Wednesday, May 21, 2014

possibly not the best method, but very effective

So, I have been told that I have a very peculiar process of how I decide to buy a book that I'm interested in.
First, I go to a myriad of sellers that offer the book (Amazon is the most convenient though), then do nothing but scour the reviews.  Sadly, to some it is regrettable that I will never, EVER read any positive reviews for it whatsoever.  If I'm interested enough to even consider purchasing a book, I've already heard enough good things about it.  I buy books purely based on reading negative reviews on it.  I scour them looking for these major identifiers:
  1. If the reviewer cites no quotes or sources for his criticisms, then the book is already one step closer to being my property. 
  2. If the reviewer cannot type, spell, or construct a sentence to the point that it is legible by anyone with more than a two digit IQ, the book is certainly worth buying. 
  3. If the reviewer's only major critique involves emotional pleas to avoid some irrational phobia they have that they assume you share (hoplophobia, xenophobia, eleutherophobia, etc.).
  4. If the reviewer's only major argument is to bash the author because they are white, black, yellow, conservative, communist, or otherwise don't like them, without referencing the material or subject of the book, then it's definitely worth buying.
  5. If the reviewer's argument laughs in the face of deductive reasoning. 
Recently I bought Bayou Renaissance Mans's book, Walls, Wire, Bars and Souls: A Chaplain Looks At Prison Life, and I did so purely on the (lack of) strength in this negative review:
Sounds like this guy wet himself because he's in denial about inmates being scary.

Wow.  Where do I begin?  So, this guy read a book about a guy's experiences with the most reprehensible people in our society who are locked up because it's been proven that they cannot function as honest people like the rest of society, then has the balls to equate the author to a Nazi because he simply states the details of this truth?  Never mind the fact that the whole reason the Nazis were vilified was because they illegitimately accused a whole innocent race for crimes they could not have done then tried to kill them all.  He then tries to play it down by saying it's an exaggeration, but it's clearly the whole point he wanted to get across in the review.  What a winning intellect on McBookerson's part!  I hope he never has to make an ethical decision in his life, as he just proved within the space of three sentences that he not only doesn't know what a Nazi is, but that he might be more like one than the author he just tried to compare to them.
For the sake of others without my same method of purchasing, I hit that NO button on the "was this review helpful to you?" question so hard I may have broken my mouse.  But in the end I have to thank you, Ready McIdiot.  You have furthered the cause of another good author getting good money for a good book.  

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