Synopsis

What if the most influential book in the history of mankind was not a religious or spiritual book but a satire of a self-help book written by a crazy person? All Daniel Waterstone ever wanted to do was write the great American novel and change the landscape of modern literature forever. He has two literary books in print but no one’s buying. His agent won’t even accept his latest masterpiece which he poured his soul into: apparently, it’s not commercial enough. In a final act of desperation, under the pseudonym of Charles Spectrum, he writes a feverish satire on a Transformational, Self-help best-seller that’s currently topping the charts. Intended as a parody, “How to do Amazing Things Using Only Your Brain,” similar to the best-seller, contains crazy and hilarious exercises on how to increase one’s brain power.  Instead of being published as satire, however, it hits the shelves with all the other serious pop psychology, self-improvement books. It becomes a huge hit. People all around the world are doing unbelievably zany exercises to improve themselves. Even crazier still: they’re getting results. Readers are levitating, bending spoons and seeing into the future. Daniel becomes one of the most desired talk show guests and is soon lionized by agents and publicists. Seminars are organized and what was intended as a joke takes on a huge life of its own.  To complicate things further, Daniel falls in love with a beautiful woman who adores him as Charles Spectrum, the guru. If she was informed of his earlier incarnation as a penniless, failed author, would she still love him? Daniel knows that at some point he must choose between the celebrity author gravy train or, being true to his self and to his art, return to the pits of poverty, obscurity and perhaps, worst of all, most likely lose the woman of his dreams.

Review

I thought this book was quite humorous and was a good insight into what people will find “enlightening” and that what makes a best seller that everyone clamors to purchase. I like how Daniel came to realize that what this best seller for him became was not what he wanted. Sure the money was good, but he has a conscious. Although he was rather uptight about writing only good literature and obviously that wasn’t going to pay the bills.  Daniel’s friend Mavis was correct that people read to escape for the most part and that is what makes a good book.  It is a shame that in Daniel being so wrapped up in himself and his life that he didn’t really get to know Mavis until it was too late.

Daniel even managed to find love but it took him awhile to even realize what was right in front of him.  I think that is a good image of most people today, they don’t take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves.

We give this 4 paws up

About the Author

Dermot is an Irish writer now living in the US. As a playwright, Dermot is a recipient of the O.Z. Whitehead Award which was co-sponsored by Irish Pen and the Society of Irish Playwrights. A fictional account of a dream therapist who is stuck in a dream from which he cannot awaken, with his debut novel, “”Stormy Weather,” novelist Dermot Davis has deftly crafted a minor literary masterpiece,” (Midwest Book Review).
His second novel, “Zen and Sex,” is a witty and ironic first-person look at love and relationships as seen from the confused eyes of twenty-four-year old Martin who falls in love with Frances, a woman fourteen years his senior. Winner of two indie author awards and perhaps because it provides a no-holds-barred look into the mind of a man and his uncensored thoughts, it was suggested by the Kindle Book Review that, “every woman should read it as marriage counseling.”

Winner of the 2013 USA Best Book Awards for humor, Dermot’s third novel, “Brain: The Man That Wrote the Book That Changed the World,” is “an entertaining farce about modern society; a deft, fast-paced tale that will leave self-aware readers giggling,” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Coming “Highly Recommended” by the Midwest Book Review, who also called it, “ironic, iconoclastic and pure entertainment from first page to last,” the book poses the question of whether an author should write from the heart or write only books that he thinks will sell. I suspect that this novelist is trying to do both…

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