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Fascinating lesson on human hubris

Revisado: 06-10-24

The book was a great overview of the many ways we think we know better than nature and culture and how that can go awry with disastrous consequences. The reading is professional with a sort of trans-Atlantic accent that makes it a bit too dry to hold one’s attention, subtracted a star for that.

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Fascinating history of hedge funds

Revisado: 04-30-24

If you have any interest in trading or investments, this will be a fascinating look into some of the biggest operations for making, and sometimes losing money. If not, it will probably be extremely boring for you.

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Interesting window into F1

Revisado: 04-14-24

If you know who the author is your expectations should be pretty on point. Günther is a bit awkward reading his own writing at first, but eventually settles in. He’s got a few great non-F1 stories as well. Highly enjoyable listen and I hope he does another one.

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fascinating, well-written, well-read

Revisado: 02-03-24

This book covers a lot of good information about how people react in emergencies, and how to improve your own chances of survival. It uses true stories and interviews to piece together why some survived and others didn't in plane crashes, terrorist attacks, and natural disasters.

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interesting information but a difficult listen

Revisado: 12-31-22

I don't know if it's the prose, the delivery, or (most likely) the combination of the two, but I had a very very difficult time listening to this book.

The writing is overly academic and the delivery is both dry and pretentious in a way that makes my attention look anywhere else for more appealing engagement.

There are two kinds of books about our societal ills-- those that offer mechanistic insight and those that describe the many symptoms. This book tries to be the former but it's made mostly of the latter. This was especially apparent because the book I listened to before it, "High Conflict", was such a good example of mechanistic insight.

I also, as "classical liberal" / political moderate found the book to have enough of a left bias to make me roll my eyes the same way I do at Fox News headlines. When dissecting political polarization, I think it's better to have an author that can do a better job of avoiding such biased thinking.

If you are looking for a fairly academic examination of the problems around political polarization in terms of the ways problems manifest, you might find this book helpful. If you want good insight into where the problems come from and how you can personally help mend things, try "High Conflict" instead.

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An inspiring story, but questionable advice

Revisado: 05-29-22

This book was suggested to me by someone at my gym. I was not familiar with Cameron Hanes before listening to this audio book.

As an ultra-distance cyclist, I am no stranger to endurance. I have spent years focusing on training and nutrition, and showing up every day to do my planned workouts. I know what it's like to pull over to the side of the road, puke, and regroup before finishing a 200+ mile all day endurance effort. I respect anyone that does similar, including the author.

Cameron says he is not talented, he just works hard, but you don't beat a doping Lance Armstrong in a marathon without some natural gifts. I think the author is admirable; I'm not one of the haters he talks about. (Maybe he dost protesteth too much?) He says he doesn't offer advice, he only talks about what he does, but I think that's untrue. This book is an odd combination of inspirational stories and sayings, advice claiming not to be advice, and humble bragging. And some of his advice runs counter to the best sports science.

Knowing little about him other than what is said in this book, I think he's much more gifted than he lets on, and he's either smarter than he says or had benefited from the advice of those that are. If you listen/read and follow his rough guidelines, you will end up overtraining and set yourself back weeks, months, or even years. I know this from learning the hard way. There's more to endurance training than just beating your body down every day.

Listen/read for the inspiration, for the advice that you have to show up and do the unpleasant work every day to achieve, but don't use his example as training advice.

Finally, I tend to prefer audio books read by the author, because I figure they know best how to say what they wanted to say when writing, but this narration does not sound like Cameron saying what he wants to say. It sounds like a middle schooler getting up to read their essay in front of the class. Awkward, with stilted reading and unnatural tones. Unfortunately I think it would benefit from a professionally trained narrator. I respect the effort to tell it himself but had a hard time listening to the end for that reason.

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