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5 stars for marketing for a book with a few insights I can see why this book is causing some mixed reviews... I fundamentally agree with the Amazon reviewers that think this is a book whose object somehow also includes itself. It is also true that you can find much of this book online, if you just do a quick search with Google. So, there is no serious need to purchase this booklet, which I guess may still be an interesting addition to one's library, maybe something to attract your guests' attention if you leave it on the coffee table in your dining room. I suspect this is the reason why this book is so popular. Days after the New York Times published a review, you already have to wait two or three weeks before receiving it from Amazon. It sold rather quickly. I wonder if the same would have happened if the title had been "On nonsense", or "On the prevalence of superficial thoughts", or something like this, with only a brief remark about the fact that the title also referred to what we call B.S. But you WILL find here some "deep thougths" such as the following: "Why is there so much B.S.? Of course it is impossible to be sure that there is relatively more of it nowadays than at other times. There is more communication of all kinds in our time than ever before, but the proportion that is B.S. may not have increased." Or "B.S. is unavoidable whenever circumstances require someone to talk without knowing what he is talking about. Thus the production of B.S. is stimulated whenever a person's obligations or opportunities to speak about some topic are more excessive than his knowledge of the facts that are relevant to that topic. This discrepancy is common in public life, where people are frequently impelled - whether by their own propensities or by the demands of others - to speak extensively about matters of which they are to some degree ignorant." So, it seems to me that this booklet is just a collection of thoughts about the general fact that people of all kinds and periods find easier to talk superficially about things, rather than spending time looking for depth. But, at the end of the day, we *all* are to some extent *always* talking about "matters of which they are to some degree ignorant". There is nothing that we completely and absolutely know. Not even ourselves. The author rightly points out that "As conscious beings, we exist only in response to other things, and we cannot know ourselves at all without knowing them. Moreover, there is nothing in theory, and certainly nothing in experience, to support the extraordinary judgment that it is the truth about himself that is the easiest for a person to know.". Overall, it seems to me that it's just all nonsense, to some extent (including this review, of course), at least if you do not believe in some God. So, even if I can think of many better ways to spend the nine bucks this booklet costs, I can also think of many worst ways. I am not really sure the author's theory on B.S. makes any sense, but reading a few pages of this book may generate in your mind some interesting thoghts about the nature of reality, truth and lies.