M. Cantos

I Wish My Brother George Was Clear

Revisado: 04-13-24

Since this was free through Audible Plus, I'm not mad about just spending 1.5 hours listening to a legend free-associate . . . but it's kind of like "who is this for?" It would be kind of a disjoint introduction for someone with no exposure to the music of Parliament Funkadelic (though, for better and worse, GC's ramblings are intercut with extended live performances), but it's not exactly the deep-dive that hardcore Funkateers would crave--most of the best anecdotes here are available elsewhere. You'll come out of it fond, but not further enlightened.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Get ready for one friendly hour about you!

Revisado: 12-15-23

(As a disclaimer, I haven't been in the stated target demographic in many years--I had heard about Sapadin's other books about the 6 Procrastination Styles, but this is the only one was available on Audible . . . and indeed, it was not hard to abstract from all the mentions of papers and professors. I also feel like all the quotes from Eleanor Rosevelt and Ben Franklin were probably present in the other versions, because they seem like this target group might find them a little cringe.)

Anyway, the 6 Styles are both the strength and weakness of the book. Early on, you are directed to take 6 pretty casual quizzes asking you to assess yourself on a 3 point scale with questions that make it pretty clear which style it's talking about (which does create the possibility of self-reporting bias). From there, you are directed to a chapter about your particular style, which does help you feel like the advice is tailored to you . . . but also it means that there will be (if you're lucky enough to only procrastinate in only one way) at most an hour about your particular issues. (For "Worriers," Judy Ho's "Stop Self Sabotage" gives a lot more depth . . . but maybe also more to worry about?) I ended up just listening to all of the sections, and each offers a couple of different sub-styles, a more extended account of one patient's journey, suggestions for how to talk and think differently, and a short guided visualization (which didn't seem that useful to me, but your mileage may vary).

If you've listened to other books on procrastination, the advice itself is not that groundbreaking, but it is sound . . . even if a lot of it boils down to "That thing you're not doing? You need to grow up and do it . . . but here's how to make that a little more approachable" (rather than much about leveraging the specific strengths inherent in a particular style). I will say that, despite the friendly tone of the narration, I was caught off-guard when some of the characterizations of the sub-styles bordered on insultingly reductive, but overall, the book's heart is in the right place.

Finally, the eternal question, especially with self-help books: would this be more effective on the page? On the one hand, Siobhan Hallinan's narration does a GREAT job of sounding like a wise and canny friend--she reminded me of Mariner from "Lower Decks." On the other hand, as with any book on procrastination, the efficacy of this book is going to depend on you actually implementing and probably revisiting the strategies, which would be easier to do with the print version (though I guess you could argue that writing down for yourself the high-points of the advice might have a value in and of itself).

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Effective Translation Of A Rather Boring Text

Revisado: 11-07-23

Perhaps Eminem described The Iliad best: "HI KIDS, DO YOU LIKE VIOLENCE? / WANNA SEE ME STICK NINE INCH NAILS THROUGH EACH ONE OF MY EYELIDS?" Wilson apologizes in the introduction that there aren't more words for "spear" because it comes up so often in this text, but Homer shows us that the number of places that spear can go in the human body (or in the ground, if altered in its flight by one of the deathless gods) is limitless! The combat is plentiful but not very strategic--the most interesting part of the many battlefield scenes is the ways that The Gods can intervene in subtle & not so subtle ways. Indeed, one of the biggest takeaways from the book is how fickle and petulant The Gods were seen to be. Besides the battles, the rest of the book is mostly about how petulant and exasperating humans can be.

If you do want to engage with this text, for a couple of reasons it might be better to read rather than listen to. First, while Audra McDonald does a great job of conveying gravitas (especially when characters are enraged or inconsolable), she does not differentiate the characters that much (and Homer doesn't help--all of the characters like to speechify in very similar ways), so it's easy to get lost if you space out and miss the identifying tag at the beginning of a diatribe. The other issue is that Emily Wilson has apparently painstakingly replicated Homer's naturalistic tone in order to give us an equivalent experience to that of the original audience . . . which means that it's hard to appreciate all the work she put into refashioning the text into iambic pentameter without seeing the line breaks.

Wilson's scholarly introduction really brings across the care she took with the translation, but while it does provide some valuable context for contemporary readers, it's hard not to call it a bit excessive . . . even if it is ultimately more interesting than the text it describes.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

for all your hot goss from 1982!

Revisado: 03-30-23

Goldman's career speaks for itself, so he definitely has gems here for today's screenwriters . . . but to find them you're going to have to sift through A LOT of anecdotes about Burt Reynolds, Robert Redford, Sylvester Stallone, et al. Now, if you are a film history buff, that material may provide you with some valuable one-liners for your dissertation, but don't expect a systematic guide to the craft; in fact, the most practical section (where he presents his own short story, walks you through considerations for adapting it, offers the resulting short screenplay, and then includes the critique of several of his friends in different parts of the business, even including their disagreements with him) is at the end, long after you might have quit in despair. I'm sure that some of his observations are timeless, but it's hard to trust the relevance of his assertions about what will get green-lit or what roles stars will be willing to play when he's so hung up on how Rocky III will be received or whether Porky's will get a sequel.

A big part of what kept me going was Kiff VandenHeuvel's delivery--he really brings to life Goldman's conversational tone and gift of gab. The book is fun to listen to . . . but is it (still) essential?

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

Buries the lede . . . but backs it up with science

Revisado: 02-17-23

As other reviewers have alluded to, this book feels a bit padded-out without considering the desires of its core audience. It probably started as a course on the *study* of procrastination that was then shoehorned to sell it as self-help. You could basically skip the first two "classes" here without missing anything important. There *are* practical tips in this book, (copiously) supported by scientific studies . . . but nothing that unique. As with any of the books on this subject, you're still going to have to do the work (except this one is less focused than others about assigning you homework to do to work on changing).

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

STC writes . . . basically just another screenplay

Revisado: 10-01-22

There is very little in here about the specific challenges of writing a novel rather than a screenplay, and it's telling that so many of the examples in here are books that were readily made into successful movies (and thus fit the templates laid out in Snyder's original screenwriting book). At the risk of sounding like a snob, it would have been nice if she had taken on the challenge of excavating the essential structure from some knottier capital-L Literary novels. Brody is so focused on showing us how to teach a character a lesson that she doesn't do much talking about the characters that fail to do so or exist amid more dense interweavings of perspectives.

The advice itself is not *bad* (basically just the widely-discussed 3 Act Structure cut into 15 beats, whose permutations are then explored in 10 broad templates, each of which has an exemplar text's plotting explicated in detail) . . . but if you already know the sort of story you are writing, you may not need to hear about all the other ones. I still prefer Matt Bird's The Secrets Of Story, even though it is also generalist, is also based mostly on movies and novels that read like movies, and does acknowledge its debt to Snyder's STC; Bird does more to foreground the misgivings that readers have about investing in characters, and his advice throughout seems more applicable to whichever sort you're writing. (Bird also has a second book that elaborates on how to create and introduce a main character to carry a story, and that *does* have *some* actual content on the uniqueness of novel writing.)

My favorite part of Brody's book was the template towards the end for easily plugging your 15 story beats into a log-line or short synopsis to sell your project's dynamic appeal to outsiders.

Brody is a fine reader of her own work. She has apparently taught Snyder's ideas in many seminars, and it shows in her delivery.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Probably easier to follow as a physical book

Revisado: 09-15-22

This novel jumps back and forth between characters' perspectives and different moments in their lives, so it's easy in the audiobook to get confused. The narrator herself does a fine job, though!

In terms of the novel itself, do not go into it expecting a lot supernatural content--the main focus is the very real ways that people and institutions can fail children (and the adults they grow to be). Also, given the unsparing rendering of this important issue, Lauren Groff's blurb calling the novel "addictive" seems a bit off; there will be plenty of times that you will be tempted to tap-out after yet another graphic rendering of sexual violence.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Aimed at Middle and High School Teachers

Revisado: 01-06-22

Minor does a good job of drawing from his own experiences with teaching 7th grade to sketch the ways that lesson plans can accommodate the needs of one’s specific students and make them feel seen . . . but the book may be a little less useful for those who teach at other levels or are looking for a primer in Equity. A lot of time is dedicated to how to achieve egalitarian aims against the backdrop of mandatory testing and administrator intransigence.

Minor is a great reader of his own work, and the audiobook has the added bonus of some podcasts where he was the guest and brings in more specific cases from his own experience.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Might help to read on the page instead

Revisado: 12-14-21

Justine Eyre’s reading is great and differentiates the characters (to the degree that’s possible in a novel explicitly written as “a weave of voices”—it’s complicated, but interesting!) . . . but the chapters have an idiosyncratic numbering scheme that might have been easier to figure out with the ability to flip back to earlier sections.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Probably better to read it on the page

Revisado: 11-26-21

The readers all give quality performances, but the pace is so brisk that there’s not a lot of time to absorb much about each one.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 2 personas