Irresistible Attraction: Secrets of Personal Magnetism Paperback – January 1, 2000

The first thing that impresses about this book is that there are a great many useful and specific examples of "shoulds" and "shouldn'ts" offered throughout, rather than just general advice and vague suggestions.When taking a woman out to a restaurant, where should you sit in relation to her? Directly across, adjacent to her on her right, or adjacent to her on her left? Does it matter? (It does.)What type of jewelry should men wear to enhance their appearance? Or should they wear any at all? (The answer's in the book.)If I want to show interest in someone how long should I maintain eye contact? (Too short a time can be seen as dismissive. Too long might make them uncomfortable.)If you find the questions above the least bit interesting, this book is for you.And fortunately, the material in the book is backed up by solid psychological research, so it's not just the opinions of the authors.On another note, I was surprised to find any outright negative reviews of this book, but you will find a few here. But keep a few things in mind when making your decision whether or not to buy this book.*** This is not a book on "seduction," per se. If you looking for a book on how to be a pick-up artist and con unsuspecting women into sleeping with you, this book's not for you.*** This book does have occasional grammatical mistakes and typos. If occasional typos drive you to distraction and keep you from learning from excellent material, you may need a different type of book.*** *Some* of the advice in this book may strike as "common sense." Unfortunately, this is the bane of research in social psychology (the field of psychology that studies how most people behave in given situations.) Many of its conclusions seem like common sense, after the fact. For example, everyone knows that "birds of a feather flock together." But... everyone also "knows" that "opposites attract." So, which is it? (It's birds of a feather.) But whatever the research finds, someone will say, "Oh, that's just common sense."In summary, if you're look for a easy-to-read book, filled to the gills with practical, research-backed advice on increasing your attractiveness to the opposite sex, you couldn't do much better than buying this excellent guide.

This was quite a good book, with useful hints. Although much of it is geared toward attracting the opposite sex for purposes of dating, it is also useful for social situations in general, or work-related situations. One of the main points is that charismatic people tend to focus on the other person and make the other person feel good about themselves, which is then projected back to you because they feel good about themselves in your presence and therefore like to be around you. One thing the book didn't really address, though, was how to deal with people who already think too highly of themselves, are already completely self involved, or who tend to go into a monologue.

This book contains some materials useful for general reader regarding how to be an attractive person, both in friendship and love life. I found the discussion regarding body language especially helpful (one of the two authors, Kevin Hogan, is mentioned in the back cover to be an authority in body language). I only gave two stars to this book for the following reasons:1- On the average, in every page of the book there was either a typing or a grammatical error. It is quite apparent that the authors and the editor did not take any time to reread the book. Sometimes, in my opinion, the mistakes are quite embarrassing (for example, on page 230, the name of the well-known couple-psychologist Harville Hendrix is written as Harville Haddix). Generally, such mistakes distracted me from focusing on the points that the book was making.2- Sometimes an idea was presented that was such an over-generalization that it lost its validity. For example, on page 26 it is stated that "There is little that a woman possesses that can entice a man beyond her physical attractiveness. This doesn't mean that if a woman is not physically attractive that she has no opportunity to find happiness. It does mean that physical attractiveness is far and away the number one trait that men look for in women. No other individual trait comes close to a woman's appearance." In the same page it continues "Men do not find women attractive because of their wealth, their success, and their potential for achievement. Men are not typically impressed or attracted to women who have succeeded in business or done anything remarkable. The makeup of men is much different in attraction." I do believe that the above statement may be true about some men and certainly physical attractiveness is generally very important for men in the initial stage(s) of interaction, but later other factor may enter into consideration beside the woman's degree of attraction. If women's attractiveness was the only criterion that men considered when choosing women, then one would expect that all married women should be attractive. Certainly this is not the case and men do value other traits of a woman, albeit the fact that they do over-value attractiveness.3- Throughout the book, there were statements written in bold face and placed in a box, apparently to emphasize the point of the statement. Unfortunately, sometimes it appeared that statements were randomly chosen so that they were not the main point of the subject being discussed (for example, page 107). Other times the boxed statement could not be understood unless you read the text. For example, on page 96 the statement read "It is highly recommended to spend some time in front of mirror making faces at yourself".4- In some pages, there were references mentioned that were not included in the bibliography (for example pages 44-45). The bibliography itself is only one page and it would have been best to be eliminated entirely since it is so short.5- A large part of the book was devoted to statement that were common sense and an average adult with some general information should already know them.So although the book does have some good ideas, I can not recommend the book for the adult reader. However, it may be still useful for a teenager or young adult.I would also like to mention that many of the 5 star review were probably done by authors' friends.

Nothing more than three stars. Sadly the author approach to the attraction topic tryed to connect and explain everything in "masculine and feminine" terms, nothing more than "mens are Y and find X to be attractive...", "womens are X and find U to be attractive". I waist my money in one book who easily join the barbara-allan pease and john gray poor collection of books.I'll try to read it to the end...if something worth my time and money, i'll edit my comment later.

Be warned, the first chapter of this book will make you cringe if you are not a 'Little woman' looking for a 'big, strong man', who _must_ be older, by at least four years, preferably more, and he definitely must be _taller_, preferably 6ft or more, and he must 'work hard' and be rich! And if the little woman is lucky, he may be a control freak and a persistent stalker who won't give up until the woman says yes, because _that_ is the type of men that "women" want! - Yes it really is that patronising. It makes no concession to maybe this is what _some_ women want but not all; it informs us that it is what _all_ women want!If you are one of the many who are completely turned off by those types of men and instead want them younger, preferably a lot younger, (as long as they're legal, of course!) and you like them cute and no taller than yourself or even shorter, and you have a penchant for boys on the dole who are free for having a laugh with and lazing around all day because those are the types that appeal, then this chapter is certainly not for you! It's hard to see how it could appeal to anyone much if you are anything outside of the simpering little female stereotype or high achiever, professional executive type who nevertheless fits the little female role deep down, or if you're male and a high achiever professional type looking for a little woman to be suitably impressed, or if you're a he-man, builder type, looking for a little woman to push around and raise your kids. Because those stereotypes are who this book is aimed at.The authors need to get out into the _real_ world and meet with a whole culture of people they are obviously unaware of!It is written to appeal to extremely conventional (i.e. boring) people, and no other.The whole first chapter (28 pages) can be summed up in one word. - Yuck! Cringe-making in its vileness. As for the rest, it's one dimensional rubbish like this that makes some perfectly cute, sweet, jobless, young, little, guys feel inadequate and develop complexes because garbage like this tells them that they are not what "women" want. Well, I am considered intelligent, clever and attractive by most people's standards and can talk easily to anyone, unless it's someone I am very attracted to, and then I get tongue tied and feel awkward and so I read this book hoping for some tips on how to overcome this and hook up with the people I find attractive, and not just ones I have no real interest in, and I find reading this that the type of guys I have no interest in, are the very types that "women" are 'supposed' to like, though according to this book, not just like, but 'love'.The 'advice' churned out about how to communicate would only serve to make someone appear nosy by asking so many questions. - Take an interest in the person you want to attract, ask questions and they will love it. - In reality this could put many people off! People are aware of when they are being scrutinised by someone who is secretly interested in them and trying to find out all they can. - Aware and often creeped out by it.Also, listen to this, one of the 'examples' of 'how to' goes like this: "When someone says to you 'I just got back from Mexico', you don't immediately say 'I've been to Mexico too!' - You have been there of course, but you build up to that."I kid you not. The authors of this book really do believe that you are going to be having conversations with people who talk about going to or having been to Mexico, when all you may really want to do is to impress a jobless, cute little bad boy who hangs around in the street Some more words of wisdom are "Tell someone you were captured by their poetry reading!" - Oh my God! Just what planet are these people on?!Oh, and get this, "Nearly all men love sport and most women don't, and the nearest they get to it is when attempting to wrest the remote control from a man's hands." Again, I kid you not.There is one tiny section in the book that could be useful, namely a visualisation exercise, but the rest is full of the kind of patronising rubbish I have quoted above and full of the so-called 'advice' that if acted upon would make the type of guys I find attractive, feel inadequate and would encourage them to behave in ways that I would find abhorrent.How dare these people speak for me and tell the world what they think I, as a woman, would find attractive. - They couldn't be more wrong!This book is an insult to most people's intelligence. The 'advice' it contains about how to talk to people will make you come across as a patronising, creepy, freak who they will want to avoid. Which is precisely what you need to do with this book. - Avoid!

Great read.

I found nothing that can't be found in other similar books.In a nutshell we are all self-absorbed, so look through the eyes of the other person if you want to be attractive to them.There you go, save yourself some money!...