Error9312

Great account, might be better in hard copy

Revisado: 05-24-22

I really enjoyed this book. The bulk of the book is a day-by-day reading of the two Norwegian and one British expedition diaries with author commentary at the beginning, end, and interspersed in the middle. It's a great historical account of the expeditions, it was meaningful to hear it told straight from the diaries, it was interesting to compare the very different experiences day-by-day, and the author provides insightful commentary.

The author's commentary seems well-reasoned and researched. He is unapologetic in his scathing critiques of Scott, seemingly in reaction to other works that attribute Scott's disaster more to luck that poor planning, execution, and leadership. I'm not familiar with the other works, but the author makes a strong case.

The narrator put a lot of effort into accents for the different authors and injecting emotion into his diary narration. I found the different accents very helpful as a cue to know which diary/writer I was hearing, but I thought he got a little overly dramatic with the emotions.

I would recommend considering reading this book in hard copy rather than as an audiobook. Because it rotates through three diaries and commentary day-by-day, I would've found it very helpful to be able: to flip back and forth between diaries/commentary within each day to compare; refer back to prior days' entries since the rotation between writers broke the continuity of each narrative and since the expeditions were at comparable locations weeks apart; and to follow along with the routes on the maps (available in the supplementary PDF). As an audiobook or even an e-book it's much harder to jump around to compare passages than in a hard copy.

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Good advice, target audience is an older crowd

Revisado: 01-10-22

This course seemed like sound personal and family legal advice and information touching things like personal finance, estate planning, and healthcare. The lecturer is a practicing elder law professional who has written a few related books. This information will be most useful for late career and retired people as well as those who care for them or manage their affairs. There are portions and tidbits that are useful to any adult who wants to get a head start on some of these topics, mostly in the second half, but you'll have to sit through lectures on collecting social security and pros and cons of time shares to find it.

Besides age, the information seemed directly applicable to people of any socioeconomic class but only indirectly applicable to people outside the United States. And sticking with the elder law focus, there wasn't any discussion of other personal legal matters like liability in accidents, navigating the criminal justice system, disputes with employers, managing civil lawsuits, etc.

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Good info clearly meant for video consumption

Revisado: 08-02-21

This is a good course with worthwhile content. It covers a wide range of topics from epidemiology to cell biology to causes to various types of treatments to prevention and more.

Compared to many other Great Courses I've listened to, the professor makes a lot of references to graphics and charts on the screen in the video format of the course. In most cases he verbally describes them and their key takeaways. The audiobook description even touts these visuals, but ironically, as with most Great Courses on Audible, the accompanying PDF is almost entirely text. The PDF doesn't even mention let alone show an example of something like a Kaplan-Meier Survival Curve that the professor refers to frequently. I'm a Great Courses regular and was able to tolerate this, but I'm sure this would frustrate or confuse a lot of listeners.

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Be advised: This book is definitely a how-to guide

Revisado: 07-27-21

I don't sail and I bought this book expecting stories of sailing adventures sprinkled with sage advice. It's actually more like 2/3 ocean sailing reference guide and 1/3 short sailing stories meant to illustrate the advice and share the author's passion and experience. If I had wanted a reference guide I probably would've rated it at least 4 stars, but I wanted stories and from that perspective this book was a disappointment.

While many of the stories are great and some of the guidance is also interesting to a non-sailor in a technical way, there is a lot of really tedious content--made worse in audiobook format because it's hard to skip--like a glossary in the middle of an early chapter and a chapter that lists brands of sailboats with their pros and cons. I didn't look at the PDF supplement. I listened all the way through but I was relieved when it was over.

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esto le resultó útil a 4 personas

Thorough but not good for audio-only

Revisado: 09-24-20

I've listened to 15+ Great Courses. This course is especially thorough and doesn't shy away from technical details or simple calculations. It's a pretty complete intro to chemistry, with many chapters of practical applications in the second half. If you buy it with an Audible credit, the cost is a steal.

HOWEVER, the recording was clearly made as a video, with this audiobook being the audio taken directly from the video. The lecturer makes A LOT of references to chemical formulas, equations, diagrams, calculations, and demonstrations that the listener can't see, so the discussion can be very hard to follow. That plus a lot of the discussion being dry and technical meant I often tuned it out and I missed a lot of the foundational material at the beginning needed to understand later topics. The accompanying PDF definitely helps, but I didn't usually have it handy while I listened.

I would only recommend this course in audiobook format as a refresher for someone already familiar with general chemistry or as a comprehensive summary for someone who doesn't mind being lost when the lectures dive into details. And if it's your first Great Courses audiobook, don't let this one discourage you from trying others.

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Interesting vision of future military technology

Revisado: 11-20-19

I would've given this 3 stars as just a novel, but a primary goal of this novel was to paint a plausible picture of the technology we might see on a future battlefield. I think it fulfilled that goal well.

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Good but start with a different McWhorter title

Revisado: 09-30-19

I'm a John McWhorter fan. I've listened to two of his Great Courses titles and I subscribe to his podcast. Because this is him reading a book, it's scripted. Compared to his courses or podcast, this book has much less of the improvisation and spontaneity that makes him so entertaining. But compared to a normal nonfiction audiobook, this book has a lot of personality and is written more conversationally. Also, this book is--obviously--focused on the evolution of the English language specifically, so it went into a level of detail I wasn't as captivated by. The two courses by him that I listened to are much broader in scope, which allows him to jump between the most fascinating topics and examples from languages worldwide.

Worth listening to and gives an interesting and entertaining history about our language, but if you're not set on learning about English specifically, start with something like The Story of Human Language instead.

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Made for video, heavy on math

Revisado: 07-11-19

The narration makes lots of references to things happening in the video, which is not included.

This is one of the more mathematically rigorous Great Courses audiobooks. Lots of formulas and numbers, and assumes at least a familiarity with calculus. The math is especially hard to follow because the narration assumes you can see what's in the video. In this regard, I agree with a previous reviewer that this course will be accessible mainly to people who've previously studied thermodynamics and who will recognize some of the concepts and formulas.

If you can get past those two issues, it's a very thorough course with a good professor.

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esto le resultó útil a 4 personas