How to Lose Friends & Alienate People (memoir) to sue him) and "Vanity Fair"'s own Graydon Carter. Young also describes awkward run-ins with American celebrities including Nathan Lane, Mel Gibson and Diana Ross. Throughout the book, Young describes being tormented by his friend "Alex de Silva" (speculated to be Sacha Gervasi), a former colleague of Young's who manages to succeed in America in every way that Young does not. The title of Young's book is a parody of the title of Dale Carnegie's 1937 perennial bestseller, "How to Win Friends and Influence People"; a parody by Irving Tressler titled "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People" was also
How to Win Friends and Influence People 1936, the book reached the "New York Times" best-seller list by the end of the year, and did not fall off for the next two years. Simon & Schuster continued to advertise the book relying heavily on testimonials as well as the testable approach the book offered. Carnegie had created a new kind of book, one that was not read with passive interest, but rather a manual of active participation. "How to Win Friends and Influence People" became one of the most successful books in American history. It went through 17 print editions in its first year of publishing and