The Cheesy Industry

What began as a thin self-help book has grown into a major business. Is the rat race really this simple?

It seems to be the fate of certain best sellers--the ones that propose to reveal the secrets of life in seven easy steps--to live on not for the lessons they impart but as poignant reminders of a cultural period. How to Win Friends & Influence People evokes a time of polyester salesmen tooling through leafy suburbs in aqua Buicks, hawking insurance policies and vacuum cleaners. Jonathan Livingston Seagull takes us back to an era when vegetarians in Earth Shoes tramped the countryside stalking the wild asparagus. Easy to read and easier to forget, they are books we look back on shaking...

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