W. Norman

Wonderful story

Revisado: 11-11-23

Masterful writing bringing alive a world that I knew nothing about and that is largely hidden from view.

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A gift for McWhorter fans

Revisado: 10-14-23

When you know, you know. Enjoy. (Nine more words are required for an official review.)

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An exemplary (shortish) Great Course

Revisado: 10-12-23

Well-designed, efficient and informative, gives clear definitions and descriptions of theories and hypotheses, engaging narratives of the often-famous experiments and studies, and as pleasingly read by the author as an audiobook using a professional voice actor. (It sounds great at x1.5 speed.) I have an academic background in this area and found precious little to quibble with — and learned a few new things. Without running down the author of another recently released (2023) Great Course on Understanding Cognitive Biases, which covers much of the same ground, I recommend this one instead (if you’re hesitating between the two).

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Please forgive the otherwise excellent narrator!

Revisado: 08-28-23

No matter how many books on and by Dylan you’ve read, you’ll learn important new things here. It’s exhaustively researched and brings to life the 70 hours Bob, the producer, and the musicians spent in the Nashville studio recording his game-changing double-LP.

The text is very well read by the narrator, and can be comfortably taken in at x1.5 speed. This is a book for Dylan fans only. And we all have to find a way of getting over the narrator’s one unfortunate bug. The name of the iconic song and it’s central character is pronounced “Joanna” throughout rather than the way it is spelled and sung, “JoHanna”. You can expect to be jarred by this 100 times or more — breaking the spell whereby we imagine the author speaking his own words (even when we know they are different people). Yes, you have to not obsess over the fact that the narrator seems not to have actually listened to the LP he describes over 9 hrs (and clearly not to be a Dylan fan himself).

But get over this you must, because you are a Dylan fan and you will want to know all the details presented within this book. And apart from this one thing, it really is smartly and pleasingly read. If this little flaw ruins it for you — that’s on you, not him. No doubt he has been told and embarrassed by now, and he will never make such a mistake in the future, I’m equally sure. But you, dear Dylan fan, are cool enough to deal with “Visions of Joanna”. Because you know Bob’s reaction (we’re he to learn of it) would be to laugh not fume.

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Tour de force

Revisado: 01-22-22

This is a gripping, “page-turning” drama of intrigue and mystery, doubling as a subtle work is social history and political philosophy, all told through the sly observations of an 11-year-old girl trying to make sense of the topsy-turvy world outside the small flat she shares with 3 generations of her Albanian family. Exquisitely written by the woman who would grow up to become the youngest-ever professor of philosophy at the London School of Economics, and engagingly performed by the narrator. (Works well at x1.3 — you’ll be too impatient to hear what happens next at any slower speed!)

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QED. Case closed.

Revisado: 08-21-20

The tools from historical and comparative linguistics will be familiar to fans of McWhorter’s other books and Great Courses. He applies them here to misconceptions about Black English that are still almost universally held by Americans of all ethnic origins. The case here for the utter normalcy of Black English as a real dialect is so thorough and accessible, there is no excuse — especially among policy makers and educators — for continued ignorance or disrespect. Tour de force.

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Tour de force

Revisado: 11-02-19

Although I’d read and reread at least 4 of Gioia’s books on music, I was a little skeptical that the “subversive” conceit could plausibly be sustained for a whole book. I was wrong! This is a tour de force — a book he’s no doubt been training himself to write almost non-stop since childhood.

The book is well read. But you will have to figure out how not to cringe as Renell mangles every single French word or name.

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Sets a new standard itself

Revisado: 01-22-18

Eloquent, witty, concise, punchy, comprehensive. Can stand in as a brief history and musicology of jazz. Help yourself to one of the several long playlists that various users have created on Spotify to gather most of Giola’s recommended versions of each song. The narration sounds fine, to my ears, played back at 1.25x.

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