was groundbreaking when it was first published, but wouldn’t get much notice if it was released today.

“That’s the problem with drinking, I thought, as I poured myself a drink. If something bad happens you drink in an attempt to forget; if something good happens you drink in order to celebrate; and if nothing happens you drink to make something happen.”

“A man could lose his identify fucking around too much.”

Do The Work

I read this book because I was a strong fan of the author’s related work, The War of Art, but it doesn’t come close to comparison. It’s a fluffy, brief work that reads more like a Seth Godin book than something containing insight that I haven’t seen elsewhere. I can see how it can be mildly motivating to some, but you’ll be better off reading The War of Art.

49 Comments • July 29, 2011

More Book Reviews 6

By Roosh

PREVIOUSLY:

REVIEWS:

The Rise And Fall Of The Great Powers

The gist of this book can be summed up in the following quote: “Great Powers in relative decline instinctively respond by spending more on ‘security,’ and thereby divert potential resources from ‘investment,’ [compounding] their long-term dilemma.” Sound familiar? The key word is “relative.” That’s super if you’re growing at 4% a year, but if there are other countries growing at 8%, then you’re losing power. It doesn’t even have to be that great a difference: “A country whose productivity growth lags 1 percent behind other countries over one century can turn, as England did, from the world’s undisputed industrial leader into the mediocre economy it is today… not because it wasn’t growing, but because others were growing faster.”

Therefore world power is in constant flux. The unique set of circumstances that vaulted the United States to ridiculous heights in the 20th century are no longer present, leading to gradual loss in power and industrial capacity that becomes another’s gain. A country’s resources, technology, education, culture, and a multitude of other factors determine its economic growth rate, and that will never be the same as other nations.

“Those who do not advance, go backwards and who goes back goes under.”

This is a dry, technical, and long-ass book that took me forever to read because I was usually camped out in front of Wikipedia to learn more about the events mentioned. Nonetheless, I think every man must read it to understand the workings of state power and what amounts to the foundations of modern human society. It helps you wade through today’s bullshit news cycle to look at the big picture and determine what’s really going on in the world.

A People’s History Of The United States (strong recommendation)

The previous book had me leaning more pro-war and pro-state. I become convinced that resource grabs were simply the way things should be done in a cruel world to ensure survival of states. This book brought me back down to Earth, showing the human costs of those actions in the United States, specifically in regard to the obscene greed of its upper class (top 1%).

The analysis here shows that from our founding, the United States is a country created by the rich white man for the rich white man. All other groups, such as blacks, Native Americans, women, laborers, and the landless poor, have been suppressed, killed, or marginalized to continue the great sucking of wealth and power to the elite that continues today right out in the open. Only when the elite’s very stability is threatened do they make concessions to those groups. For example, Zinn argues is that they gave blacks “Civil Rights” not out of moral duty, but because black agitation was increasing unrest at home and the amount of criticism they received abroad, jeopardizing their long-term wealth-stealing goals.

One thing that strikes me about this book is that today’s problems, such as Wall Street raping the treasury, the government getting into wars against countries that haven’t attacked us, and special interests fighting tooth and nail against increasing our standard of living, are essentially yesterday’s problems, and not much has changed. That’s just testament to what the book calls the most ingenious control system that has ever existed. Our two-party political system is perfectly tuned to distracting the white man against the black man, labor against professional, right against left, and immigrant against natural-born, while the top 1% continue growing their wealth at unprecedented rates. The author makes it clear that both Democrats and Republicans are complicit and that the “apparatus” is rigged, contributing to what Malcolm X called the world’s biggest “con game.” If you’re a fan of 1984, past actions of the United States will ring familiar.

This book will help you redirect your anger from the Mexicans, from the religious nuts, from black people on welfare, to the real cause of this country’s problems: the top 1%, who are immune to our laws and will stop at nothing at taking every dollar they can possibly grab. I highly recommend this book for any American citizen. It’s what you didn’t learn in high school.

Malcolm X Speaks

I thought of Malcolm X as a violent and racist figure of the Civil Rights movement, a portrayal the media was pushing at the time of his ascendance, but I was wrong. From reading the speeches in this book it’s obvious he was the ultimate truth teller, breaking down hypocritical and oppressive American policies better than anyone else at the time.

He believed in basic human rights for black people, rights that the Constitution should have already given them, but advocated violence when those rights were denied. He definitely didn’t believe in holding hands to sing “We Shall Overcome” while his people were being lynched and firehosed, making Martin Luther King and the rest of The Big Six seem more like Uncle Toms who got tricked by the government to tame down their demands in exchange for being figureheads in their people’s movement.

You don’t have to be black to read this book. If you hate the US Government then you’ll be nodding your head throughout, though of course black people will be able to identify with it more. Choice quotes:

“It’s just like when you’ve got some coffee that’s too black, which means it’s too strong. What do you do? You integrate it with cream, you make it weak. But if you pour too much cream in it, you won’t even know you ever had coffee. It used to be hot, it becomes cool. It used to be strong, it becomes weak. It used to wake you up, now it puts you to sleep. This is what they did with the [1963] march on Washington.”

“Three hundred and ten years we worked in this country without a dime in return—I mean without a dime in return. You let the white man walk around here talking about how rich this country is, but you never stop to think how it got rich so quick. It got rich because you made it rich.”

“When you take your case to Washington, D.C., you’re taking it to the criminal who’s responsible; it’s like running from the wolf to the fox.”

“Nobody can give you independence. Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you’re a man, you take it. If you can’t take it, you don’t deserve it.”

“It takes power to make power respect you.”

It’s sad that his life ended prematurely. I think he had the potential to make real changes not only for blacks but all oppressed people, including the lower class.

Medium Raw

If you liked Kitchen Confidential, then you’ll like this follow-up, where Bourdain continues to tell food stories with his sharp humor and honesty. The fact that I’m the opposite of a foodie yet still enjoy Bourdain’s writing is a testament to his strong personality. Quotable gems:

“Whatever riches they may have acquired or may yet acquire, there is and always will be the lingering and deeply felt suspicion that come tomorrow, it will all be gone. No amount is enough or will ever be enough, because deep in the bone they know that the bastards could come knocking at any minute and take it all away.”

“Luck is not a business model.”

“It’s very rarely a good career move to have a conscience.”

The Red Queen

This book shares theories of sexual selection, first starting with animals, particularly birds and chimps, and then humans. While it won’t help you with your game, it’s a fascinating look into how sex is a huge evolutionary driving force. It pushes the fact that animals don’t just evolve to compete with other animals, but to compete with members of the same species, and it’s that sexual evolution that has made big-brained humans what they are.

I like how the book describes why the sex act even exists, a question I hadn’t contemplated (answer: parasite resistance). It explains less complex questions such as why men are a knowledge-hungry gender (answer: in the past, gaining enough knowledge to outwit other males got more sexual partners, so that trait persisted over time). The term “social proof” isn’t specifically used, but there are explanations as to why it’s such a powerful attractant. It also suggests that men are so power-crazed because in the past those who sought and gained it were the only ones who procreated. The author even describes how and why a woman’s body declines horribly after 30.

I’ll admit it was a dry work, and even with my biology background some of it still went over my head, but I’ve only scratched the surface at the amount of insight this book contains.

“The nature of the human male, then, is to take opportunities, if they are granted him, for polygamous mating and to use wealth, power, and violence as means to sexual ends in the competition with other men—though usually not as the expense of sacrificing a secure monogamous relationship.”

Here’s a Nelson laugh to beta males: “[The modern woman] strives to acquire a provider husband who will invest food and care in her children while finding a lover who can give those children first-class genes.”

And a fuck you to feminists: “The assertion that ‘culture’ explains human variation will be taken seriously when there are reports of women war parties raiding villages to capture men as husbands.”

Starting Strength

I was turned on to Starting Strength by this excellent article, which explains how what you’re doing in the gym is probably not making you stronger. The book was highly detailed (nearly 60 pages on how to do a squat) and helpful with explaining proper technique, though the programming section was a bit sparse (here it is in a nutshell). While I’m no gym newbie, I am one of those guys who have been going for a while on and off and can’t say I’m getting stronger. I’m going to try this program out and report back in a few months.

Three Cups Of Deceipt

I remember a couple of years ago I’d see “Three Cups Of Tea,” a book about a white man helping build grade schools in Afghanistan, prominently displayed in bookstores. The book launched the author and his charity to lofty heights, but unfortunately it was a scam. The guy who wrote Into The Wild denounces him in a short but strong book with backing interviews and evidence. If you hate fakers and phonies like me, this book will give you a massive hard-on.

Americans are a trusting people, and here we have just another case of them getting scammed by some purported do-gooder who is nothing more than a con artist. I do have one tip for everyone: be very wary of people helping others outside their race. When a white man is gung-ho about helping Muslims or blacks or whomever, an eyebrow should be raised. No, both eyebrows!

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (free on Kindle)

The first half was interesting as we learned about how Ben built his wealth, but then it became a painful slog. I can’t recommend it. I did like this quote though:

“Human felicity is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day. This, if you teach a poor young man to shave himself, and keep his razor in order, you may contribute more to the happiness of his life than in giving him a thousand guineas.”

The Communist Manifesto (free on Kindle)

The only reason I read this was so I can drop it in conversation and have people think that I’m an intellectual. Unfortunately it’s an excruciating read. If you want to get the gist of it then check out the Spark Notes. The most important thing I learned from this book is not to read any more books over 100 years old.

HBR’s 10 Must Reads On Managing Yourself

I feel quite ripped off from this purchase. The first article by Peter Drucker was helpful (you can read it for free here), but then it was a nonstop stream of corporate-speak bullshit and self-help mumbo jumbo that is old news to anyone who’s worked in an office for a year or two. This compilation had more to do with how to be a better corporate manager than “managing yourself.” Waste of money.

50 Comments • June 8, 2011

More Book Reviews 5

By Roosh

PREVIOUSLY:

FICTION:

Collected Short Stories of Roald Dahl

I’ve become quite a fan of Roald Dahl’s writing for adults, so I couldn’t resist a book that contained just about all of his short stories (48 in all). It includes tales about war, relationships, seduction, magic substances, crazy bets, and clever men who tried to beat the system. If you have liked his previous books, My Uncle Oswald or Switch Back (the latter of which is included in this compendium), then you’ll enjoy these stories, which all clock in at 762 pages.

Child 44 (strong recommendation)

A fast-paced thriller loosely based on the serial killer Andrei Chikatilo. It tells the story of a state officer during the Stalin era who stumbles upon similar murders across large areas of Soviet Russia. His attempts to investigate the murders are thwarted since officially “there is no crime.” He’s eventually exiled to a remote post after his allegiance to the state is questioned. The author uses the murder as a device to tell you about Russia during Stalin’s rule, something I don’t remember learning much about in school. Child 44 is quite the page turner and I highly recommend it, especially if you’re curious about Russia’s history or are a fan of the book 1984.

NON-FICTION:

Man Is Wolf To Man (strong recommendation)

Are you a whiny bitch? Have you lost perspective on life? Do you complain about the stupidest shit? Then read this book, a memoir of one man’s experience after being sent to the Gulags in Russia during World War 2. Along with his prison-mates, he suffers more hardship than 1,000 modern men. Reading this has made me feel guilty for worrying and getting annoyed at what truly are insignificant matters. This book was very moving, especially since the author allows you to form your own opinions on the events instead of force-feeding you political or social commentary like other memoirists are prone to do.

The 4-Hour Workweek

It was a little eerie reading this book because I already have so many of Tim’s beliefs, and probably could’ve written something similar (as could other guys I know). I’m not saying my version would have been as good or popular, but I am a little jealous that Tim got huge because of this. I’ll give him credit though—he has introduced ideas about productivity and outsourcing to the mainstream, but the book sometimes reads like one of those free ebooks you download after giving up your email address. He only had one successful business before writing it, so a lot of the advice seems untested or otherwise borrowed (in fact he tells you to swipe content from authority sources to develop your own info product).

His advice on how to make money online is painfully basic if you’re already familiar with internet marketing, and some of it is downright harmful, like how you should invent a product and then hire a contract manufacturing company to produce it, perhaps the hardest way to make a buck. Instead of telling you to build a quality product that will withstand the test of time, he tells you to read a couple books, become an instant expert, and then shit something out with the help of Sandip your virtual assistant so you can go to Thailand for a couple months. Nonetheless, the reader stories help you realize what types of lifestyles are possible. If you’re not already familiar with the “lifestyle design” field, this book will give you some fresh ideas.

Everyday Stalinism

This book answers the question: “How was it like live in Stalinist Russia up to World War 2?” The author combs through historical records to give us an idea of the day-to-day struggles of bread lines, surveillance, denunciations, exterminations, and difficult living conditions. Sample quote:

“After an elderly photographer told his apprentices that the quality of photographic paper had been better before the revolution, one of them denounced him; he was arrested and, in December 1937, executed.”

After reading a book like this I want to conclude that Russian communism was probably the worst experiment in human history. I then sought out a biography on the man behind it all, Stalin.

Stalin: The Court Of The Red Tsar

A fascinating book where pretty much everyone dies. Seriously, everyone (the ones who don’t die either came late to the book or died shortly after Stalin’s death). What would happen after reading a few dozen pages is that I’d have to go online to dig further about the people and situations involved, to the point where I may now know more about Russian history than American history. Ultimately it gave me even more respect for Orwell’s 1984, which is pretty damn close to being what really happened in Stalinist Russia, even to the point of using someone’s worst fear to torture them. The amazing thing is Orwell wrote the book decades before the extent of Stalin’s atrocities became public. Sample quotes:

Stalin was always fascinated by the conduct of his enemies at the supreme moment, enjoying their humiliation and destruction.

—

They were killed not because of what they had done because of what they might do.

—

“Let me have one night [torturing] him and I’ll have him confessing he’s the King of England.” -Beria, head of NKVD secret police.

—

Stalin was so omnipotent that when he mispronounced a word from the podium, every subsequent speaker repeated the mistake.

—

On 2 March, Mekhlis launched his “big music” in a fiasco that proved to be the insane apogee of terror applied to military science. He banned the digging of trenches “so that the offensive spirit of the soldiers would not be undermined” and insisted that anyone who took “elementary security measures” was a “panic-monger.” All were “mashed into a bloody porridge.”

Even though it clocks in at over 800 pages, it reads like a fast-paced novel. But beware: this book describes unfathomable evil—a window to the darkest that humanity is capable of.

Griftopia (strong recommendation)

A depressing but hilarious book that describes in great detail how Americans are being butt fucked by the elite, particularly Wall Street. We are being robbed in ways that are so complicated that we don’t even know we’re being robbed.

We live in a complex bureaucratic state with complex laws and complex business practices, and the few organizations with the corporate willpower to master these complexities will inevitably own the political power.

—

With the $13-plus trillion we are estimated to ultimately spend on the bailouts, we could not only have bought and paid off every single subprime mortgage in the country (that would only have cost $1.4 trillion), we could have paid off every remaining mortgage of any kind in this country—and still have had enough money left over to buy a new hour for every American who does not already have one.

My favorite quote:

The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.

After reading this book I can’t help but conclude that America is completely, utterly, and hopelessly fucked, but hey, the truth will set me free. Or something.

Roald Dahl: A Biography

I wanted to learn more about the man so I checked out an unofficial biography. I kind of wish I didn’t because he’s not a savory character—definitely not one I’d hold up to be a role model. People describe him as rude, status-obsessed, and just an all-around unpleasant man to deal with. However, his story was interesting, especially the amount of tragedy his life has seen (he had a daughter die from measles, a son sustain brain damage from a car accident, and a wife become a near-mute after a seizure, all in a couple years’ time). My favorite parts of the book described his womanizing ways, which leaked into many of his stories.

Emergency

I thought this book was supposed to be something of a modern survival manual, but instead it’s a memoir of an extremely paranoid man. Strauss goes on nonstop about how scared, worried, and anxious he is of a catastrophic attack. The writing is competent, but it feels like I’m reading the work of a total wuss—and this is “Style” we’re talking about, author of The Game. If you consider his current business and lifestyle, raking in the big bucks with game courses and seminars, you’ll see how his intention to move permanently to St. Kitts away from the world’s dangers seems disingenuous (the only thing worse than a crappy memoir is one where you can’t even believe the author’s intentions).

Most chapters contain the same patronizing formula: “To survive a catastrophic attack, I had to learn [X], but when I was a kid I was really bad at [X], so it was especially hard for me,” a similar pattern he used in The Game. We’re supposed to believe his obsesion about surviving stems from some scarred childhood, but I’m just not buying it. I was hoping this book would have some key insights on living abroad, but the guys on my forum have ten times better advice with actual real-world experience.

The Xenophobe’s Guide To The Icelanders

I read this in a Reykjavik public library six weeks into my Iceland stay. I found myself nodding furiously, pleased that I was getting cultural explanations to what I was observing. If you are curious about Iceland or want to know more about its history and people, this is a quick read you’ll appreciate. Though it doesn’t focus on girls or pickup, it gives you a lot of “insider” knowledge that you can use for fun conversation, like the fact that some Icelanders believe actual trolls live in the mountains. I plan on checking out other Xenophobe guides as well.

25 Comments • February 25, 2011

More Books 4

By Roosh

PREVIOUSLY:

FICTION:

My Uncle Oswald (strong recommendation)

Probably the funniest book I’ve ever read. I laughed out loud so many times that reading it in public often provoked stares. It’s imaginative, clever, unpredictable, and happens to be about a guy who likes seducing women and making money. His first venture was in Blister Beetle powder, which transforms anyone who consumes it into a mindless fuck machine. I only hope that I can write a fictional book half as good as this before I die.

One Hundred Years Of Solitude

This book is written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Colombia’s most famous author and also a Nobel Prize winner. He tells the history of his country through several generations of the Buendia family, starting with the patriarch Jose Arcadio Buendia. The story is entertaining in itself but a knowledge of Latin American history—specifically Colombian—will give you a more complete experience. While not an easy read, intertwining themes of solitude, the rise and fall of civilizations, and the circular nature of history make 100 Years a rich book that feels alive in your hands as you read it.

The Time Machine (free on kindle)

A short book you can finish in only a couple settings, about a man who invents a time machine and travels to the future. The book is slow-going until we find out humans have evolved into two species, with one dominating the other. It’s an entertaining book that could’ve been improved with more interspecies sex action.

Invisible Man

I actually intended to buy H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man but accidentally got this instead. It seemed interesting so I went ahead and read it. It’s about a black man who grows up “invisible” in the Jim Crow era. He’s dealt with in a base stereotypical manner, often exploited and manipulated, and constantly fought against what society expected of him. It would have been more powerful to me if I was black, but it was still a pleasant read with some exciting moments. Unfortunately the end, which takes quite a while to get to (the book is nearly 600 pages long), didn’t provide me with a satisfying payoff. Plus there was so much symbolism thrown around that I’m pretty sure I missed a good chunk of the intended meaning.

NON-FICTION:

The War Of Art

This is a self-help book meant for creative types who find it difficult to complete the projects they’ve envisioned. The author, who has written several bestselling works, personifies the procrastination, fear, and anxiety we experience as “resistance,” a force that ensures we don’t reach our creative potential. Do you want to check your email really quick before starting your project, only have it prolong into a vicious loop of wasting time? Want to send out a few text messages in the middle of a tough work session? Want to organize your entire wardrobe instead of crack open your word processor? The author says these are all forms of resistance. I feel like this book was written specifically for me.

Kitchen Confidential (strong recommendation)

The first time I saw Anthony Bourdain’s travel show I thought, “Who the fuck is this guy?” If you told me he was a former chef I wouldn’t have known because food seemed to be more in the background than stories about locals. Since I enjoyed his show, it was an easy decision to buy the book, which chronicles his years as a chef. I was expecting a hackneyed diary but the book was funny, revealing, and well-written, telling you not only what goes in a restaurant but how to order from one (Sunday brunch is for suckers!). I worked in the bar of an upscale restaurant for a while so I can confirm that cooks and chefs really are supreme assholes like Bourdain describes.

Finding Your Zone

I noticed that I was significantly worse on my musical instrument when playing for other people, especially my instructor, than when I practice alone at home while half-naked. I knew that it was because of how I was thinking, and I greatly narrowed the performance gap by not aiming for perfection, among other things. This book gives a ton of examples of real-world athletes overcoming performance anxiety (Tiger Woods being most common) while offering easy-to-implement tips to avoid choking. A lot of concepts in this book are common in the self-help genre.

Killing Pablo

This is a thrilling book that is even more relevant after living in Medellin (most of the city was built on drug money). It details how Pablo Escobar, through his “bullet or bribe” strategy, rose to become one of the strongest men of Colombia, capable of even toppling the state. The United States got involved and while we know how the story ends, it was still exciting to read. I stayed up until 7am in the morning to finish it. If you like Black Hawk Down then you’ll enjoy this one.

The Denial of Death

I hoped this book would make it easier for me to deal with death, but it did the opposite, making me realize that my life is more meaningless than my puny animal brain could even begin to imagine. The ways I’ve sought to live a fulfilling life (by becoming a “hero”) will not lead to my salvation, and “the only way out of human conflict is full renunciation, to give one’s life as a gift to the highest powers,” which the atheist author considers to be the force of nature. He focuses exclusively on psychoanalytical commentary for how humans view life and death, with heavy emphasis on the works of Freud, Otto Rank, and Kierkegaard. It was such a slog to read that it made me wish that someone with more soothing prose like Malcolm Gladwell tackled the subject instead. Still, I did gain a lot of valuable insights into how humans like myself view and tackle the subject of death.

Making Friends With Death (strong recommendation)

This is the death book I was looking for. It teaches you how to approach death, how to meditate about it, and how to deal with people who are dying, all through a Buddhist lens. That last topic, especially, is something that you can use on relatives whose time has come. My mother has been bedside for many people who’ve died, and she unwittingly does just about everything the book recommends (it’s no accident that she has become the de facto leader when things turn grave). Her powerful recollections of what it’s like to hold someone’s hand as they take their last breath never fails to move me.

The main idea behind this book is that the only way to appreciate life is to embrace death. Don’t obsess about it, but keep it close so you’re prepared for the final “transition.” Whenever I see someone wasting their lives, not living to even 20% of their potential, I say to myself, “That man does not think of death.” I think it about it often.

24 Comments • December 13, 2010

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