T. Adams

Troubling

Revisado: 05-22-23

The book is phenomenal.
It provides a coherent timeline of events, interviewed a wide range of viewpoints which it presents for the reader to evaluate and covers evolving science in a straight-forward, easy to understand manner.
And yet it's troubling and scary. The lack of accountability, oversight and bullying to keep people quiet by special interest groups and top staff should give anyone pause about the state of medical care, especially for children.
The Savior nature of some staff who prescribed hormones for kids quickly and eagerly without proper evaluation of other factors that might have made children uncomfortable in their bodies is scandalous.
Kudos to the author and those who tried to speak up, even at risk to their careers.

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Author inserts herself so much becomes unbearable

Revisado: 03-07-23

When I first started listening I was excited that a topic I was interested would be explored in some depth. As a person familiar with the US AIDS epidemic of the 80s/90s, a story with the Chinese perspective on this issue seemed interesting. I also have track marks on my arm still visible from giving plasma when I was younger.
But then you listen to the author talk about herself.
And talk about herself.
And talk about herself.
No joke in the first interview it takes 7 whole minutes of her describing lovely drives, landscapes & how beautiful the American West (her home) is before even getting the interview subject.
Most of the parts you'd expect examination of an issue or interesting person she glosses over and circles back to herself, where she lives (Montana) where she drove to once (Utah).
The author often just makes things up. From small things like Park City being the wealthiest small town in America (it's not) to using polls from her Twitter as proof of her "investigation" into people giving plasma horror stories (80% of her Twitter poll respondents never gave plasma), she can't help but drive the whole thing to her preconceived agenda. She also can't keep politics out and of course it's all Trump and Reagan's fault! I struggle to know why this is considered journalism when it's so one-sidedly political with her rants. The things you might want to know are only incidentally mentioned and never explored.
It appears the entire premise of this book is for her to feel good about helping the "poor" people who are "exploited" (her words) to sit in a chair for an hour for money. She extensively cites all her investigating but never gives you the results, preferring more hyperbole in her descriptions and large assumptions. She spends much more time referencing others' work for her book than doing leg work herself. It's also weird how she vacillates between praising the USA for its better health system than China, but then also often immediately compares the American system to China's to fit her political agenda of the plasma companies exploiting their customers. It's hard to reconcile her supposedly gratefulness with her acerbic commentary on American healthcare hurting people for profit.
The way this author can flip from being creeped out by her plasma transfusions to grateful to all the poors for keeping her alive in just a few sentences is a sight to behond! Skip it and find something less political and vanity driven. This book left me wanting details and facts instead of the stories, anecdotes & political rants from the author.

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Great historical & personal perspective on work

Revisado: 01-02-23

I've read/listened to this book twice in my life now many years apart, and like many great books its provided insight and wisdom to me both times in different ways.
From a macro perspective, Crawford's book provides an overview of the change in the nature of work that has occurred over the past 120 years or so, since the advent of industrialization and the assembly line. He overlays this with his own life experiences as a man who always enjoyed working with his hands, but fell (like me and many others) for the academic lie that knowledge work is superior to more concrete work like a physical trade.
The two biggest things I got out of this book are both Crawford's personal journey and lessons he learned transitioning from a knowledge job (copyediting/writing?) to a physical trade/small business owner (motorcycle repair), as well as the background to how America (and the world) went from guilds of craftsmen with lifelong experience, standards and knowledge of the physical world to those who give up all experiential knowledge to become cogs in a factory line. This transition from overall broad knowledge gained from making mistakes in the physical world to one where all employees are "generalists" with only the knowledge to follow pre-fab directions is a great insight into the work of today and how it differs from the rest of human history, and why so many struggle to find meaning in their work.
The book is not long, but it doesn't waste your time either. You could also skip a couple of the chapters about opening his motorcycle shop, as they are mostly personal anecdote, but I found he was selective enough that most of the anecdotes serve a broader point about the nature of work or the value of struggle and mistake, so I didn't mind it.
Give this as a gift to every young man in your life who is being told he should go to college instead of a trade, or who isn't doing well in traditional school. I think it would benefit them a lot.

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Way too Biased to be Useful or Interesting

Revisado: 01-02-23

I got through Grant before I just gave up.
I wanted something that was a good summary of each of the Presidents so I could put some American history in better perspective, but the book is far too political, scattershot and preachy to get through unless you're a die-hard liberal.
First, most of the chosen authors are British, so almost all the referential things are from OUTSIDE American politics.
Second, the authors spent A LOT of time referencing political events around the Donald Trump presidency, which even just two years out makes it seem pretty dated and agenda-driven. The female authors especially spend a lot of time self-righteously condemning everyone in the 1800s as horrible people because they either had slaves or supported policies that supported slavery, which is reflected in their need to paint people as "bad" and "worst" for even moderate positions on slavery. I wish they were more even-handed considering the times.
How about instead of telling me for the 15th time how bad slavery was you utilize the time to educate your readers with more context? Some people want to learn history just for the facts and people, not to be preached to about how older values are backwards. By the time you get to Grant you're hearing a woman talk about "my ancestors this" and "my ancestors that." Nothing is added and it just becomes repetitive.
In fact, many of the authors really have no business talking about history at all. I got frustrated hearing about Liberal MPs from the UK or women who's sole qualification is running a Democrat or Labour podcast in 2020 giving lectures on mean Presidents. Many basic biographical details that could have been included just don't make it in. For example, Taft was 300 pounds yet I only found this out on the President AFTER Taft because Taft's author didn't include it. I got much more interesting information about several presidents from the OTHER president's descriptions because there was so much race talk that basic things were just never included.
Half of Washington's bio was talking about Trump, and Trump is mentioned at least a half dozen times in the early Presidents. Lincoln's chapter includes George Floyd and the Minneapolis race riots, which is probably going to age badly.
I'm going to look for something else because the political agendas, scattershot treatment of even basic facts of the mens' lives vs political lectures and agenda driven narrative from authors almost entirely from another country really make this a waste of time. I appreciate what I did learn, but it just made me want to go find other sources for better information. I'm an adult I think I can learn about the past without the constant posturing and moral lectures, thanks!
Also, I don't have the physical copy, but there appear to be mistakes in the reading. Many times there are references to dates that appear to be misread since they start with 19XX or reference time periods far removed from the one being discussed with no context as to why. I'm not sure anyone double-checked this recording vs the book. Maybe it was meant to be gotten out quickly since so many of the references are 2020 centric.

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Great if you can stand the author's "jokes"

Revisado: 06-13-20

Wheat Belly has a lot of great scientific information in it. I really enjoyed learning about how the gluten proteins react in the body like an opiate in your system to keep you hungry and to consume more calories vis a vis food addiction. Davis goes through a laundry list of ailments in the body that are affected by gluten and the body's reliance on sugars for fuel instead of protein or fat. I would definitely recommend anyone who has the whole gut/headache/body ache/fatigue combination of issues look into this for a big relief. I started with his 2nd book Undoctored but found it hard to understand without reading this first.
My HUGE problem with the book is the author's choice of "joke" analogies to make his points. I've been a victim of domestic violence so I didn't find his analogies about wheat being an abusive partner to be funny. He compares juvenile diabetes to the O.J. Simpson verdict, implying his guilt, which I think would alienate readers and is completely unnecessary. He makes tasteless jokes about Joan Rivers having her face cut up by plastic surgeons which has not aged well. I could quote about another dozen examples here, but the point is he uses this "dad" type of humor that references dated pop culture to try and keep the book from being dry or just heavy on the science. A good editor probably would have taken these out or convinced him good nutritional information doesn't have to be "sexy" or make offensive jokes to make their point. I bought a copy of the "updated" book for a friend to read and all the stuff I reference here is still in the physical copy of the book. In a physical copy I could at least skip the dumb parts, but it's not possible to do without missing things in the audiobook, so it deserves to lose a star. Seriously, I've read Grain Brain and you can make the case for eliminating gluten without alienating your readers.

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Great Story, Gross Pretend Dialogue as Filler

Revisado: 06-13-20

Console Wars tells the story of the rivalry between Nintendo and Sega in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It focuses primarily on Tom Kalinske, the man who worked at Mattel to make Barbie famous and was searched out by the head of Sega to launch their Genesis and Sonic games. I really enjoyed learning about the behind the scenes of the rivalry and why people were so excited someone would take on Ninentdo, who used 90% market share and monopolistic contracts to keep others companies from rivaling them. Unfortunately, the story could have been tightened up but instead the author literally made up conversations between the characters as filler that is hard to get through. Between the stupidity of the subjects, their irrelevance to the actual story and the borderline racism of the audiobook performer, I would only recommend this tepidly. The author only has 3-4 characters he uses for almost all the book. These include ditzy, breathy secretary, douchey corporate guy and Japanese businessman with heavy accent. I couldn't believe when he made one of the characters actually say "fwrexible" instead of "flexible," so I had to rewind and confirm that's actually what is either written or performed by the reader. This book would be so much better if it had a good editor and perhaps just focused on Kalinske as the main character. It's being turned into a mini-series so you might hold out for that if you can't stand the groan inducing dialogues that pepper the story. C+

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