Academic English BBA

Book Review Essay

Appreciate and Smile

How to Win Friends & Influence People, Dale Carnegie, 1936

“Let's not allow ourselves to be upset by small things we should despise and forget.

Remember Life is too short to be little.” This is one of the most powerful quotes said by Dale

Carnegie, which I realized and visualized because it’s corona time. Sounds weird right? But

this is what I actually related to. Let's talk about the book, “How to Win Friends & Influence

People” is one of the best seller books of all the time, over 15 million official copies have

been sold till today’s date. Dale Carnegie (1888-1955) was an American self-help book

writer, lecturer, motivational speaker. He has written many popular books during his lifetime.

The books like “Public Speaking and Influencing Men of Business”, “How to stop worrying

& start living”, “Lincoln the Unknown”, “Five Minute Biographies”, “Biographical

Roundup” etc. Despite from poor family background, he was able to gain name, fame and

prosperity, only because of his determination, hard work, passion and uniqueness. (The

Biography.com website, 2014) If you think you are lacking something in your life, you must

read this book not only once but thrice.

“How to Win Friends & Influence People” is a self-help book, which comes under the

non-fiction category. The author says, “during the first 35 years of the 20th century, the

publishing house of America printed millions of books of different genres". Most of them

were a total flop then Carnegie did a lot of research as he was also running the motivation

speech classes in New York, as a result, we have this book. (Carnegie, 1936, p9) and who

would know that time this book will rock the world. This book is all about the four main

ideas and they are “Techniques to handle people”, “6 ways to people like you”, “how to win
people to your way of thinking”, “be a leader”. Here the author has given his own examples

to illustrate each point smoothly and get the attention of the readers. This book says us to be

polite to others, smile, appreciate others, and never criticize. This is a universal truth that

every person loves themselves the most in this world, here the book teaches us about, to think

not only in our perspective but to think from the others (listeners) perspective and start

appreciating them. In simple terms, we can tell this book as our best friend. I must say this

book is worth reading. This is one of the best books which I have read ever in my life and the

credit goes to my dad and Ms. Quinn Stout because my dad gave me this book a year ago to

read but I kept it in a drawer instead of reading and when I got an assignment to write a book

review essay, I had to read it.

To be honest, I am totally impressed by the author’s perspective and the way he tells

every complex thing in a simple term. In part 3, subheader 3, there is one topic named, “If

you are wrong, admit it”, isn’t this sound really simple? But this is the hardest thing to do. I

am overwhelmed by how the author has explained. Once he was going for a walk in the forest

park with his dog named, ‘Rex’. That park was usually quiet, hardly people used to go there.

So, Rex was taken without a leash or muzzle which was obviously against the law. One

evening the police officer saw free Rex and author. The officer warned that Rex could bite

the children or harm the squirrel so, it will be unsafe for him to set free. Again, after some

days the author and the Rex (without a leash) were roaming in the park and the same police

officer saw them. Before the officer says something, Carnegie went to him and in a polite

way, he admitted his fault and apologized. By this act, he was given another chance without

any fine. Despite the police officer said Rex is just a small cute dog, why he would harm any

children or a squirrel. By this incident, author told the readers that it is a far good and easy

way to criticize yourself rather than someone criticizing you. This point is lit. I just loved the

story and the moral he tried to deliver. (Carnegie, 1936, p111)

 Likewise, the subtopics in this book are quite interesting that anyone would be

attracted and be compelled to read what's inside. One of the weird topics I found was, “Give a

dog a good name”. Can you imagine what would the content for this topic? Simply, people

would think that the author must have given some examples or told something about the

dogs. But I was amazed to read it, there was nothing about the dog, not even the cat. The

story was totally different, motivating, emotional and inspiring at the same time. This topic

contains the content about praising others and how a girl named ‘Marie the Dishwasher'

changed her life only because of simple praising words. She was married to the niece of the

hotel owner. It's just amazing; amazing than a Disney movie. (Carnegie, 1936, p183)

Furthermore, the entire theme, the concept of this book is just awesome. As I have

already mentioned above, Carnegie has given his own examples to relate to any topic. This

book has a good presentation, innovative thought and yes one thing for sure, the author has an

immense idea to capture the reader's attention, once you start reading, your brain is captured

by the book; you are not allowed to distract. The main header, subheaders, topics sound

interesting and fascinated. Carnegie has simply written all the things we already know and

see. But the thing is we never realized and implement them in our daily life, and this is what

the book did. It has the potential to capture reader’s emotions and make them able to realize

the things they do, speak and behave. Also, each topic contains hardly 5 to 7 pages. This is a

plus point of the book. I am the one, who hates to read long topics so if you are like me. This

book is for you.

The only thing which bothered me was the wide and hard range of vocabulary. For a

single topic, I had to Google for more than 10 times and trust me it's really irritating. I know

this is my weakness too but there are many non-native English speakers and they will face the

same problem as mine while reading this book. The author could use simpler words instead

of using such a hard word. There were many words which I had never heard in my life. So, I
strongly recommend, if you are a non-native English speaker then be ready with your search

engines either Google or dictionary before starting this book because you will be needing this

tool many times.

I have collected one review about this book from the Youtuber; Martin Sosa says,

“You can pick this up if you want to be in the same boat and that boat is friendship.”

(PeakYourMind, 2014). There are many peoples who have given ratings and reviews for this

book or for the work of Dale Carnegie. I asked my dad about his opinion regarding this book

and he said, “The title itself is more than enough to know the significance of this book, it is

very important in our practical life to influence others for goodwill and without any doubt, it

has helped me upgrade my life.”

To sum up, this book is worth reading, you will never regret reading it. Many people

have changed their life by reading this book. I would give this book 4 stars out of 5. What I

personally felt is, your opinion or perception towards the people will dramatically change

after reading this book. It's for sure that every person got a different taste, not everyone will

appreciate this book but I am sure 99% of people will. If you follow all the instructions

mentioned in this book, probably everyone will start loving you, appreciating you. Smiling is

the key mantra. I would recommend this book to some of my friends and those who are

having a problem, dealing with people. I repeat, if you think you are lacking something in

your life, you must read this book not only once but thrice.

References

The Biography.com website (2014) Dale Carnegie Biography, available from

https://www.biography.com/writer/dale-carnegie, [Accessed 5 April 2020].
Carnegie, D. (1936) How to Win Friends & Influence People, New York, Simon and
Schuster, pp9-13, 111-116, 183-186
PeakYourMind (2014). How to Win Friends and Influence People Book
Recommendation/Review. Youtube [video] 03 September. Available from:
https://youtu.be/NeDJf7NNp7E [Accessed 05 April 2020].