I Moved Your Cheese [Paperback]

Darrel Bristow-Bovey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2003

The problem with most self-help titles is that they expect you to do all the work. Not this self-help book. This book is for people who want to take no steps at all. This is the humorous self-help book for people lying on the sofa.

Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: New Holland Books (January 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1843301652
• ISBN-13: 978-1843301653
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 4.9 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #452,671 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The lazy person's guide to helping yourself, June 28, 2003

By 

Moksh (India) - See all my reviews

This review is from: I Moved Your Cheese (Paperback)

I Moved Your Cheese, a satire on self-help books, written by Darrel Bristow-Bovey. This book has 96 pages (including last 3 pages BLANK to make the book look thicker) and has been published by New Holland Publishers (UK) Ltd (2002) and is distributed in India by Dolphin Publications.

The author, using humour, expresses his utter contempt for self-help books and those who read them and adds that the problem with the self-help books that litter the shelves of the bookstores and bedside tables of the nation, besides the fact that they are poorly written by unattractive authors, is that they expect you to do all the work. You are required to read them, remember key words, and perhaps even put their teachings into practice in everyday life.

The title I Moved Your Cheese implies a direct attack on the similarly named `Who Moved My Cheese?' by Dr. Spencer Johnson, a self-help book about dealing with change. But Darrel Bristow-Bovey has not limited himself to ridiculing just this; he makes disdainful references to Deepak Chopra and other self-proclaimed `gurus'.

I Moved Your Cheese is a total laugh riot. Darrel Bristow-Bovey, with his absurdly funny anecdotes and instances, will not disappoint readers seeking ridiculous humour. His chapter about the mango-throwing wise guy guru is hysterically funny and his take on Oprah and feng shui will have you sniggering smugly in your couch. His other stories about the Xam, his neighbour Bill, and his friend Chunko are sidesplitting. Instead of writing words of wisdom in cheese, like his forerunner, the author is found sardonically writing in the sand. Across the book, he is yelling, "Who moved my keys?" "I moved your geese" and other deliberately mocking lines.

And of course the process of "Osmatix", which the author himself has patented. The process where the reader not need read this book but should simply buy this book and keep it in a prominent position will make him/her a brighter, happier and more desirable person. Since, the pages have been treated with a revolutionary new formula that allows wisdom to pass directly from the page into the atmosphere, where it can be easily inhaled from any position.

With hilarity oozing from cover to cover, this book is a must-read for those who enjoy humour at it's mirthful best.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you've ever had a self-help book given to you, October 10, 2003

By 

C. Han "churl" (East Lansing, MI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: I Moved Your Cheese (Paperback)

The title is a parody of "Who Moved My Cheese?" by Spencer Johnson, but it doesn't stop at the title. Bristow-Bovey takes attack at self-help books with this work, which provides so much humor that every time you see someone reading a self-help book, you won't be able to stop chuckling. There is a story in the book about embrasing your inner ostrich egg, and it's absolutely precious. It encapsulates everything terrible about self-help books, but is so witty and well-crafted that I'm sure there's someone out there who took notes and is telling himself right now that he needs to embrace his inner ostrich egg.

If someone ever had the nerve to give you a self-help book, you should get them this book in return.

This book is sort of hard to get ahold of, so in spite of the warnings that Osmatix (a patented chemical treatment that allows you to benefit from the book without even reading it) is for one person only, I was forced to lend this book out. You won't read another self-help book after this.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Makes you laugh - that helps, doesn't it? :-), February 11, 2004

By 

Anand Subramaniam (Chennai, INDIA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: I Moved Your Cheese (Paperback)

Despite repeated claims that "...this is not a self-help book", Darrel Bristow-Bovey has come up with what is probably the most universally applicable self-help book in existence today.

From start to finish, this book is a riot. The moment you read his acknowledgements and a list of prospective books yet to be written by him, you know that the author isn't planning on pulling any punches. Continuously parodying Spencer Johnson's altogether more serious "Who Moved My Cheese?", this book takes things even further by poking fun at almost every self-help book written, and takes a few swipes at social icons like Oprah for good measure. The irreverent, even farcical tone of the book is highlighted when the author speaks about patenting "Osmatix", a revolutionary chemical with which the pages have been treated so that it helps you even if you don't read it.

But once you accept the fact that this is a book meant to make you laugh, and NOT to make too much conventional sense, you'll enjoy every bit of it. Yeah, even if you like self-help books. Bristow-Bovey's acidic humor drips off every sentence, and hardly a page goes by without you having to catch your breath after busting our guts laughing. You'll shake your head in amazement at his pseudo-scientific dissection of self-help books as a breed, and itch to dispense bits of advise to friends (and enemies) about "embracing their inner ostrich egg".

But the irony of it all is that in writing a book to dash your faith in the self-help genre, Bristow-Bovey has delivered a book that delivers the simplest self-help formula of them all - Read something funny, laugh aloud, feel better.

Try it. Heck, it works... and it involves a lot less work than anything else of its kind on the racks. Take a bow, Darrel.