Customer Reviews

H+ (Plus) A New Religion?: How to Live Your Life Positively Through Happiness, Humour, Help, Hope, Health

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I bought this book recently - a very novel concept wherein he advocates a new way of living that will make one feel more happy (we all are seeking happiness aren't we) and have a sense of achievement and fulfillment.

The book is written in a very simple style - which is both good and bad. It makes very easy reading (and easy implementation in one's life) but at the end, leaves you with a sense of incompleteness in terms of content of the book - very unlike some of his earlier work.

Around the basic concept, he has woven an external jacket of a religion which he calls H+. Health, Humor, Happiness, Help and Hope are pillars of his proposition.

The book gives URLs where you dont get anything. :-)

Amazon showed the date of publication as Jan 23, 2007 ???!!!

In "H+" DeBono proposes a new belief system based on positive energy. He calls his new religion: H+. H stands for the six principles Human, Happiness, Humor, Help, Hope and Health. Halfway his book he defines the term PON as the opposite of a sin. A pon is a positive action done on the spur of the moment. He believes that if everyone would try to do as much pons per day as possible then the positive energy would improve the world. A nice idea.

The book is very thin, just about 100 pages. There are not much words on each page, so I finished reading it without about half an hour. The language is simple and sometimes I'm not sure whether DeBono is serious or he just wrote this book based on the Humour principle (and thinks that people who buy it are enormously funny, especially people who then still spend time writing an Amazon review!).

I didn't found the book very special, but I found it worth reading still. Not because of the H+ religion, though the idea is interesting, but just because of a couple of sentences and chapters. I really liked the hapiness chapter, which was one of the first. Simple, well formulated statements like "Hapiness needs to become a deliberate habit and not just the feeling when everything is perfect" and silly ideas like the Hapiness rating for movies is what, for me, made the book worth reading (considering that it didn't take me more than half an hour).

So, when you're a DeBono fanatic or just need an interesting read for half an hour. Pick up this book. When you want a really good book or something more serious. This is not the book for you.

In his book H+ Edward de Bono suggests a new religion that proposes focus areas that might make people lead richer lives.

He draws from his many years of experience talking to a wide variety of people, and this comes out in the book because he does not get overly concerned with minor details or single issues.

Some people will feel threatened by the simple, positive message and some will be inspired by it.

I kept reading in disbelief. True, it is only half an hour wasted from your life (and in my case the book was free) but... no no no. De Bono comes across as self-serving, smug and patronising. 'Kiddies don't worry about all those silly religions telling you to be good people, if you just do a few nice things each day you will become happy'.

He mentions Buddhism and 'other religions' (ie that one where you will burn in hell if you sin) a couple of times to prove how much better H+ is. Sure religions have been abused but the doctrines of Jesus, Mohammad, Buddha etc all give very clear instructions on actions to take to be a better person in a better world and they are well-thought out, and they all work. If you DO them. Sure most people don't do them very well or all of the time, because we are all human.

No religion advocates becoming a hermit in the desert, at least not as a typical way of life, as De Bono implies. And none of them are just about naval-gazing self-improvement (though of course they all can be used in that way). Perhaps he thinks most of us are incapable of following the Buddhist precepts or the ten commandments so we must set the bar very very low and help an old lady or two across the road each day. Because it is through grand achievements like that that we will build our self-esteem.

And yes, prosletysing IS counted as an achievement in this religion so go right ahead and sell his books for him. Oh and if you don't, just pay him some more money as a 'fine' each day. Better still, become a local 'energiser' and you can go a 60/40 split with him on the 'fines'. Ha ha, I just can't believe this crappy little book. De Bono's attempt at becoming a cult leader. Judging by the facebook page it hasn't worked.

I bought this "book" on e-bay unseen and wasted $20 (including postage). This must be one of the silliest non-fiction books around. If anybody (apart from de Bono) submitted this as a manuscript to a publisher, they would laugh their heads off ... Would not even make an interesting article, but streched out as a "book", all 80 or so pages of it, written double-spaced, really meaning that as a normal book it would have only 40 pages! Total waste of paper ... Stay away ...