Your Call Is Important to Us : The Truth about Bullshit [Paperback]

Laura Penny (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: McClelland & Stewart; 2nd THUS edition (2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 077107042X
• ISBN-13: 978-0771070426
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,639,461 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not as bad as all the reviewers' venom would have you believe, August 2, 2005

By 

Bill Lewin (Boone, NC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Your Call Is Important to Us: The Truth About Bullshit (Hardcover)

This book intends to be funny and sarcastic, which it is. True, as another reviewer mentioned, it offers little by way of suggestions as to how to combat empty language (for that, see The Evasion English Dictionary by Maggie Balistreri), but the author's purpose is met and she does a fine job. The tone is an amped-up NPR commentary, maybe an underground radio rant. Perhaps some of the negative reviews here have to do with the subtitle's curse word. People, if you're scandalized by cussin', judge this book by its cover and leave it be.

67 of 78 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Truth Hurts, July 28, 2005

By 

K Stein (Albuquerque, NM) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Your Call Is Important to Us: The Truth About Bullshit (Hardcover)

Good, crisp writing- witty and acerbic at times, but an interesting read overall. The disparaging comments I read are typical American blathering hyperbole fueled by the "I-hate-anything- that-criticizes-the-United-States-of-Americorporation." Ms. Penny has done an excellent job of describing the systemic infection of greed driven lies that has eaten away the true moral** infrastructure of America.
(**I hesitate using this term because it is bandied about so much these days that it has become a political cliche')

62 of 74 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not Bad...., July 25, 2005

By 

Small Tax Maps (Dunbarton, NH) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Your Call Is Important to Us: The Truth About Bullshit (Hardcover)

In these times of great technological advances, the masses have the ability to knock Kings & Queens from their socialist ivory towers. Sometimes the stones deserve to be thrown, as in the case of Ward Churchill. Ms. Penny does not.

Ideologues of both stripes pop up far too often on Amazon from Free Republic & Democratic Underground, tossing meaningless 1 star reviews. Anyone that's not in a persistent vegetative state can figure out for himself or herself if something is biased. This book is & that's OK.

I actually read the book & yes, some of the information is found elsewhere & the statistics & studies mentioned (shockingly) back up her points. The book is a well-written & funny opinion piece, in the tradition of Fran Liebowitz, not Michael Moore or Naomi Klein. It's old-school. No solutions are put forward, no one is asked to march on the evil corporations & there's no recipe for papier-māché effigies inside. I look forward to her next rant.