Andrew

All right, not spectacular, has some low parts

Revisado: 05-17-05

Go ahead and read it, I can't deny that I found myself wanting to finish it. I definitely can't give it a 5 and considered giving a 3, but 4 seems appropriate. It's hard to say what exactly this book is about. It covers a lot of different subjects on society. He started talking about crack addicts and gangs at length and I was a little turned off at that point. The second half of the book had quite a lot of racial analysis. A lot of what this guy had to say relied on various data sets/studies. It's what economists do I guess, draw conclusions based on statistics and data. But it did get a little tiring hearing one stat after another. I was disappointed that the book didn't really have anything to do with economics per se, but that may not matter to you if you're just looking for decent reading material.

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Boring...

Revisado: 05-11-05

This audio book is pretty boring. I think it must have informative material in it, but I'm having a hard time focusing on that material. Usually I just hear words without actually listening, in an attempt to finish the book. I probably won't finish it--it's gotten to be too much at 6 hours already.

I made a huge mistake in getting the unabridged version, maybe if I got abridged I would have had a markedly better experience. I thought I would get more bang for my buck with more listening time, but boy was I wrong, it's just not worth the dreariness. I think I will get all abridged audiobooks from now on because of this book. I can't have another experience like it.

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Riveting

Revisado: 05-03-05

I learned a lot not only about Steve Jobs, but what it takes to be a great leader. An inspiring read. Jobs and his exploits are entertaining, and I looked forward to finishing this book. Recommended!

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Captivating

Revisado: 05-03-05

I learned a lot about competing interests between the public and private sectors. The book showed how typical scientists think, and how one scientist, Venter, struggled to reconcile his scientific mentality with business concerns. My criterion for a good book is one that I devote all of my free time to until it is finished, and this book fell under that category. I had the audio abridged version and finished it within a week. Recommended!

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THE book on inside venture capital investing

Revisado: 01-25-05

I tend to only review books that I either absolutely love or absolutely hate... this book falls into the former category. I read the actual book a couple months ago and found that it was so good I didn't want to put it down -- I as actually sad when I finished. I was ecstatic to see that Audible added it as an audiobook... I just finished listening to it and again find myself awestruck by this book.

Eboys is about Benchmark Capital of Menlo Park, California -- arguably the #1 venture capital firm in the world. It chronicles the day to day dealings of the partners, their interactions with entrepreneurs from all walks of life, and the multi-billion dollar companies they've funded... the most prominent of which is eBay, a company that made all of the founding partners 300 million dollars each.

This is an awesome book for a budding entrepreneur -- it really gives you an inside fly-on-the-wall look at how the mysterious and sometimes daunting world of high stakes venture capital works. But it's not just a how-to guide in obtaining venture capital, as the real life stories of the Eboys are fascinating, entertaining, and incredibly inspiring.

Don't think about it -- GET THIS BOOK!

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Absolute torture.

Revisado: 05-05-04

This title seemed to be the audio book analogue of Chinese water torture to me. The narrator has THE MOST ANNOYING WHINY VOICE I HAVE EVER HEARD. She keeps shrieking things like "HUG THE PERSON NEXT TO YOU!!!" I swear if she was next to me I would have choked her just to make her stop. As for content, I can't really comment b/c my brain couldn't hear anything besides her glass-shattering delivery, but it seemed to be commense sense/no-brainer type advice -- e.g. give a firm handshake, smile, etc. Alas, another wasted credit for me.

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Total waste of time.

Revisado: 05-05-04

I wasted a potentially pleasant 1 hour run along the lake listening to this silly audio book. I read all the reviews raving about it so I decided to download it... big mistake. It is mostly non-sense silly British humor, which I personally don't find funny at all. Reminded me of an audio version of Mr. Bean -- a show & character that I cannot stand. Unless you're into cheesy British comedy (why anyone would be is beyond me) don't waste your time with this one. If you're on the fence I recommend you go flip through the paper version of the book at your local bookstore before deciding.

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Good... but not great.

Revisado: 11-10-03

Being a non-resident Indian myself lots of the content and description in this book really struck a familiar cord with me. The author did a good job of portraying the trials, tribulations, joys, and sorrows of an Indian family that moved to "Umrica." A good first effort (this is her first book right?). But she could have done more with the story -- with the plot. Without giving it all away it's basically just about an Indian couple that moves to the U.S. in their 20's, has two kids here, and then it follows through with the life of the first born -- a boy named Gogol -- till his 30's or so. Overall it was good but lacked a zeal that I felt when reading the books of two other favorite Indian authors of mine -- Manil Suri and Abraham Verghese -- now they are experts... really great story-tellers. All in all The Namesake is a good book -- I'll be on the lookout for an improved follow-up title by this author down the road.

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Not for the average Joe

Revisado: 11-08-03

I was very excited to start listening to this audio book... in the mornings when I do cardio, when I'm walking around my neighborhood running errands, at the tanning salon, but it fell short of my expectations. Now don't think that from the aforementioned activities that I'm some sort of illiterate airhead -- I'm not, but at the same time, I haven't read and studied about all the different scientists and inventors of all time, which I think is unfortunately a sort of prerequisite for one to really enjoy this book. Full of names that I've never heard of, going back and forth through time, with pretentious sounding latin pronunciations like "Homo neandratalus," I found it difficult to finish the book. It seemed to get more and more boring as it went along. To the author's credit, he did a good job of researching and getting the facts right about our history (or at least I think he did), and the first hour or so about the origin of the universe was actually quite interesting. But as the book progressed to archeology and "java man" type info, I found myself struggling to pay attention.

In summary, I think a select group of people -- say 30-60 year old socialites who have lots of money and plenty of time to read about interesting (but relatively useless) information might like this book. But for the average joe like me it's a snoozer.

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Great doctor, incredible writer....

Revisado: 10-22-03

O.k. so I didn't actually listen to the audio version of this book but rather actually read it with my eyes a couple years ago. It was simply a fantastic book. Dr. Verghese, in addition to being a caring and devout physician, has a natural knack for enthralling writing. I read it as a med student (I'm a resident as I type this), I'm of Indian origin myself, and I'm a former tennis player... so I really could relate to this book. But you don't have to be any of the above to appreciate and enjoy Dr. Verghese's ability to tell this tail of friendship and loss. It's book like this one that make me prefer Nonfiction over Fiction -- real live people and their real life experiences -- experiences that touched and albeit ever so slightly, changed my own life. His first book -- My Own Country -- was awesome too. Every few weeks or so I eagerly check back here at Audible hoping he's written a new book. Dr. Verghese if you're reading this you have at least one die hard fan out there :-)!

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