Fountain of Chris

Narración mejor que el libro

Revisado: 02-28-24 El oyente recibió este título gratis

La narración de este libro brilla con una calidad excepcional, capturando la esencia y el tono de la historia de manera impresionante. Igualmente notable es la traducción, que se maneja con tal destreza que mantiene el flujo y la vivacidad del texto original sin sacrificar la precisión. En cuanto al contenido del libro en sí, se sostiene como una obra competente y entretenida. Aunque no trasciende a un nivel de singularidad extraordinaria que lo distinga profundamente de otras obras, su ejecución sólida asegura que la lectura sea agradable y libre de tedio. En resumen, mientras que el libro puede no ofrecer una experiencia revolucionaria, su narración y traducción de alta calidad garantizan una experiencia de lectura satisfactoria y envolvente.

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Convinced me on the cause but not the solution

Revisado: 11-27-23

This is a good length for the subject. It was a fast listen, and I came away on-board with the author's thesis that fiber connectivity is imperative for our country, but she seems to move too fast away from considering the major companies as part of the solution, something that is happening now (with Federal $$$). I hope that she does a post-pandemic edition, now that there have been so many advances.

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More encyclopedia than book

Revisado: 10-09-19

This is, essentially, an encyclopedia. If you approach as such - and as a stepping off point for further exploration of prominent and influential women - you will avoid some disappointment others might feel.

We are all going to have certain women we think should be in a book like this, but who don't make it, for whatever reason. I won't hold that against Clinton^2, because it is an inherent limitation to any project of this sort. My biggest criticism is that the book doesn't do enough with the material. You, the reader, will get short bios of a generous spread of gutsy women (Clinton^2 do a good job of trying to get an international cross-section of women and to cover a number of different areas of influence), but that is about all you'll get. With the authors being two women who have lived very prominent and influential lives, themselves, I was really hoping for up to the final third of the book to be an analysis of how to foster such gutsiness in women/girls/daughters and where to go from here.

Whether or not that was too much work or would have potentially made the book more controversial than they wanted, in order to reach a broader audience, we are left with these (admittedly well-written) encyclopedia entries. I should clarify that it's not like Clinton^2 copied and pasted Wikipedia entries. HRC has written a number of books at this point, and she is a talented non-fiction writer. There are a number of personal interactions recounted along the way, and the authors make a point of adding how certain women inspired them personally.

I hope that this book isn't pigeon-holed as a book just for women, because, while women may be the primary audience, the book can also serve as an important blind spot patch for men who may not have been exposed to information about a lot of the included women in classrooms, home life, or through various media sources. HRC's brand of feminism has never been about tearing down men, but instead focuses on removing barriers to letting women reach their full potential. This should be a bit more palatable to male readers than works that label men as "the problem" and place the burden of change almost entirely upon them.

Clinton^2 make for an entertaining narrator team. HRC has always done a great job narrating (maybe it's all the reading to her daughter and grandkids), and having Chelsea added to the production helps differentiate the quotes and makes this all the more relatable for mother-daughter pairs who will be listening to the audiobook.

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Not only for conservatives!

Revisado: 10-01-19

This was my first O'Reilly book, and, considering how many bestsellers he's had, I shouldn't have been as surprised as I was that it is a well-written, coherent, and thoughtful book. He's not as impartial as he proclaims himself to be, but he is much more moderate in his approach than one might expect, judging by his TV personality.

The subtitle, "How the President Really Sees America," is a little misleading. Yes, O'Reilly uses a number of interviews (both television and private) to bring color to the President's character. These parts of the book are where it shines. Conservatives will enjoy learning more about their leader, liberals will gain much-needed insight into Trump's humanizing side - Even factoring in O'Reilly's bias, I imagine it will be tough to still think of Trump as the Devil incarnate after reading the book. - and neutrals will gain a perspective not currently available among the various media outlets (of any side). O'Reilly manages to address media bias in a more rational, and somewhat less partisan way than found in the day-to-day ruckus we see and hear.

However, those parts of the book make up about 30% of the space, with most of the remainder devoted to Trump's campaign and election to office. This is not unimportant, but it does make the subtitle a little disingenuous. IF YOU BUY THIS BOOK, MAKE SURE YOU ARE INTERESTED IN THE ACTUAL CAMPAIGN PROCESS. There are some paragraphs about why O'Reilly feels things broke Trump's way, but a lot of this material is a rundown of the campaign itself.

While O'Reilly's bias is noticeable in the way he addresses certain issues that have clear left-right positions (i.e. Clinton's emails, Biden & son in Ukraine, Mueller, Comey, the New York Times, etc.), he approaches them in a rational manner that should be palatable to his more liberal readers. That said, the omissions are clearly partisan decisions (i.e. just one throw-away sentence about Russian interference to help Trump win, an oblique reference to Michael Flynn being a poor choice but no other mention of the extremely high rate of turnover in Trump's administration, acknowledging that Trump says bad things to help stir up his base but not addressing what this says about the people who support him because of these bad statements, completely ignoring the documented poor treatment of immigrants and asylum seekers, etc.). These flaws do not at all ruin the book, but one can only assume they were done on purpose, either to placate Trump and his die-hard supporters, for political reasons, or just because O'Reilly knows who his audience is likely to be.

Overall, the book is solid, and I can recommend it to right-leaning readers as an enjoyable profile and reliving of a historic election, as well as to other readers as a necessary, relatively reasonable contrarian view to most of the information one hears, sees, and reads about the President.

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The government knows you are reading this review

Revisado: 09-25-19

This book's primary contribution is in keeping with the reasons Snowden is famous in the first place; informing the global public (and especially Americans) about the extent a government will go to justify massive amounts of private data collection that could be used against individuals at some point in the future.

Snowden admirably stays in his lane throughout the book. While one might expect that from a memoir, he easily could have chosen to use "Permanent Record" as a platform for promoting broad policy changes far removed from his area of expertise, or he could have speculated wildly about what the government is doing or has done to harm American citizens with the data they've collected. Fortunately for objectivity, Snowden appears to be as level-headed as he was in his extended interview with John Oliver a few years ago. He does not abuse his position as a whistleblower to dump vast amounts of unrelated US secrets he had access to, nor does he succumb to the siren song of the conspiracy theorist by interspersing a faux-truth agenda among actual things he discovered.

I don't know what sort of ghost writing help he may have had, but the book is well-written. It's easily a step above the memoirs and autobiographies from people it is obvious haven't written more than a few pages since undergrad, which is all the more impressive since Snowden's formal education capped out with a GED. He's no David Sedaris, but the writing is perfectly adequate to get his story and main point across effectively.

This book will probably be popular with privacy activists, libertarians, data scientists, and socially concerned tech industry people, but any average person who has an interest in justice, big data and/or checking government overreach should find it a worthwhile read.

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Preaching to the choir, but nobody else.

Revisado: 09-25-19

It is telling that Klein admits early in the book that, in the global warming debate, "Facts and arguments are seen as little more than further attacks, easily deflected," because this book is meant to preach to the choir. It will get those already taking part in the things like #climatestrike a bit more riled up, but anyone with differing views will be put off by the tone, as there is no attempt made to persuade them to further explore the man-made global warming side. This is a missed opportunity, because books are one of the best media for fostering the discovery process as a person questions his or her beliefs while being guided by the author.

I did appreciate two very important points that, at least to my knowledge, are unique to Klein's approach to the topic:

1) She admits that individuals cannot do anything to affect climate change on their own. One person recycling, or going vegetarian, or getting solar panels, or riding a bike instead of driving IS NOT GOING TO CHANGE ANYTHING. Klein's focus on people starting mass movements is refreshing, even to those who may disagree with her proposed methods for averting a climate crisis.
2) She admits that climate change is a godsend for liberals, and that the most popularly proposed methods for fighting it look like a liberal wish list. That does not necessarily mean the proposals are right or wrong, but it helps explain why this has become a partisan issue.

Other than my disappointment at the missed opportunity to at least attempt to convince climate skeptics to reexamine their views - and no, sprinkling in a few statistics and sharing anecdotes about smoke from forest fires interfering with your life for a few weeks are not going to do it - I do have a few other concerns.

I haven't read Klein's other books, though I would like to get to "This Changes Everything" before too long, but I understand she blends social activism throughout her writing. This social activism leads to a few strong biases, which reduce this book's effectiveness on a general audience. Whether or not one believes white men are the cause of most of the world's problems, unions jobs are the ideal to strive for, free markets are evil, we are experiencing "late capitalism", "elites" are the enemy, and wealthy conservatives are ruining the world (with no talk of billionaire liberals who balance them out), relying on these positions and constantly referring to them throughout the book does nothing to promote a unified vision to pass the Green New Deal or anything else bipartisan to confront climate change.

Finally, I will not go so far as to call her economic arguments ignorant, but she does present a VERY one-sided viewpoint regarding the economic aspects of climate change. There are so many ways economic freedom can result in beneficial environmental outcomes, but Klein's approach is always planning and regulation. When she brings up Adam Smith or neoliberalism, it seems as though it is done so with a very cursory knowledge, specifically twisted to make her points (e.g. She mentions the "Wealth of Nations" as something that ushered in slavery, except that Smith has an entire section explaining that slavery is a bad idea from even an economic standpoint).

Many of the people who get this book will do so simply to make themselves feel even more strongly that the world is in huge danger and that we need what Klein calls a "system reboot". This is fine, and these are the people who are going to give this book 4 or 5 stars. There are others who will read it while double-checking every statement against articles by the Heartland Institute and give it a 1. For the rest of us, I think it's fair to place it right in the middle.

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A well-argued theory

Revisado: 09-20-19

This book starts off with a bang. Markovits' introduction has so many assertions that it may be worth listening to twice, especially for those of us who have always assumed meritocracy is an unchallengeable good.

It's an interesting thesis. I can envision many people reading the sections about how meritocracy hurts the elite and rolling their eyes, but, by the end of the book, Markovits has made a strong case that "the rich and the rest" can find common ground that benefits them both.

The general premise of "The Meritocracy Trap" is that the rich are able to invest substantially more in developing the human capital of their children, and then use this advantage to make the work at the upper limits of the job pool ever more lucrative (if not necessarily productive toward societal-level benefits). This repeats itself from generation to generation, in a positive feedback loop (read: trap). Whereas the aristocratic rich were susceptible to hard-working meritocrats usurping their position as elites, the meritocrats are continuously improving their position, making their replacement unlikely as long as creating "the best and brightest" is the ideal.

I would like to have seen Markovits co-author this book with an economist (he has some influential ones there at Yale) just to provide a deeper perspective into the financial aspects. Even a professor of education would have been a good addition, but he still does a thorough job of fleshing out his thesis.

It does seem to never surpass the level of being a theory, and I am sure there will be some rebuttals in the following weeks. However, this is a worthwhile book to get the conversation started. We DO need a dialogue between the rich and the rest, and we DO need to find a common ground where both groups are more satisfied than they are currently.

Fred Sanders does a good job narrating, at it was easily understandable through 3.50x speed.

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Not his best, but a good addition.

Revisado: 09-18-19

For those of you who have read Gladwell before, this book is very much in the normal style. For those of you who haven't read another of his books, this means that he lays out his general topic (not so much a thesis), proceeds with a number of chapters with anecdotes relating to the topic, and then finishes with thoughts about how we as humans can use what he explored in the prior chapters toward functioning better as people.

I must admit, I started "Talking to Strangers" thinking he would be hard-pressed to come up with enough worthwhile material, but the stories all fit, and the chapters didn't seem too drawn out. The general premise - that we misjudge strangers consistently while still thinking we know them - could have been expanded to people we *DO* know, and, honestly, it seems like a lot of what he discussed would carry over to that situation, but perhaps the slightly more narrow focus helped Gladwell's research process.

As usual, he doesn't stick rigidly to the main topic. It is more of an excuse for him to share research about the human condition (the chapters on alcohol use and coupling come to mind). This is not a problem, so much as an observation.

It has been a long time since I've read "Blink" and "Outliers", but my sense is that this book won't have the same impact those did. It is entertaining, informative, and well-written, but I'm not sure how many people want to read chapter after chapter about them being worse than they thought at everyday social interactions. Furthermore, while he tries to remain objective, part of the book is going to rub conservative readers the wrong way, and another part is going to anger some liberal readers, simply because he gives his conclusions on charged topics relating to race, feminism, and terrorism, which wasn't necessarily the case in his earlier books.

The Audiobook production is solid. Gladwell is a good narrator for his own work, and the audio clips of interviews, historic recordings, and dramatizations were a nice touch. If you are listening at faster speeds, some of the historic clips will be a bit tougher to understand than the rest of the audio, but you can always slow it down for a bit.

Overall, "Talking to Strangers" is fine, and it's a book to get around to eventually, when you're on a Malcolm Gladwell kick, but I can't imagine there will be a rush to go grab it just so people can be on the next popsci wave and sound well-informed at parties.

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It does what a sequel should do.

Revisado: 09-10-19

**No spoilers**

Atwood did so many things right with this book. It builds upon the world she created over 30 years ago, staying true to the form and style of the original, but with effective changes as well (e.g. the triple narrator). My favorite part was the fleshing out of a secondary character from "The Handmaid's Tale", as that character moved into one of the narrator roles and gained both complexity and humanity.

I am not experienced with literary analysis, but a few layman's observations that I would consider minor detractions are a slightly too streamlined/convenient plot to get one of the narrators advancing toward where she needed to be, as well as the pacing of the the final quarter of the book. I certainly understand things picking up as everything comes together, but it did seem both a little sudden and a little too quick.

Is "The Testaments" as powerful and groundbreaking as "The Handmaid's Tale"? No, but I don't think any of us expected it to be. We have already been shocked by the Puritan-esque, post-revolutionary Iran-inspired world of the Republic of Gilead, but what Atwood does with "The Testaments" is give us vibrant, deep, rich characters who are inspiring and flawed and add another layer to the fictional land we know so well, while at the same time updating the implicit warning of "The Handmaid's Tale" for the modern world.

The audio production is fantastic. I listen at 3.5x, and everything sounded great. I did check the audio at normal speed, and some of you may find it a tad on the slow side, but that is easily remedied with the app. In this case, I found the multiple narrators very effective, as it really made the older character POP. The two younger character voices blended a bit in my mind, but they were both well done. As for Derek Jacobi... well, he's Derek Freakin' Jacobi!

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It's what you'd expect

Revisado: 09-09-19

I received this book as a present from a relative, accompanied by a strong recommendation, so I listened to it immediately, twice in a row. Now, six months later, I keep seeing it pop up on social media, and, to be completely honest, I haven't put into practice anything from the book.

That said, I don't think we should penalize it solely on my experience for the following reasons:
1) I wasn't listening to it with the express purpose of using it to improve my life.
2) I took my usual bookmarks, but didn't process the notes from those bookmarks until today. That is a big part of my internalization of the material, so I didn't have much recall of the major takeaways until just now.

"Atomic Habits" isn't snake oil, nor is it pure rehash of ideas one can find all over the Internet, but it IS one of those books people write to build their email lists and create funnels for their higher level products. This shouldn't be a surprise to anybody, and it's not an automatic negative. Clear does a good job of introducing his specialty, and he gives a number of actionable steps that should help plenty of people make improvements in their lives without any purchase beyond the book itself.

Is it life-changing and worthy of a 4.8 out of 5 on Amazon? That is, of course, somewhat subjective, and while I would lean toward 'no', it doesn't have to be. The book will be helpful to most people and is generally worth reading, so the reviews and ratings get that point across.

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