Sun Tzu Was a Sissy : Conquer Your Enemies, Promote Your Friends, and Wage the Real Art of War

Rating:
Summary: Should have been titled "Sun Tzu Was A Tzissy"
Review: This book is very funny, although as I read it, I was not always able to gauge when the author was trying to make a serious point. Therefore, I read it as if it was a satire throughout and completed it in a day. Sun Tzu was a Chinese general who lived sometime around 500 BC and his classic text, "The Art of War", is still used to train military leaders. However, it is as much a text of philosophy as it is of battlefield tactics, so many have adapted his principles to other facets of life.
Bing uses the business world as his backdrop, placing everything into a military context. Of course it is all a joke, there are chapters on the adversarial qualities of short people, tall people, fat people and skinny people. All in good clean fun, although like all humor, someone somewhere will take offence. Puns are scattered throughout, many based on using the "tz" prefix as a substitute for an "s". For example, on page 150, there is the sentence: "If the enemy is unprepared, you may reveal yourself and attack, Tzays Tzu, and there is a good possibility of Tzuccess. If, . . . engagement without success immediately renders battle Tzummarily impossible . . " I wonder why the title of the book wasn't, "Sun Tzu Was a Tzissy."
My favorite pun is on page 145. Shih is an ancient Chinese philosophical notion defined as, "shih was the elegance of knowledge, the insight and skill to organize knowledge into meaningful patterns." Bing explains what shih is, relates it to the modern business world and then has the classic line, "Face it. You're full of shih." I roared with laughter at that one.
If you want some serious fun to be poked at modern business methods with an occasional jab by a sharpened prod straight to your pompous essentials, then this is the book for you. It may not help your business, but it is guaranteed to help your disposition.

Rating:
Summary: ANOTHER BING BESTSELLER
Review: Bing hits another one out of the park in his new book SUN TZU WAS A SISSY. We all know that Bush didn't learn anything from Sun Tzu (or anyone else for that matter), but Bing did his homework. This Chinese philsopher wrote one of the biggest backlist books in history (really!) and yet he wouldn't have lasted a day in the modern corporate workplace. Bing lays out the Modern Art of War in hilarious lessons and shows you how to win on the new battlefield without falling on your sword. A great read!




Rating:
Summary: More Biz Booty for the Buck
Review: Questions you'll ask yourself as you read this book:

Are you full of "shih"--or "node?"
What kind of cheese does victory taste like?
Which is worse: underkill or overkill?

This is a wise and FUNNY book.

Great quotes from Sonny Corleone, Mae West, M.C. Hammer, and Groucho Marx.

Other Bing books I'd recommend: WHAT WOULD MACHIAVELLI DO? and LLOYD.

Rating:
Summary: Same as the Machiavelli one
Review: that is, the book is pretentious, unfunny (though trying), overall fatuous and annoying. Not recommended: life's way too short to waste it on this kind of tripe.

Rating:
Summary: Sorry ... the hype much better than the fact ....
Review: The author was right ..... writing this book gives him the opportunity to poke fun at and rant and rave at old actual and perceived wrongs perpetrated on him through his lifetime.


First of all, the book is pushed as light reading and thought provoking ... well for sure it's light reading, but the only thought that it provoked in me was why would anyone wnat to buy this book.


The book is divided up into nine parts and each part has a several chapters with specific anecdotal stories by the author and how Sun Tzu's philosophising would tie into real life today. As well the book is sprinkled with numerous pie charts and 3D graphs ostensibly to support the authors view of the world ..... These graphs and tables I found were the most aggravating, I felt they talked down to me and most are not only outright silly but meaningless .....


It's not light reading I would rate it as struggle reading .....