Customer Reviews

The Art of Cheating: A Nasty Little Book for Tricky Little Schemers and Their Hapless Victims

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Forget all that stuff you've heard about the "new Bonnie and Clyde." Those two are idiots anyway, especially if they didn't realize that this book was written to provide laughs, not to serve as an "Anarchist's Cookbook" for wannabe grifters. Author Jones has an arch, witty style that's lots of fun to read, but she's full of facts, too. The "Would I Lie" sections that end each chapter are well worth the price of admission on their own. These brief run-downs of real-life examples of a given "cheat" from recent and past history are a hoot -- and they show that a lot of research went into this little volume. After a perusal of the whole thing, well, let's just say the record shows that your chances of getting away with evildoing are pretty slim. Oh, and one more thing: I love the elegant design of "The Art of Cheating," complete with ultra-clever cartoons by a New Yorker contributor.

Very funny and all too accurate. It may be a parody of how-tos, but this is definitely a book you could imagine finding yourself consulting in a pinch. Or maybe that's just me, although my favorite part of each cheat is really the downside. Beneath the pleasantly amoral tone, there's the underlying message: doing the wrong thing is generally its own punishment.

Illustration and design are really sweet. Altogether, kind of a
"Dangerous Book" for grownups. A great gift book--my list definitely has a few people on it who deserve and/or need this book. And it beats a lump of coal.

Gives you a good heads up on how to spot a fake or criminal.
Useful for apartment managers or small business owners!
Helpful book.

I am surprised that so many people are taking this book so seriously. It's a very funny, wry look at the little ways in which the average joe can cheat. Hardly a how-to guide regarding identity theft! An easy, enjoyable, minorly wicked read!

this book is a joke. with little "jewels" of information like:

when trying to get a date through an online dating service, try lying about your age, height, weight or profession. this will increase your odds.

trying to cheat on taxes? try underreporting your earnings or exaggerating your business expenses.

wow! truly illuminating!!!

This is a very funny book. I got an advance copy and totally enjoyed it. Ms. Jones has a clever thoughtful take on the secret aspects of everyday life. This isn't so much a "How To" book (although there is a bit of that) as a frank and humorous discussion of the various forms of cheating that we engage in. Several of her discussions are laugh-out-loud funny. I agree with the other reviewer, this would make a great gift.

This book is the perfect example of what leaps the slush pile, through the many "editors" and into print from the "major" publishers. Ms. Dorfmann must have thought, "hey, I've packaged enough trite, silly, pretentious books... why not write one myself?" A few calls to her associates and voila, her "parody" was born. One problem: parody, Ms. Dorfmann, is funny, and your book is not. No matter, the sketches are good and that table leg is a bit shorter than the other, so the least we flyover peons can do is buy this book, don't you think? After all, as Ms. Dormann has learned, we buy all manner of dreck, why not then her dreck? Why not, indeed?

Let's face it, the world loves a stylish cheater.
Danny Almonte - the "12" year old little league pitcher with a 70 mph fastball, Tonya "sis-boom-bah-smash-her-in-the-leg" Harding, and our favorite cheater of all: Rosie Ruiz - taking the subway during the NYC Marathon. Fabulous! But not all of us can cheat with such panache!

Jessica Jones' fantastic "how-to" guide not only provides insight on how to cheat, but also - and frankly more significantly - gives the reader very helpful tips on how not to get caught and what to do if you do. This book is witty and snarky and I found myself laughing out loud through many of the chapters.

This anti-self-help book is a fra-diavolo for the soul.

I think EVERY buisness person or employer should read this. Not particularly for what you may be able to glean from others, but,more importantly, to gain a tangible understanding of how a person might cheat,lie, or swindle YOU. It's a pretty sad fact that there will be people that buy this book to attempt to somehow enrich their lives by stealing from honest people. These people WILL get caught eventually and when they do, justice will down on them like a jackhammer.
This book will certainly raise the awareness of an honest person therefore possibly saving someone a terrible ordeal.

I do not share the scorn that CNN is making so much of in its nasty (but valuable to sales of the book) treatment.

The fact is that the U.S. *has* become a The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead and both our government and our corporations are totally corrupt and without ethical grounding.

Below are just a few of the books that support the larger context for this little book. If you are worried about being cheated, it might help you spot situations--hopefully you will understand that the greatest lesson of history that Will and Ariel Durant found was that morality has a strategic value that is incalculable. A Nobel Prize was given to a man who demonstrated that trust lowers the cost of doing business.

See my other reviews and lists for a sense the good, the bad, and the ugly that we endure going into a 2008 Presidential race where not a single one of the candidates is forming a shadow cabinet, putting together a ten-year balanced budget, or talking about the ten high-level threats to humanity, the urgency of harmonizing our policies, and the plain fact that if we do not help Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, and Venezuela, and Wild Cards like Pakistan.

Other relevant books:
The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
The Global Class War: How America's Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future - and What It Will Take to Win It Back
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency
Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq
Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin
Web of Deceit: The History of Western Complicity in Iraq, from Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush
Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion

Bottom line: this book is like a gun. It is the reader, not the book, that will decide whether they are immoral and unethical. On balance I think this book is humorous rather than malicious.