Review: Trust Me, I’m Lying by Ryan Holiday

Trust Me, I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator

This book is not your classic marketing tome filled with case studies. And it’s definitely not a tell-all featuring Tucker Max, Dov Charney, and Robert Greene drunkenly grinding on a beach somewhere.

No. This is a book for thinkers. For those who have spent time working and navigating the information terrain. For those who found that it is easy to de-tether from reality and drift. For those who see that there’s great potential in the web but find it falling far short of that mark, instead dying on a vine, desperately reaching for dwindling CPC/CPM dollars.

Trust Me, I’m Lying is a critique of the top .01% of blogs (that hallowed tier of Mashable, Gawker, Jezebel, Business Insider, etc) and the control they exert over your reality.

And if there’s one person in the world who can explain that in depth, it’s Ryan Holiday.

Because Ryan has wielded the flow of electronic information as a weapon. He’s both made kings and taken down targets. It’s no surprise that he is methodical and exacting in his explanation of how knowledge don’t matter in a world where only pageviews do. How every headline is evil. How truth is immaterial. He even goes far as to describe the evolution of text media, and how we’ve been down this yellow journalism road before.

His honesty is refreshing, his vision scary. Exactly the kind of book worth reading.

-Shlok
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