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Provocative Title Reveals Topic Worthy of Deeper Discussion Professor Harry Frankfurt has come up with a compact winner with this provocatively titled tome, all of eighty pages, about a subject around which we all seem to have a vast amount of experience. As a professional philosopher who has earned emeritus status at Princeton University, he surely must be a master at this topic and sets about to prove it by discussing it with irony, broad humor and a cheekiness that ultimately brings a certain seriousness to his work. He is especially effective in portraying the mental improvisation we go through when asked unexpected questions that require thoughtfulness. Whether it is within the context of a political opinion or literary analysis, the very act he discusses actually provides great motivation for someone to learn more about what he or she is saying. What Frankfurt does is take his analysis several steps further by saying his subject, if left unaddressed, will lead to such an altered perception of reality that we will not know what reality is. His argument about his subject as an indictment has merit, though at times, he seems to be carried away with his own rhapsodizing, rather ironic given the topic. According to the author, the very lack of sincerity in some schools of thought, epitomized by the rise of Nazism, for example, has led to a retreat from the ideal of correctness. I would have never thought of Nazism as the result of common BS, but Frankfurt makes this thinking seem entirely logical and that indeed it is a bigger threat than the outright lie. But he does not dwell on the delivery of such a message, as BS is more easily detectable than a lie, at least from most perspectives. A master at this topic fakes opinions with finesse, but he or she does not necessarily get things wrong. That is exactly the threat described perceptively by the author as "a lack of connection to a concern with truth". In essence, the search for truth becomes a moot point when there is no concern in finding it. I applaud Frankfurt for his audacious and attentive little book, as it reflects a fertile mind taking on a subject we all know intimately but rarely take so seriously. Highly recommended commuter reading.