cover image The Best-Case Scenario Handbook

The Best-Case Scenario Handbook

John Tierney. Workman Publishing, $9.95 (149pp) ISBN 978-0-7611-2861-8

This amusing parody of the already tongue-in-cheek Worst-Case Scenario books offers readers tips on how to cope with a world that's secretly conspiring to help them out. Times writer Tierney's facetious advice is directed towards those for whom sex, wealth and vengeance fantasies have come to life. How about: ""What to do when a drunken Bill Gates rear-ends your car and mumbles 'isn't there some way we can work this out without the police'""? Or: ""How to manage tensions when you are promoted over the head of your insufferable boss."" Should the latter happen, Tierney says, then by all means ""greet him heartily, assuring him he can keep his office 'for now.'"" Although Tierney includes a few scenarios that go on a bit too long, and ends with an slightly off-key Panglossian ode to modernity (the ""Ultimate Best-Case Scenario""), the book is a droll send-up of both our daydreams of good fortune and those who already enjoy it.