There’s plenty of self help books on the shelves, but one in particular has cut through the nonsense for millions of people.  

Mark Manson is the author behind ‘The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck’, which has sold more than 20 million copies since its publication in 2016. 

Manson is making his way to New Zealand in November as part of his ‘The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck Tour’, where he talks about what made the book a success and offers more “no-BS” live advice. 

He told Mike Hosking the book stemmed from his disillusionment with the self help material he’d consumed when he was young. 

“I thought a lot of it was very... just BS, and Pollyanna,” Manson said. 

“So in the early 2010s, I started asking myself like, okay, what would actually like, if there was a form of self help that was just very honest about how difficult life's problems can be and how difficult the solutions to life's problems can be, what would that look like?” 

Although he was optimistic the book would do well upon its release, the sheer extent of it’s success was a surprise to Manson. 

“It's the extent of it that was just so mind blowing and, and still to this day, it is kind of surprising to me." 

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