"How to brainwash people into liking you and doing what you want"

So, I was talking to roommate #2 about books that we read for not-english-class. That is to say, books that are classics, that people keep referencing, but that we never read for school. However, in order to feel a part of the culture that surrounds us every day, we finally submitted to peer pressure and read the stupid books. Well, most of them are not stupid, which is why they are consistently referenced in popular culture. Among them: Catch-22, Catcher in the Rye, Crime and Punishment, Of Mice and Men, A Handmaid's Tale, How to make friends and influence people. It is the last one that is really catching my attention. You see, I had always associated that particular book with slimy marketers and wanna-be executives. However, it's predominance in society, and the fact that its declared topic IS, in fact, applicable to essentially every aspect of life, make me give it a shot. Well, a shot that I was originally not going to let anyone else know about for pure shame of actually exposing my brain to such filth, but a shot none-the-less. Speaking of which, I seem to remember someone promising me a reading list...

I have now read the first chapter, and I am convinced that this book is completely awesome, and that every college freshman should read it. Now, how to get them to do so? I suspect that a good number of them would have a similar aversion to what sounds like another useless self-help book telling people how to fix their lives in thirty seconds. Well, it was the original self-help book, and there is a reason the trend took off successfully. Anyway, that does not change the fact that I strongly suspect this book is not widely enough read. I therefore propose the following course of action. I will translate the book into something more entertaining to read the the flowery language it was originally written in. Correction: I will make a satirical companion (just in case I get in trouble for copyright later). I will call it "How to brainwash people into liking you and doing what you want". I will proceed to email this out to the freshmen in my dorm. I am not yet sure if I will email the everyone-else (including friends and alumni) list with it as well, or if I will try to get the school newspaper to syndicate it so that it goes beyond the dorm as well. I kind of like the idea of forcing people to get into contact with a frosh in order to get their hands on it. I also kind of like the idea of trying to get these emails to be a tradition, part of the yearly indoctrination of new frosh, which is unlikely to happen if it spreads too widely on its maiden voyage.

What do you think of this evil plan?

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I think it sounds like a great idea. I was told about that book just before some important interviews last year, and it was quite helpful. Hard to recommend to people though (at least around here) because of the aversion to self-help books, so a translation would be a really good idea.