Here's a review I wrote on Amazon when this book first came out. In retrospect, I was too generous, but then I am an old softy:

Several years ago, I served as a mid-level VP at a large multinational company in New Jersey. Every month I read the Harvard Business Review religiously.

Why? Not because I thought it contained much of value - indeed, as a scientist by education, if not career, the pseudo-scientific method of many of HBR's papers is somewhat offensive to me, at least when it's not so blatant as to be amusing. No, I read it religiously because it kept me one step ahead of the curve. Whenever there was a reasonably plausible, well-presented finding published in that august journal, you could be reasonably sure that some soul on the Executive Floor, perhaps bored while taking the Executive jet to Washington, will have read the paper and decided that it was exactly the cure for whatever it was that seemed to ail us at the time (which in reality was urine poor management from the same Executive Floor). But having read the HBR I knew where the idea was coming from (rarely was the original source disclosed by its champion) and how it could be deflected harmlessly until the next HBR-sourced management fad took its place.

This book is even worse than the typical HBR article. At least in those articles the authors will usually present some empirical research which is then force fitted into some model of the authors' choosing, preferably one that will support a lucrative side line in consulting or some proprietary instrument that will generate revenues.

With "Glow" the tedious necessity for presenting and justifying the author's conclusions is neatly side-stepped:

"There are no references to other people's research or theories except when I have used direct quotes........I make little reference to my own research"

Nor does she try to justify her conclusions using any argumentation, whether based on anybody's research or just old fashioned logic.

Hence my comment that "with one bound she was free" - free to present breathlessly and with gusto her stunningly original thesis that talking to people, building networks and collaborating with people may be helpful. Well, yes, sometimes it is, but it's by no means a universal panacea.

Adherents and proponents of the discipline of Positive Psychology (among whom I number myself), of which this book could be considered the bastard stepchild, are currently considering an appropriate candidate for the 25th strength to be added to the current inventory of strengths. One proposal is for Critical Thinking, and this book unwittingly makes a strong case for this.

One source of mystery to me is why a book so devoid of merit as this one can garner so much positive comment - to the extent that it makes me wonder about the recommenders. I used to quite respect Stefan Stern. Now I don't.

Don't buy this book, unless like me with HBR, you need to understand the mind of the enemy.