J. E. JORDAN

Worth listening multiple times

Revisado: 08-26-18

I've listened to this book twice and will probably listen again. There's really a lot to learn. Sometimes the best solutions to life's problems are counterintuitive. For example, the best filing system may not be to have everything tucked away in some easily definable order, but to put the next item on front of everything else. Really! It turns out, computer scientists had this problem with data storage and determined that the likelihood of needing something is correlated with how recently it was used, and searching a complicated system takes more effort than searching from the top of the stack. Listen to the book. It's full of stuff like that.

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Best Reserved for Fans, but

Revisado: 06-11-17

Poehler seems like a lovely, funny person, so I'm reluctant to not give her a higher rating, but I think it would be dishonest. Let me explain.

Imagine listening to a book by a French TV star you've barely heard of. (Say, Audrey Tautou.) That's my situation. I've lived in Europe for almost two decades, and I only knew of Poehler from Parks and Recreation, which is loved. I honestly had no idea she'd been on SNL or had hosted awards shows. (Yeah, can you tell me who starred in a German sketch comedy show in 2006? Or who presented the the Berlinale Golden Bear... ever? I thought not.)

For someone in my situation, who didn't really know the author, the book was just okay. There were definitely funny moments and touching moments. It starts off pretty slow with her complaining about writing for the first half hour or so. I think leaving this in was a creative mistake. If she needed to say all that to free herself up to write, fine, but then it should have been edited out to create a more powerful opening. After that, I kind of enjoyed the book, but I wasn't really looking forward to the next time I could listen to a chapter. I don't hesitate to return books I think are crap, so I can certainly say this book is by no means crap. I made it to the end. And I liked Poehler well enough when it was over. I appreciated how in her final stand up monologue she talked about important stuff in a funny way. That's a real gift.

"Yes, Please" is the kind of book that is probably better if you are a fan of the author, if you know her from all kinds of shows and events. As a stand-alone work of art/entertainment, it was not as satisfying as I had hoped.

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A Bit like Listening to a Police Scanner

Revisado: 05-11-17

​Disclosure: I still had an hour or two to go, but I just can't... For most of the book, I've been trying to hold on for the good part. So in this review, I'm going to try to warn off others who might share my tastes, while leaving open the possibility that others may see things differently. Okay? Here goes...​​

First of all, the book is rife with things that I guess all fall under the rubric of cyber addresses. If I were reading, I'd breeze past them. In an audio book, they all have to be read aloud. Maybe these strings of numbers and symbols are meaningful to some people. To me it was like someone reading serial numbers off the back of discarded electronics.

Maybe there aren't as many as it seems (hundreds? maybe thousands?), but I felt like I was frequently checking out, waiting for the natural language to start again. The reader does a good job getting through them without much delay, but she's still got to read them and it takes time.

Then as a story I couldn't really care about these people and I did try. It's most definitely not Mr. Robot or the hacking subplot in House of Cards, which are probably totally unrealistic. What do I know?... except that they kept my attention.

We rarely find out what personally motivates these people we hear from, so it was really hard for me to identify with them, to love them or to despise them. (I do fear them. Many times in drafting this review, I've written and deleted confessions that I fear these people will come after me for having written any kind of honest review at all. I guess in the end I have to trust they really do value freedom of expression.) We learn that some are motivated by lols, and that the prankster is a recurrent mythical character, but why should these particular people be so motivated by mayhem? For another example, some of the hackers go ballistic when one of their group gives an interview and makes himself sound more important than he is... but WHY? Who cares? The world is full of blowhards. But what in these people's characters, experiences, histories makes this error so grievous? Is it the same motivation for each of them or are there idiosyncratic motivations? Unless I missed something, which is entirely possible, we never really learn that sort of thing. I'm not sure the author even knows.

Finally, there's a lot of rather tedious recounting of rudderless IR chats. It's the nature of leaderless organizations to be rudderless, I get it, but that doesn't make for interesting reading/listening ... not for me anyway.

Maybe the meaty anthropological analysis came right at the end, but for many hours it's like... well, in a lot of ways it's like listening to a police scanner. It's mostly just "stuff", especially if you aren't in-the-know already, and you hope something exciting will happen, but there's no guarantee.

I'm sure this book would appeal to some people, just like listening to a police scanner appeals to some people, but I just couldn't wait until I was liberated to go listen to something else.

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Best for Classical Music Lovers w/Musical Training

Revisado: 02-27-17

I listened to about half these lectures while en route to a vacation destination 8 months ago.

It's true the lecturer is passionate about his subject. However, I often fell asleep and eventually lost interest altogether. I was glad when we moved on to another book.

I play a few instruments and am comfortable with musical terminology. However, I don't care much for classical music. My husband, on the other hand, loves classical music, but has virtually no musical knowledge. He also had difficulty following the lectures. I think it's harder for non-musicians to follow than you might expect.

So, I suspect you need to BOTH like classical music AND have some musical knowledge to really enjoy this lecture series. The passion and humor of the lecturer cannot overcome a weakness in either of these areas, in my estimation.

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You Can't Argue with That

Revisado: 02-27-17

So, this author has chosen to tell you what he wants to you learn, not as a typical non-fiction book, but as a narration. I am confident that for my own part, it seems to be true. Now, the characters are entirely two-dimensional. You cannot have any experience with literature and disagree with that. They're like people from a half-hour TV show, but somehow it feels dishonest of me to evaluate this book as I might a true work a fiction because it's not promoted as such.

But then there's the non-fiction component: the method of networking the author is advocating. I haven't begun to try it because of where I am in my life, so I can't reliably testify to whether the method even works. It makes sense. Basically, you take care of the people you know, stay in regular contact with them and ask them straight-out to help take care of you whenever they can. As they say, it's not rocket-surgery ... but if you rely on my having told you what the book is "about", you probably won't absorb it as well as those of us have who've listened to it as a story.

It's not in any way unpleasant to listen to. (Mish does a good job reading it and delineating the characters. Before I chose the book, I noticed one reviewer didn't like how he portrayed one of the characters. I honestly have no idea which one they could have been referring to.) The story is upbeat, positive, hopeful. It's hard to argue with the notion that taking care of existing customers (so we can keep them) is a lot easier than finding new ones.

I think if you're looking for a way to increase your business "sphere of influence" or are having trouble hanging onto clients, this would be a useful listen. If you've got some extra credits that you need to use before you lose, this book is certainly better than wasting them. Just don't pick it up expecting a satisfying novel.

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Memorable and Satisfying

Revisado: 02-27-17

I've waited some time before writing this review. When I finished the audiobook, I was satisfied, but I wasn't sure it would last. After all, I had enjoyed every minute of the book. I couldn't wait to see what would happen next or how it would turn out. Maybe these were just superficial pleasures that would fade with time. I can confess that a month or so later, I can still recall much of what I heard. I wonder about what happened to the characters after they left me. I'm left thinking about my own place in the denouement of history. I think these are signs that 11-22-63: A Novel deserves a high rating.

Now, I ought to point out that I'm not a fan of Stephen King. I don't mean to say I dislike him personally or his writing. I just mean to say I'm not going to give it such a high rating because of who the author is. But he's done a great job with this book.

11-22-63: A Novel is a long listen, but I think it's all there for a reason. By the end, everything falls into place at least enough to understand what I needed to to be happy with the unraveling.

Wasson is masterful with the narration.

All in all, I have no reason to withhold the highest rating I can give. I recommend whole-heartedly that you take a look at this book and see if it appeals to you.

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I Can't Take it Anymore ...

Revisado: 02-09-17

I really hate to give negative reviews, but this lecture series is crazy-making, both the contents and the lecturers mannerisms, which I found grating. When I haven't liked a book, I prefer to either return it (if it's not too late as I am here), which prevents Audible members from giving a review, or just forget about it say nothing. I prefer not to put people through this kind of rejection. But, in this case, I really wish someone had warned me off this one. Let me tell you why.

I have a friend from North Carolina (the American South) who says when he goes home and visits the doctor, he gets asked whether he's ready to accept Jesus as his Lord and Savior. The doctor even has pamphlets on hand. Inappropriate? I think so. When I visit my doctor, I don't want to discuss my religion.

In the same way, this lecturer has sold a series on literature, but talks a great deal about theological matters. It should be no surprise that many of his "books that have made history" are biblical (or koranic). What should come as a surprise is that he doesn't talk about this literature critically. You don't come away knowing that, for example, the book of Job has characters with un-Semitic names because the Book of Job isn't original to the Hebrews. (Wow, really? Seriously, it's adopted literature. Read up on it!) Instead, he tells us this is evidence of its universality. (Uh, ... no! That's an "alternative fact" I think.) It is indeed possible to talk about the Bible as literature, but this fellow talks about it as theology, thinly veiled as a discussion of literature. It's like sitting in a Sunday school for 10 year old children of evangelicals. There's no insight to speak of and certainly no Higher Criticism, which is century-old method of looking at the bible from the context it was written in rather than only from a contemporary reading. You study the text for what it is and not what it means to you personally or to your age. For example, we know that the Hebrews didn't understand Satan to be the personification of evil. Often, Satan did God's work at God's behest (read it in Numbers or Samuel, better yet read Elaine Pagels' The Origin of Satan). We may view Satan as Evil but that's a much-later Christian development; the Hebrews viewed Satan as "the adversary." You cannot study the Bible in a non-evangelical way without knowing this or you'll just get it wrong. You will be projecting a Christian reading onto a Hebrew text. I'm sorry but if this fellow doesn't know that, then he shouldn't be giving a course including it.

Then, he talks about historical matters (e.g. nazism, Stalin) with authority, yet his knowledge is clearly superficial and largely uninformed conjecture. Yes, he gets some of the generalities right, but it's as if the information he knows has all come from the perspective of an American. I would be surprised to learn that this man ever studied any original materials or even, if he doesn't speak Russian or German, participated in conversations with people who had. This is despite his claim to just be an historian. No, you don't have to have had these experiences to discuss them, but you'd better recognize the limits of your experience, as any serious scholar would. If you think your experience (from far, far away) is a universal understanding of historical events, you are believing fairy tales, myths or worse propaganda. If you go to Germany, where they talk all the darn time about the Holocaust ... and what really happened ... and why it happened ... and how they can make amends for it, you will understand something you do not understand from sitting by your TV and listening to Americans pontificate about it. Hitler did a lot of bad stuff, and in our estimation that bad surely outweighs the good, but there was not a total absence of goodness.

The idea that any person (living or dead) or any institution is purely evil, or that Satan is pure evil, is sophomoric. You stop believing it when you grow up and see the world as something infinitely more complex than a children's story with cardboard-cut-out villains.

Okay, I think I've made my point.

I was hoping for a more serious lecture series. What I got was worse than a freshman survey course. If you have had any higher education at all, I advise you to disregard this course. You will be disappointed. If you are totally uneducated in the formal sense, I advise you even more strongly not to waste your time. Literature studies can be enriching, but this series will not serve that goal and may even put you off the good stuff.

Finally, my apologies to the lecturer, should he read this review. I realize that my warning to listeners has not been kind to him, but I do think consumers should be aware before paying for his course.

One more thing. I stopped listening to this series midway through. I had actually stopped much earlier and tried listening a little more from time to time to give the guy the benefit of the doubt. Each time I did, I was disappointed. As I write this, I've just listened to a chapter on the Book of Job so it's freshest in my mind. Thus, I seem to have largely drawn illustrations from that chapter. I really couldn't stand to go back and listen again to give you examples from things I heard weeks or months ago. Recognizing the limits of my experience, it's quite possible that once the lecturer gets through the ancient and theological texts, he has something to offer. For my part, I think giving him 10 lectures to prove himself serious has been more than generous on my part.

And, no thank you, I don't want any of your pamphlets, sir.

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Thoroughly enjoyed this one

Revisado: 03-05-16

I think I listened to this one in about record time. I like science stories generally, but this one felt as much about human beings as about facts. it kept my interest through every minute. I'm emotionally exhausted now that it's through. I'd never thought about what happens to my tissues after an operation or routine lab work. I'm not sure that I really care, but it's a good story about people who did. I especially appreciate how the author had to earn the trust of the people whose story she was going to tell. I think few authors would have clung on as long as this one did. Good for everyone involved that she did!

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Real Life Suspense

Revisado: 02-24-16

Usually, I don't like when authors narrate their own books, but this one works. I found the whole thing suspenseful and I couldn't wait to get back to it each evening. I'd seen the Panorama broadcast long before choosing this audio book. I can report that the book had more in depth. It was probably made better because I could see the interviews he relates in my mind's eye. So I think the film and the book complement each other.

All in all an exciting story.

In a lot of ways, it reminds me of Michael Moore and Bowling for Columbine.

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Thrillers for an Age of General Relativity

Revisado: 02-12-16

There are so many narrators that it's hard to comment except in the most general way. They were all good. The stories feel a little dated (mostly set in the early years around WW1, I think), but not unbearably so. They definitely show the foundations of the new kind of thriller to emerge in the 20th century, the century where we began to recognize the true grandeur of the universe that more than dwarfs us as individuals. Think of ... the (later) Twilight Zone episode where the people filing onto the spacecraft realize the book is a not a manual, but a cookbook. Or Frankenstein. The Lovecraft stories are like these. I think this collection should appeal to people who like science, science fiction, thrillers. It's a hefty set, but being short fiction, you really can dip into it as it suits you.

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