Tim

Superficial and boring. Aimed at 3rd graders.

Revisado: 12-22-19

I was hoping this would be an interesting look at this history and folklore of magic. Unfortunately, the audiobook spends most of its time on hagiography of Rowling AND all the secondary and tertiary artists involved in production of the books and audiobooks. Seriously, there are detailed interviews here with audiobook narrators and illustrators of printed books. Not because they have any insight into the history of magic, but just because.

Um, okay.

The production has room for improvement. The interviews with various experts are mildly interesting, but only when you can actually hear what's being said. Many of the interviewed voices are too quiet or too rapid, or both, and become unintelligible.

The main narrator sounds like a wonderful person, but the narration is agonizingly slow. I have the playback speed set to 130% or faster, and the flow of ideas still feels pokey.

This audiobook is only recommended for die-hard fans of the Potter universe. If that's not you, then you should probably skip it. It does contain some interesting cultural-historical details about this history of magic and witchcraft, however, the content is pretty thin.

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It's not a book, it's radio journalism

Revisado: 12-05-19

This "title" was pretty good. But potential buyers should know that this "title" is not a book or audiobook, it's more of an audio report, in the style of radio journalists. It's also pretty short: Just 2 hours 42 minutes.

There are a lot of sound effects, including music and other effects, such as bird calls and splashing water.

Annoyingly, the report also frequently has music playing in the background, but very quietly, at a volume just near the threshold of where a person might become aware of it. While listening, my mind was exerting itself to figure out if music was playing, and where it might be coming from.

(Doesn't Audible have producers that consider this kind of thing? Don't you folks think that just-barely-audible music might be a significant problem for some listeners?)

The information about dinosaurs was fascinating, because dinosaurs are always fascinating. That's like shooting fish in a barrel. It's too easy.

The main narrator's voice was fine, and his casual narration style was also fine. The interviews with scientists were mostly OK.

Recommendation to audible: Fewer sound effects, please. We readers are not kindergarteners. We don't need bells and rattles in order to attract our attention.

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Pretty good, but the author has some odd opinions

Revisado: 12-05-19

This was a pretty good book. Other reviewers have already commented on the book's strengths. This review will focus on a few odd parts of the book:

Weirdly, this book has very little to say about Trump himself. The author doesn't seem to consider Trump's role in the investigation of spygate.

The author seems to think that Trump was not well-served by Sessions or Rosenstein. I don't agree with that, and I'm having a hard time understanding how the author arrived at this opinion.

The book focuses pretty exclusively on the efforts of Nunes and his staff, which is fine, however, it's hard to make sense of these efforts without the context of the work of Trump's administration, who after all were the targets of spygate and who were not at all idle during this time.

Nunes and his staff deserve a lot of credit, but they are certainly not the only ones.

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OK, marred by weird bias for trusting bureaucrats

Revisado: 07-06-19

On the whole this is an informative book. It's worth your time to read it. But I don't agree with the opinions quietly expressed by the author.

This book explores the mostly hidden work of NOAA and similar agencies inside the US Department of Commerce. Lewis observes that the work of these departments really isn't "commerce" per se, it is data, and data analysis. That's an interesting story, or at least it becomes an interesting story in the hands of a capable reporter such as Michael Lewis.

Here's the negative side of the book: All of the author's critical comments are reserved for Trump administration officials. The author's treatment of NOAA and its many scientists is hagiographic. I have no doubt that NOAA is full of competent and dedicated professionals, and their work probably does deserve more credit and more public appreciation. However, each one of them is a human being.

News flash: The private sector does not have a monopoly on human failings and corruption.

Sometimes governments behave badly. Sometimes scientists behave badly. Sometimes government scientists behave badly.

In my opinion we live in a democratic republic, and policy should determined by the voters, not by bureaucrats. The citizens' job is not to worship government agencies but to hold their feet to the fire to ensure that that their work is still aligned with the public interest. Judging from the comments in this book, I'm not sure that Lewis shares that opinion. Lewis seems to believe that citizens should simply trust government bureaucrats and government scientists all the time.

In the last section, Lewis describes a curious phenomenon: Oklahoma residents, who ought to be very well aware of the dangers of tornadoes, often end up dead because they underestimate the danger of remaining in their own homes during tornado events. He speculates that people associate "home" with "safety," and fail to realize that dangerous events can occastionally strike your own home sweet home.

IMHO, Lewis himself makes the same mistake with government bureaucrats and government scientists, specifically, the workers at NOAA. The author assumes that just because one has not personally encountered official curruption or malfeasance, then it cannot happen. That is the author's own bias. The possibility of government corruption, indeed the certainty that it will happen eventually, is why we have elections and representative government, and that is why policy is determined by elected officials, and not by a mass of anonymous clerks or bean counters or even by weather scientists.

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Must read. Full of details about spygate plotters

Revisado: 04-02-19

If you are following the USA's current spygate and FISA-gate scandal, this book is an absolute must-read. It is full of background details about the plotters which are seldom or never mentioned elsewhere. John Brennan's communist past is well known, but James Comey's communist influences are a lot less well known. The book also covers Hillary Clinton, Bill Browder, John Kerry, Christopher Steele, David Kramer and Nellie Ohr, along with the people who influenced them.

The book is short, however it is well worth the purchase price or well worth one credit.

Diana West does a splendid job of narrating her own book.

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Refreshing, intelligent rebuttal to Harris et al.

Revisado: 03-30-19

This is a great book and worth reading.

I am a fan of all of these writers. I have books by Vox Day as well as books by Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens. Vox's rebuttals are enlightening and thought provoking. I don't agree with every one of Vox's arguments, but I agree with a lot of them.

Many people hastily dismiss Vox because he has unusual political opinions and because his verbal style is occasionally off-putting. But Vox is a keen observer with an intense focus on keeping arguments true and honest. Vox is not going to overlook any logical slights-of-hand even by popular writers such as Dawkins and Hitchens.

I like Sam Harris personally, and I appreciate what he is trying to do with his podcasts. However, frequently I find myself flat-out disagreeing with Harris's conclusions or with his line of reasoning. As I listen to Harris, I often think that this guy just needs to be confronted and rebutted by a determined interlocutor. Vox Day is the right man for that job.

Hitchens and Vox have a few things in common. Both of them are fearless and have zero desire to satisfy conventional expectations. Both of them are verbally confrontational. Both of them demonstrate visceral anger when they perceive dishonesty or evil. As it happens, on the question of atheism/theism, they come to opposite conclusions. This debate is fascinating.

Enjoy this book!

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Fascinating and important (but super-detailed)

Revisado: 03-30-19

This is a great book but it is a little bit too detailed for my interests. I'm not a researcher or a specialist, so my interest in this topic only extends so far. I had trouble maintaining attention on the book.

However, all of the details here are really fascinating. I appreciate the author's work in making this information available. More people should be aware of this history.

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This is about food. The entire thing is about food

Revisado: 03-30-19

Talking about food bores me to tears. This podcast was not for me. Maybe other people enjoy this, but I don't. The entire podcast is about food.

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Interesting thesis, but poorly argued. Skip it.

Revisado: 03-30-19

This book has an interesting thesis, but the author does a terrible job of elaborating and defending it. The author seems to be lost in his own abstractions. He only very rarely gets around to supplying any concrete evidence that demonstrates the reality of those abstractions.

Even if you think this thesis is worth exploring, I recommend skipping this book.

The narrator is good, but far too slow. I listened to the book at 125% speed.

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Interesting, but neither deep nor insightful

Revisado: 12-29-18

This is not a scientific book. Listeners hoping to hear something about the science of storms or earthquakes or tsunamis will mostly be disappointed.

The topic of this book is human responses to catastrophes. That is an interesting topic on its own.

The book is preachy. That would be a problem if the book were a science book. However, this author is on a soap box talking about the value of preparedness and about the sometimes irrational responses to catastrophes.

The main value of the book in the historical anecdotes about particular "big ones": the Lisbon earthquake, the Sacramento floods, hurricane Katrina, and several large earthquakes. The book is worth listening to solely to hear these anecdotes.

I wish the book had gone into more depth on the topic of preparedness and on the details of how societies respond to catastrophes The author's insights and reflections were valuable, but too skimpy.

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