Law of Attraction: The Science of Attracting More of What You Want and Less of What You Don’t

Amazon User Review: “Out of all the books, tapes, and resources that I’ve purchased on the topic of ‘creating your ideal life’, Michael Losier’s ‘Law of Attraction’ is the absolute best ‘nuts-and-bolts’ treatment I’ve ever read. Period.”

Based on the amount of phrases in quotations the above reviewer used, he’s either being incredibly sarcastic, or he’s trying to sell me drugs. The third alternative— that they’re actually excited about a book so bad it had to rip off The Secret— is too depressing for me to acknowledge. Honestly, how many dozens of these power of positive thinking books are neccesary? And keep in mind that they’re not the realistic, helpful sort of “Believe in yourself” books. They are the ones that are very literal about it, about how the great minds of the world only succeed because they pray about it really hard, and how poor people don’t have food because they forgot to think hard enough about how good it would be to eat.

This kind of “Wish yourself thin— no, wish harder” nonsense attracts such a predictable market, I’m not sure why they don’t bundle this book with a copy of the DaVinci code, a Dr. Phil tome and a bottle of cheap red wine and sell it as The Housewife Combo.

90 Minutes In Heaven: An Inspiring Story of Life Beyond Death

Amazon User Review: This is a welcome book to add to anyone’s library… a ‘go to’ when encouragement runs out the back door until only a mist is left in the house. I recommend this book to anyone who wishes to feel better about their efforts to worship our Lord and Saviour.

I feel the tiniest bit guilty for going out of my way to mock something that must be helping SOMEONE cope with death, but two things make me feel less bad:

A) It’s a ridiculous, cloying title that I am physically incapable of taking seriously, and
B) The author is probably a much bigger asshole than I am.

In fact, most of the non-glowing Amazon user reviews make mention that the majority of the book is about the author recovering from a car accident. It’s almost like he shoehorned in a bunch of pearly gates crap a straightforward memoir about physical therapy and the power of believing in yourself, because “One Step At A Time: A Story of Recovery” would sell much worse than “I’ve Been To Heaven And You Haven’t: The Book.”

Amount of Distraction Time Offered: A heck of a lot less than 90 minutes, I’ll say that much! A ha ha ha.

23 Minutes in Hell

Oh, Give me a fucking break.

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If you’re like me, and you are constantly in line at the pharmacy trying to cash in index cards with “500 Percocets, please” written on them, then you know that the pill line is, impossibly, even stupider and more depressing than the rest of the store.

During my average seven hours per day waiting in the world’s slowest line, I have a lot of time to kill. I spend most of the time staring dead-eyed at the endless rows of books targeted specifically at the elderly and the heavily-medicated. Below is a brief sample of some of the more mind-numbing entries, along with approximitely how much time they will help you kill (Hint: not nearly enough).

Fun Bible Sudoku

Amazon User Review: How do they think of these things? Like a famous song says, ‘best of both worlds.’ You get to test your Bible trivia and playsudoku.

Never say that the religious publishing industry is not quick on its feet. The biblical crossword book is a gimme, considering that if you made a venn diagram of people who can’t do a normal crossword and people who prefer puzzles where the answer to every clue is “Jesus,” you’d end up with a single circle.

But what to do with that mysterious riddle-grid from the mist-shrouded Orient, the sudoku? Clearly, “Not cashing in” was not an option, so the good people at Barbour Publishing did the next best thing: awkwardly cram biblical questions into a friggin’ number puzzle. Oh, also, they give you the book and verse number where the answer can be found.

This is a great example of how to turn lemons into lemonade in as little time as possible. This book is the equivelent of just dumping a lemon into a bucket of pond water and trying to sell it at the beach.

Amount of Distraction Time Offered: In seconds, the same amount of sons Blohezial’s wife Cartoria bore him (John 8:44)

Over the Next Hill And Still Rolling: Jolly Jokes for (Not So) Older Folks

Amazon User Review: Actually, there are zero reviews for this book, which is the same number of
letters my grandkids have sent me this year (Zing!)

Let me start this off by saying that I have nothing against old people. There’s nothing better than old guys, because they don’t give a shit what you think. I can’t wait until I’m eighty, when no cop will arrest me for drinking bourbon in public and I can hit on college girls and everyone will just think it’s charming.

That being said, it turns out that most people are idiots, and growing older isn’t going to change that. The Teenage Soup For The Lip-Gloss Aficionado’s Soul reader of today is the “Over The Next Hill And Still Rolling” reader of tommorow.

Maybe I’m being too harsh. Maybe there are actually some excellent bon mots about golf or some dark humor about the elderly behind that innocuous cover:

Little boy: Grandpa, were you on the ark?

Grandpa: Of course not!

Little Boy: Then how come you weren’t drowned?

Or maybe there’s a lot of stupid shit like that.

Amount of Distraction Time Offered: About six minutes, which is how long it should take to read
the entire title, and then stop laughing at how incredibly humorous it is.

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