J. Shaw

you've got to be kidding

Revisado: 01-19-25

This book was so wildly unrealistic that I could not finish it. The author knows nothing about police and police procedures.

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A thorough examination of the war's

Revisado: 08-26-23

This book was meticulously researched. it provides clear proof that the US could not have ended the war with Japan without dropping the two atomic bombs. The next book should be how the bushido and military culture in Japan, which had existed for centuries, was essentially wiped out during the American occupation.

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The Dark Side of Silicon Valley

Revisado: 08-20-18

Bad Blood is a chilling account of how those who give lip service to every conceived liberal value can in reality be paranoid, secretive, and tyrannical. Take a middle-aged guy in a suit, the stereotypical corporate villain, and turn him into a young, attractive woman like Elizabeth Holmes, who talks the talk and walks the walk, and suddenly the business world is bowing down in abeyance. Tyrants use secret police and soldiers to suppress their country's citizens. Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes used surveillance cameras, e-mail tracking, nondisclosure agreements, and lawyers to intimidate and crush financially anyone who questioned the company's methods and veracity.
This book is gripping. I read it in two days. My only criticism is that Carreyrou throws out too many names, making it hard to keep track of who is whom, especially when it is audio only. A good audio book for a companion paper book nearby. Nevertheless, this is a minor complaint.
Ultimately the book is uplifting. It demonstrates how important a strong and free press are to ferreting out the truth in the face of strong efforts at intimidation. Only a newspaper with the resources and experience such as the Wall Street Journal could have stood down attorney David Boies and his cadre of attorneys who were very willing to take Theranos' money and ask questions later. Reading about Boies' role here has made me lose all respect for him.
In the end, one realizes that the Silicon Valley crew who come to work in T-shirts and sandals, are in the end, no different from the corporate types who ran traditional companies decades ago. Lying for the ultimate ends of the corporation is accepted and even encouraged.

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Superbly crafted

Revisado: 03-21-18

What did you love best about Munich?

Harris has meticulously researched historical facts and woven the two fictional protagonists into the lives of real people. He is an excellent writer.

What did you like best about this story?

Suspenseful and real. Also, the book shows how Chamberlain had little choice but to give in to Hitler's demand for the Sudetenland. Chamberlain has been vilified ever since the 1938 deal he made with Hitler, but the book, though its characters, makes a compelling argument why going to war with Germany in 1938 was not possible for Britain.

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This Book makes you think about investing

Revisado: 03-20-18

Well written and well paced book that reads like a novel. Henriques does a good job boiling making complex financial transactions understandable. We have all heard about Madoff for years, but this book brings home the financial devastation he caused for so many people. The most frightening thing was the feeder funds whose investors didn’t know that their money was being invested by others for a billion dollar Ponzi scheme. This book will make you want to buy T bills with your money.

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This is my life--by and about Paul Auster

Revisado: 04-15-17

Full disclosure. I did not finish the book. I could not finish the book. A clever premise: same people different lives caused by different events. After that, a real yawn. The time period over which the stories take place--growing up in the 1950s in New Jersey and the upper west side of NY--is obviously autobiographical and generally pretty boring. Aunt so and so and uncle so and so and cousin so and so. One is a college professor, another an appliance store owner, and the protagonist is a kid called Archie who goes to camp, makes out with girls, listens to music, reads books--you get the picture; this is my life as a Jewish kid growing up in urban and suburban NY. To make matters worse, Auster has enough of an ego that he thinks he can read his own book to you and probably thinks he reads it well. It kind of like having your uncle Ben read you bedtime stories. I kept on waiting for something to happen and nothing really ever did. One thing I found really annoying is that Auster regularly showed off his knowledge of music and literature by having his characters tick off all the the great composers or poets. We get it Paul, you are very clever. Lots of hype about this book, but cannot understand why.

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esto le resultó útil a 11 personas

A superb study of the failure of royalty

Revisado: 04-23-16

Miranda Carter has written a well researched tale of the relationships among three related royal families. Sometimes it's hard to keep all of the names straight on an audio book alone, and having the print version is helpful to reference back to something. It also has fascinating photographs. The book shows well how the Royal families were simply unable to govern a changing world, a world from which they were completely divorced. The tragedy is that millions of young men and civilians had to die in a needless war promoted mainly by Wilhelm who into his middle age had this little boy fantasy of himself as a soldier and leader, replete with medaled uniforms. Nicholas was not far behind. These were selfish people around whom the world revolved. Their capacity for empathy for the common man was nonexistent. Thank God England had made the king somewhat irrelevant by the 20th century. A great read.

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