|  | Author: Glenn Beck
Publisher: Threshold Editions
List Price: $11.99
Buy Used: $3.00
as of 11/23/2009 07:46 CST details
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Seller: East 4th Street Books
Rating:  1079 reviews
Sales Rank: 68
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1ST
Pages: 192
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.2 x 0.6
ISBN: 1439168571
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.3
EAN: 9781439168578
ASIN: 1439168571
Publication Date: June 16, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: crayon on back of book. water damage on a few pages.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1071-1075 of 1079
 An "us" versus "them" tirade worthy of the trash can June 16, 2009
K. Fisher
48 out of 507 found this review helpful
I can see why Glenn Beck is promoting this book with a "comedy tour." About the only way he'll sell many copies is to pitch it to closed rooms of hundreds at a time... for a few hours on end.
Given that Beck chose to take on the title of "Common Sense," I was intrigued to see if he could offer something that I've never found on his TV shows or in his columns. A better title would have been "Commonly Incensed," because all Beck offers is the very routine, tired, and seemingly ignorant indignation of a peculiar section of the political right which is happier fictionalizing its own version of reality than living in the actual thing.
If you like simple "us versus them" cheerleading, if you're a big fan of swatting flies with sledgehammers, and if you commonly miss the finer points of an argument in favor of the "hellz yeah," then this book is definitely for you.
If you're looking for serious critique of what is going on in this country right now, do what Back recommends and actually read. Just don't read this book, because it's a waste of time.
 A book for everyone June 16, 2009
David Salvatore (Southern New Jersey)
590 out of 946 found this review helpful
Everyone on both sides of the aisle need to read this book but please leave prior thoughts at the door. I wish this had been published without Beck's name so it would be given a fair shake on all sides.
Righties, don't go looking for a cheerleader and a person to point to as a leader.
Lefties, don't go in there with a bias that he's an evil conservative and everything he says must be a lie.
This book will make you look at yourself and everything going around you and asks you to be honest with yourself and make tough decisions.
This is not a book for Republicans and its not a book for Democrats. This is a book for anyone who considers themselves an American.
Simple and to the point Common Sense June 16, 2009
A. Wyndham (Warner Robins, GA)
145 out of 241 found this review helpful
This book is straight forward and to the point with a lot of common sense. I have been thinking the same things for the longest time. Common sense has been telling me the housing market would one day collapse even though tons of people kept telling me house prices will never fall; you should make an investment. And, common sense has told me the auto supply will at some time out pace the demand. It is time all Americans stand for common sense and not for party. Do away with all party affiliation and get the common man back into office! The original Common Sense is also published in the back of this book. People should ignore those comments on here that make ad hominem arguments in attempt to shun this book and Glenn Beck.
 The Concept of K.I.S.S. June 14, 2009
K. Johnson (US/Asia)
40 out of 282 found this review helpful
Once again, K.I.S.S.
Yes, this is a very easy read. It's very reader friendly. This is because, it's written for the Glenn Beck audience: the Glenn Beck target-market audience. The writing style is possibly at the 10th or 11th grade high school grade level. Keep it simple. Otherwise, people will become not only bored, but bemused. In the day and age of ratings (here, book sales) you need to follow the concept of K.I.S.S. - Keep It Simple, Stupid.
But the concept of KISS is only for the Beck's brief authorship, or his co-writer, or his ghost writer. This book is a reproduction of Paine's original with basically, an commentary by Beck. In rating this, Paine gets 5 stars and Beck, 1 star, to average out a rating of 3. This review will cover Beck's portion, only:
Very general ideas and concepts in this book. Our "democracy is morally bankrupt." Wasn't it this way, over 150+ years ago? How about last year?
Many of the current political-cultural media showmen such as Beck claim to be non-partisan and claim no party represents them. This is safer and better to do. Beck does it, but in reality he's a partisan hack. He reports on stories that the rest of the mainstream media (MSM) is following. Whatever the current story of the week is, Beck will be there to report on it, with unknown guests from the AEI, Cato Institute, and Brookings Foundation, etc., in tow.
And here with his latest "book" in the high-selling political-cultural-angst spin category, is "Glenn Beck's Common Sense." Openly ripped off from the ideas and concepts of Thomas Paine, who wrote the original 235 years ago.
FOLLOWING HIS MODUS OPERANDI AGAIN, BUT IN PRINT:
Recently Beck claimed the middle-class was shrinking in numbers, because the middle class was moving into the upper-middle class. He briefly flashed us a piece of paper that we couldn't read that he claimed was an IRS document to prove his point. Beck never told us the title of the document, when it was released, or where we could read it ourselves, because he never let us know.
Here in Paine's "Common Sense," Beck does the same.
The publishers were smart enough to send a 235 year-old book straight to paperback for the cheaper price from get-go. The "Beck portion" of this book is actually a commentary (ahem....treatise) by Beck, followed by the original written by Thomas Paine written in 1776. Piggy-backing again are we? But this time piggy-backing off of a piece of work written 235 years ago? Another popular radio host recently advocated his listeners to read Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" recently, sending the book to the top 100, we now see Beck not only piggy-backing on Thomas Paine on on this other radio host's idea. If it works, why not copy it?
It's not the argument of positions I have a problem with. It's the way it's done, how it's presented, and the opportunist band-wagon attempt for sales and ratings in this currently popular genre I refer to as the "Angst of the Ignorant." People that are sheep, are sheople. I also recommend a book I just finished. It's called "Idiot America: How Stupidity Became Virtue in the Land of the Free," by Charles Pierce.
I highly doubt Glen Beck ever read Thomas Paine's writings June 11, 2009
TV McGuirk (St. Louis, Mo)
17 out of 244 found this review helpful
Give me a break, the great proculaytor like Beck reading and and being influenced by the Revolutioary hero Thomas Paine...........what next from Beck, some story about him being directly linked by his imagination to not only Thomas Jefferson, but also Ghandi.........?
This tome is definitely a book of fiction, and not very creative non-fiction...........
This book reads like a Hitchens' novella.....and any intelligent person knows the drama Hitches puts in his diatribes, actually believing he is "hyper-intelligent"......
Just ONCE I'd like to see a book published by a far-right storyteller that contains the truth of reality..........
Showing reviews 1071-1075 of 1079
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