[AlexAmee]

From my standpoint, this is one of the most overrated books of all times.

I stopped reading it somewhere in the middle because it did not tell me anything new at all.

I understand we are all different and have our strengths and weaknesses, what is totally obvious to you is probably a new concept to me.

[fdw]

I agree that most of the advice is pretty obvious if you reflect on your and other people's behavior. Also, I grew pretty tired of always using a string of anecdotes as support. Sometimes they don't even seem to fit the current chapter.

However, I think the important point of the book is that Carnegie succinctly collects a small number of behaviors that will improve your social life if you apply them. So you might not learn something new in the book, but hopefully it will teach you to focus on these known things instead.

[yesenadam]

"Most overrated" - means that you've heard from a lot of people who liked it a lot more than you, got a lot out of it.

I read a lot of movie user reviews on IMDb, and often people rant angrily about incredibly overrated movies, with the impression they're saying something about the movie and not about themselves. Maybe they feel smarter or better than the people who liked it. As if not being able to appreciate something is a virtue.

Anyway, why try to stop people reading a book millions have learnt something from?

[AlexAmee]

> Anyway, why try to stop people reading a book millions have learnt something from?

That was not my intention, to stop someone from reading it. I explicitly said that:

> I understand we are all different and have our strengths and weaknesses, what is totally obvious to you is probably a new concept to me.

[yesenadam]

Sure, I understand. But a comment saying just "I learnt nothing from that book." wouldn't be worth posting on here, not substantive. People talking about overratedness sound like they're on a mission to right a wrong. I appreciated your change of tack; originally I had sentences in my previous comment saying your first sentence read like you wrote it before you read the book, and your third like you wrote it after, but I deleted them. :-)

It is fascinating though how the most common subject in lists like this on here seems to be How to Win Friends and people saying it's great, other people saying it's overrated, not worth reading. Another thing I learnt from those movie reviews was that someone writing about why they love something is usually far more worth reading—is for much better reasons, says more about the thing—than someone not liking it, which often depends on arbitrary personal factors - not being advanced enough to appreciate it, being too advanced, feeling misled by the advertising or word-of-mouth, preferring or being used to a different style etc

[AlexAmee]

I thought about my comment and also yours, you made think about why I wrote this.

I probably want other readers to remind that they should not blindly trust recommendations from HN.

Edit: If everyone agree's on something, new readers will more likely accept the fact that this book is worth buying, but if a few say the opposite, the reader has to evaluate before buying.

I once bought the book 'garry kasparov - how life imitates chess' because of HN reviews, It was probably the worst book I've ever read, full of obvious things.

[reboog711]

Which book are referring to? Human Relationships or the Dale Carnegie book?

[AlexAmee]

Dale Carnegie