Great Philosophers Who Failed at Love Review and Giveaway

A long time ago in a city not-so-far away, I was employed and going to graduate school. I had big dreams of teaching community college part-time while keeping my day job as a civil servant. Well, those dreams went out the window, since this girl from the ghetto can’t afford to keep paying $1,300 a class while unemployed. Especially since the need for folks with M.A. in Humanities is dwindling down here in Michigan. One of the things I took away with me from my studies was a deeper understand of philosophy. While I’ve always enjoyed it, I didn’t always understand it. I thank god two of my friends were philosophy majors at MSU, because without them, I would have never gotten through my first philosophy class. It amazes me that men and woman were once revered for their intelligence, thoughts and opinions, rather than today, when people are revered for their general snarkiness, misbehavior and sizable racks.

Do you know what Philosophy is? I only ask because I really want you to know. Honestly, I, too, was once afraid of the word and didn’t understand it until my 20′s, mainly because I grew up ghetto. Philosophy is the study of basic and significant problems. Well, it’s more than just that–philosophers are the people who ask such questions as, “why do we exist,” “how to we know what we know is true,” or “why do we value certain things.” For example a modern-day philosopher might ask ”why do we love Jersey Shore?” Long before everybody on television was talking about Snooki, there were men like Aristotle, Nietzsche and St. Thomas Aquinas who were stirring things up by asking tougher questions than “why does she wear a Bump It on her head?”

You are in for a big treat, because I’m giving away 3 copies of Great Philosophers Who Failed at Love by Andrew Shaffer, just in time for the after Valentine’s Day depression that’s soon to take hold of you. This book is a funny look at some of the most-profound thinkers of our time who have the absolute worst luck at love. I suppose this book could make you feel a whole lot better about your own damn miserable love life (or past-history of miserable love life; if somehow you are now crazy-in-love with a drama-free person who doesn’t cheat, drink, smoke, do drugs, steal and worships the ground you walk on.), because god knows we’ve all had our fair share of drama and dysfunction and perhaps even misery in our own life. Even the philosophers who everyone back-in-the-day thought had THE ANSWERS didn’t have the answers when it came to love. Andrew is one funny dude–besides writing about the misery of others in books and on The Huffington Post, he is a Twitter god doing double duty as himself and his evil twin, @EvilWylie, in addition to being the founder and creator of the Order of St. Nick. In case you aren’t familiar with the order, it’s a funny, snarky card company that has been featured on fabulous shows I am too lazy to share with you here.

I was lucky enough to meet Shaffer last spring during BookExpo, and we chatted a long time before he even mentioned that he had written a book, let alone a book about Philosophy. When I told him I liked Philosophy, I don’t think he even believed me until I told him I had studied it in grad school. He also nearly killed me when I was being braggy (ok, let me defend myself here first by saying that I had drunk a coke and a glass of wine at the same time on an empty stomach at 9 p.m.–plus I have ADHD for god’s sake! And I was nervouse being surrounded by AUTHORS who were also cool in real life.) about having experienced a lot of crazy and/or dysfunctional things and illnesses in my life, and when I challenged him and a small group of authors and book people to name one thing I hadn’t experienced, of course he stumped me with LICE. Ha! I had never laughed so hard internally in my life–because who the hell would come up with LICE as something a person hasn’t has or seen on the tough streets of Detroit suburbs. It was a you-had-to-been-there moment, but it really cracked me up. Because this man-boy is a thinker, and you have got to appreciate him just like I have, even though he shamed me. I can totally appreciate that for an instant, Shaffer made me wish I had experienced LICE.

On to the book–Great Philosophers Who Failed at Love is a gem. Not only do you get to read about the great men and women who shaped our lives, but we get to hear their dirty little secrets. I don’t know what I liked more from this book, Shaffer’s footnotes, ”When questioned about masturbating in public, Diogenes said, “I only wish I could be rid of hunger by rubbing my belly.” or the fact that philosophers who had been given shout outs on one of my favorite shows, Lost. [Honestly, it was the footnotes.] Any Lost nerd would appreciate this book, let alone anyone interested in the snarky secrets of the life before the internet. You think Brent Michaels was a little nasty on Rock of Love? Hell, Michael’s has nothing on Jean-Paul Sarte, who in 1979, remarked to one of his girlfriends that he was juggling 10 other woman at the same time. Not too shabby for a 74-year-old toothless blind dude, right? Congrats to Hugh Hefner, who will no longer be known as the dirtiest old man in my eyes! Trust me, you want to win this book. If you like laughing while learning, this is the perfect book for you.

Purchase your own Great Philosophers Valentine’s Day Cards.

Visit Indiebound to purchase a copy of Great Philosophers Who Failed at Love.

GREAT PHILOSOPHERS WHO FAILED AT LOVE GIVEAWAY

RULES:

**Open to US & Canadian residents only.

**No P.O. boxes, please.

**Must include your email in your comment, unless you signed in to leave a comment with your “real” email.

**All comments must be separate to count as separate entries. For example, if you follow me on Facebook and Twitter, leave 2 comments, one with your Facebook name, and one with your Twitter name. Or, if you posted about the giveaway on your blog, leave 5 comments, all with the link to your giveaway.

HOW TO ENTER: 

**Mandatory Entry: Go to Andrew Shaffer’s website or his evil doppelganger’s website Evil Reads and tell me what fun or interesting thing you learned or noticed there. 

+1  ENTRY: Follow Andrew Shaffer on Facebook. 

+1  ENTRY: Follow Evil Wylie on Facebook. 

+1  MORE ENTRY: Follow @evilwylie on Twitter.  

+1  MORE ENTRY: Follow @andrewtshaffer on Twitter.  

+1  ENTRY: Follow me on Facebook. Make sure to leave your Facebook name in your comment.

+1  MORE ENTRY: Follow me on Facebook and share a link on your wall with the following comment “I entered The Girl from the Ghetto’s Great Philosophers Who Failed At Love by Andrew Shaffer Book Giveaway here http://bit.ly/gU5OAG.” Make sure to leave a comment below with a link to your Facebook profile or with your Facebook name.

+1  MORE ENTRY: Follow me on Twitter. Make sure to leave your @Twitter name in your comment.

+1  MORE ENTRY: Follow me on Twitter and tweet the following “RT @NerdGirlBlogger I entered the Great Philosophers Who Failed at Love by @andrewtshaffer book giveaway here http://bit.ly/gU5OAG .” You can tweet 4x a day (Once every 6 hours) for even more chances to win. Make sure to leave a link to your tweet in a comment below.

+1  MORE ENTRY: Subscribe to my blog via email or Feedburner. 

+1  ENTRY: Follow me on Goodreads.

+1  ENTRY: Add Great Philosophers Who Failed at Love to your to-read shelf on Goodreads.

+1 MORE ENTRY: Comment here and tell me why you need to win this giveaway! Do you enjoy philosophy? Are you unlucky in love? Do you enjoy reading in general, or, do you just love winning free stuff?

+5 MORE ENTRIES: Write about this giveaway on your own blog. Make sure to post a link to this giveaway and leave me 5 copies of your link via comment here.    

Contest ends Friday, February 18, 2011 at midnight. Good luck to you all! 

About these ads