Steven

Another Example of How We Are Poisoning Ourselves

Revisado: 05-18-21

This was a very illuminating book, and shows how we continue to pump destructive chemicals into our environment ... long after we know the harm they are doing.

The only issue I have with the book is Dr. Swan's position that one result of this chemical onslaught -- the drop in fertility that is the focus of the book -- is a catastrophe. I'm one of those people she alludes to in the introduction who believe that on a planet with 7 billion people, headed to 9 or 10 billion, leaving destruction everywhere in our wake, a drop in human fertility ... and thus human numbers ... would be a long overdue and welcome correction to a population that is out of control.

I learned a lot about the science and physiology of human reproduction along the way, as well as how these chemicals can alter our genetic make-up, including gender expression. A very insightful book.

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esto le resultó útil a 7 personas

An Amazing, Eye-Opening Book

Revisado: 05-18-21

I had read the author's earlier book, Salt, Sugar and Fat, several years ago and learned so much from it. This latest book is equally enlightening, and explains in fascinating detail how the processed food industry takes advantage of our evolutionary biology to hook us on their products. I learned as much about those features of our evolutionary biology, and how they work, as I did about the processed food industry itself. I have a completely new understanding of why people show so little self-restraint when it comes to eating processed food products.

Scott Brick is one of the best narrators around, and it's always a pleasure to listen to him.

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Not As Thorough As I Expected

Revisado: 11-03-18

Let me start with one quirk of the narrator that drove me crazy: Every time there was a quote in the text from a non-American, the narrator adopted a foreign accent to read that passage ... in what the narrator assumed was how that foreigner would speak English. So a Frenchman was quoted in a voice sounding like a Frenchman speaking English, a German quote was read in a voice sounding like a German speaking English, and so on. Not only that, a quote from someone British was read in a ... you guessed it ... English accent. Spaniards, Dutch, Italians, everyone got the treatment ... the narrator just had to use presumed accents in reading those passages. At one point, I think he even read a quote from someone from Cornwall in England, and yes, the narrator feigned a Cornish accent. It was annoying to have to listen to this throughout the book.

Audiobook producers: If you have a narrator who thinks this is a great idea, please tell him or her: No.

I rated it as only three stars for two reasons: There was almost nothing in the book on the use of wood as our first energy source. The book focused almost exclusively on coal, oil and nuclear -- and I learned a lot from those sections. But then he ended the book with just a cursory discussion of renewable energy, almost as an afterthought, as though he realized as he was wrapping up the book that he hadn't covered it at all. It was a weird and depressing oversight.

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Only Missing One Thing

Revisado: 04-04-18

Overall, this was an excellent, riveting book, but in describing the threats to our grid, she somehow barely mentioned the grid's vulnerability to hacking and other technological attacks. She mentions it, but only in passing, which was a huge oversight. Ted Koppel's book "Lights Out" details these threats, and leaves the inescapable conclusion that our grid is terribly vulnerable. You would not get that same sense of risk from this book. Ms. Bakke definitely reveals plenty of risks, but she gives short shrift to what is probably the biggest one of all.

So that is really the only major flaw.

The book did open my eyes to how destabilizing distributed solar energy production can be to a grid that was designed only for centralized utility-scale energy production. I had no idea how complex and difficult it is to integrate homeowner-produced solar energy with the grid, via net metering, and keep the entire system finely balanced.

Overall, the takeaway is this: The grid is precarious, and you should be prepared for anything.

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Narrator is awful!

Revisado: 08-06-12

While the subject matter is compelling, the narrator's reading is simply the worst I have ever heard in an audiobook. He has frequent awkward pauses, breaks common expressions and phrases into multiple parts by stopping in the middle, and seems to need to pause after every four or five words, regardless of the sentence structure. It's very, very strange. Was no one else listening to him as he recorded this? (Hello, recording engineer?) How could he have been allowed to go on to record the narration for the entire book? I listened to what must have been only the first page of the text before thinking, what's wrong with this guy? His delivery is so halting and weird that it is off-putting ... it's hard to stay focused on the content because his narration is what is getting your attention. Honestly, this audiobook should be re-recorded. This is the first time I have ever commented on an audiobook's narration, and I listen to a lot of them.

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