Emilio Largo

Podcast Format is Awful

Revisado: 01-18-20

This is the first Gladwell audiobook (I have them all) that I have not rated five stars. Reason is the poor, nay, awful production. Gladwell, Hachette, or both chose to employ something they call the "podcast format." When using his own voice, Gladwell is an excellent narrator. The podcast format changes things by incorporating live interviews or re-enactments of certain dialogue. The book also includes annoying, tuneless, low-volume musical notes when Gladwell himself is speaking. At first, I thought these undertones were symptoms of tinnitus. Later, I realized they are a "feature" of this recording. I cannot imagine what purpose they serve but they are truly annoying. Each chapter is punctuated with an excerpt from "Hell You Talmbout" which, aside from the ironic title, was a non sequitur in the context of the audio production. Again, just annoying

Incorporating the live-interview format made some of the persons interviewed sound faintly ridiculous. Most folks are not trained voice artists. Their "ums," "ahs" and "you knows," occasional profanity, and strong regional accents make them sound anything but authoritative. Scott Carmichael, the investigator who unmasked Ana Montes, and James Mitchell, the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed interrogator, come off as particularly inept. (Whether they are inept in fact is another question; their verbal performance made them sound inept to me.) I was disturbed that such (apparently) inarticulate and uneducated persons would be tasked with protecting national security. I found their dispassionate descriptions of "enhanced interrogation techniques" troubling. That participants in torture prefer to hide behind a euphemism is indicative of how far we have fallen as a nation.

Finally, and this applies to all of Gladwell's books, his work is DE-scriptive rather than PRE-scriptive. That is, Gladwell does a marvelous job of raising questions and articulating problems, but never suggests definitive solutions. The only solution he offers is to speak cautiously and humbly when talking to strangers. In other words, the most important thing is not to offend anyone, which begs the question of how can we avoid offending someone if we cannot know what he or she is thinking? What I learned from this book: (1) I am terrible at detecting lies and deceitful behavior so I should not bother trying; (2) I do not have tinnitus; and (3) sound recordings of individuals interviewed for books should never be included in audiobooks. Can we please go back to traditional audiobook narration?

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I Want to Believe ...

Revisado: 02-03-18

... but this book is not helping. What we have here is a verbatim transcript of Dr. Greer's documentary film "Unacknowledged." Watch the film or read the book and you will get the same information. What we do not have is any new, compelling evidence for the existence of, or contact with, UFOs and alien species. The so-called "testimonials" (actually interviews) of various individuals who claim to have knowledge about the issue consist of unverifiable hearsay. A typical interview runs along the lines of "I was in the Army in 1956. I had a super-duper double top secret clearance. I had a buddy who knew a guy who said a friend saw a document that proved there was a conspiracy to hide the existence of contact with extraterrestrials ... or saw a picture ... or saw the alien bodies ... or saw the craft ... or was harassed by men in black" and so forth, ad nauseam. While I am disposed to believe in Dr. Greer's underlying thesis that UFOs and alien species exist and that humans have been in contact with them, this book does nothing to bolster that thesis and is a waste of time.

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The 2,000 Year Old Man

Revisado: 11-30-17

Burt should have stepped aside and allowed someone else to narrate this book. He was a great narrator in his time (see Moby Dick on Audible) but has gotten too old. You can hear pages shuffling and crackling in the background. His voice sounds like he is on oxygen. I do not know the state of his health, but it was painful to listen to the scratchy, hollow voice of the guy who once posed for Playgirl. I remember Burt best as Lewis Medlock in Deliverance. I simply cannot believe the same guy is narrating this book.

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Overproduced

Revisado: 08-30-17

Book would have been much more enjoyable if the narrator had not adopted a faux Texas accent: "Ah knew somethin' wuz happenin' down thar." He should have played it straight. The narration makes both the author and the narrator sound ridiculous. Pretty good book, but from what friends have said, the movie was better. Have not seen the movie yet. I wonder whether Brad Cooper's movie accent is as bad as this book.

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Superb narration

Revisado: 06-25-14

Robertson Dean takes what could have been a dry financial history and turns it into a fascinating tale. I did not catch a single mispronunciation, even on foreign words like "cognoscenti" and "pince-nez." He is one of the best in the business. I thoroughly enjoyed the book, particularly because it confirms the hair-raising truth about central banking described by G. Edward Griffin in "The Creature from Jekyll Island."

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The Arts in New York City in 1959

Revisado: 04-30-13

While the opening chapters briefly discuss foreign affairs and the space race, the greater part of the book is devoted to changes in architecture, cinema, literature, music, painting, and photography in New York City. The book's perspective on events in 1959 reminds me of "The New Yorker" magazine cover by Saul Steinberg, skewed to give New York prominence over the rest of the country. The book is interesting in a Don Draper-esque kind of way but hardly lives up to its thesis that the course of world history was changed by events in 1959. Kaplan himself was only five years old in 1959. It is obvious that his true love is jazz (he writes jazz reviews for "Stereophile" magazine) and that he fantasizes about hanging out with Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. Fans of "Mad Men" will probably enjoy some chapters and may find themselves (like I did) rushing out to buy an album by Ornette Coleman just to see what all the fuss is about. In the end, Kaplan (like Sal Paradise) has "nothing to offer anybody except [his] own confusion."

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I had high hopes ...

Revisado: 04-12-13

... that Hunter might shed some fictional light on the events in Dealey Plaza, much the way James Ellroy did in "American Tabloid." Unfortunately, Hunter admits in the afterword that his research was limited to the Warren Commission Report, "Case Closed" by Gerald Posner, and "Reclaiming History" by Vincent Bugliosi. These are the worst sources imaginable if one is looking for the truth. I wish Hunter had done a little more research and stumbled across a book by Craig Roberts titled "Kill Zone: A Sniper Looks at Dealey Plaza." Now THAT would have given him some ideas to work with. The ballistics analysis of the shot from the grassy knoll is flawed, the portrayal of Oswald is way off the mark, and Hugh Meachum (particularly as voiced by Buck Shirner) is obnoxious. "Bob the Nailer" as gumshoe detective is a terrible waste of a good character. The side-trip to modern-day Moscow and the Lubyanka archives was a stretch. I consider this a reasonably entertaining book consisting of a police procedural with a couple of gunfights thrown in, and an unsatisfying resolution of the assassination conspiracy. Not Hunter's best work. He has recently shown himself still a capable of writing a good action thriller, however. See "Soft Target" if you are looking for something on par with "Point of Impact."

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Hunter's best work in years

Revisado: 04-12-13

Hunter is at his best writing fast-paced, action thrillers. Regrettably, in the past few years he has gotten off-target (pun intended) with densely-plotted procedurals involving the venerable Bob Lee Swagger. Bob Lee played out years ago and should have been retired following "Time to Hunt." Keeping the character going has induced a form of writer's block displayed in "The 47th Samurai" and "The Third Bullet" among others. With this book, Hunter is back doing what he does best. This action-packed ripper ranks up there with "Point of Impact" for sheer excitement. Perhaps Hunter should drop the entire Swagger family (particularly Nikki, who is simply annoying), forget continuity with past novels, and invent new characters. This one is a definite winner.

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When the radical priest come to get me relased ...

Revisado: 03-03-13

I had high hopes for this book as an up-to-date aggregation of JFK assassination research to replace Jim Marrs' excellent (but dated) "Crossfire." Douglass' book is a huge disappointment, having more to do with the canonization of JFK as a Roman Catholic martyr than with the conspiracy itself.

Like Joe Friday, all I want are the facts. Douglass performs the specious task of imputing religious motivations to JFK's foreign policy, drawing parallels between that policy and the writings of Thomas Merton. Merton had about as much influence on JFK's foreign policy as Donald Duck.

I agree with the author that JFK was killed by the "military-industrial complex." The military-industrial complex is a Very Bad Thing that controls our government to this day ("Don't drone me, bro!"). However, the characterization of JFK as a saint strikes me as naive. To quote James Ellroy: "Jack Kennedy was the mythological front man for a particularly juicy slice of our history. He called a slick line and wore a world-class haircut. He was Bill Clinton minus pervasive media scrutiny and a few rolls of flab. Jack got whacked at the optimum moment to assure his sainthood."

The true story has been covered-up and the nation lied-to for 50 years. The full truth needs to be acknowledged by the government and the plotters exposed. This book, focused on Roman Catholic theology rather than the plot itself, does little to advance the cause. If you are an assassination conspiracy buff, better choices available on Audible include "LBJ: The Mastermind of the JFK Assassination" and "Legacy of Secrecy: The Long Shadow of the JFK Assassination."

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Superb work of scholarship

Revisado: 01-14-13

I thought this would be a book about investing strategy. It is so much more. I will have to buy the hard copy and re-read it several times. There is a lot of meat to digest. Five-star work all the way. Taleb's comparison of the current state of academic research at publish-or-perish institutions with counterfeit watches is spot-on. I do not know of any practitioners in my field who bother to read any of the "leading journals" of academic research. Joe Ochman's narration is also outstanding. He does an excellent job coping with Taleb's broad vocabulary of unfamiliar English words smattered with foreign words like "flâneur." This book will expand your vocabulary if nothing else! I write mainly to voice my strong objection to the producer's decision to bleep Taleb's occasional use of expletives. Taleb is nothing if not a wordsmith and when he inserts an expletive it is for effect, either to show contempt for the idea he is debunking or to get the reader's attention. There is no excuse for the producer inserting a loud "bleep" over words like "bullsh*t." I listened to this book in the car and the bleeps are higher in volume that the surrounding speech. On several occasions, I thought someone was honking at me! The bleeps are unnecessary and disconcerting. May I suggest revising the recorded book to omit the bleeps? An excellent book that deserves a listen from every thoughtful person who is disturbed by current trends in academic research.

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