Andrew

I’m done and ready to re-listen right now!

Revisado: 09-13-23

I’ve had this book a while and would you know I only started listening it by chance this weekend when was in a bit of a funk because, guess what, I was feeling very down in dumps about my life.

Honestly this book didn’t just straighten me out by showing me how wrong and wasteful a outlook discontentment is, but it also motivated me tremendously to begin the work of learning how to be content in all circumstances.

What I love about these Puritan books is that though the language is old it is so straightforward and simple that, especially when you listen to it, you can’t help but discovering a great many things you wouldn’t find anywhere else.

Also it’s super organized. It tells you what contentment is. How to get it. Why it matters. Why murmuring is so sinful. It refutes with many examples the arguments we tend to raise as to why we are discontented or why our troubles are the worst in the world.

This is not a one off listen. There is so much packed into each sentence and section you may need to re-listen as I plan to, not because it was hard to grasp but because it was so much to take in at once.

Derek Perkins was exceptional as usual. I love having him as a narrator. If you like his voice and style please listen to George Mueller’s autobiography next!

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Great listen, full of details

Revisado: 05-26-22

The relevance of what happened in Jonestown transcends the people involved and I think the book gives enough detail to help any reader to get a good grasp of the story.
The narator read with the kind of emphasis that makes a book like this easier to listen to.

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A book you listen to because you are told it's important.

Revisado: 07-07-21

If I were to assess this book without Bill Gates and Warren Buffet and the New York Times's Bestsellers list in mind, I wouldn't have gotten this far into it.

I'm certain there are lessons here to be learned it's hard to push through.

I don't know whether it's the narrator but even when I finally pushed the listening speed to 1.6 it still felt like the plodding mud at times. I also find the cursing unnecessary.

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Powerful argument, enthralling narrator

Revisado: 06-21-20

The central argument of this book is that the mass incarceration of black men in America at disproportionately higher rates than whites for crimes which are committed at equal rates by all races, is a distinctly racial issue. It says that though we may all think we are in a colorblind world post Obama, and though most persons in society reject overt acts of racism, the effects of the criminal justice system on black and brown men in America are just as disastrous as the racial caste system known as Jim Crow.

Consider this:

“75% of people in state prison for drug conviction are people of color although blacks and whites see and use drugs at roughly the same rate. In NYS, 94% of those imprisoned for a drug offense are people of color.” (Center for Law & Justice).

Confounding Stats like these are everywhere in this book. As a reader you are forced to confront the idea that the ‘system’, though it appears to be objective, is rigged in particular ways.

The New Jim Crow is a concrete, balanced, fair minded discussion of how the American criminal justice system denies the FACT, that the lives of black men matter. What I love is that, despite the seemingly hyperbolic title, it is not a emotional tirade simply aimed at villifying whites. On the contrary, you would be surprised at some of the persons that come in for strongest rebuke are black and known black allies.

As a Caribbean reader the arguments about the war on drugs hit home because I have seen first hand the far reaching consequences a conviction for simple possession of Marijuana has had on many persons. It has led to deaths of civilians in custody.

Finally, I think I appreciated the arguments made by the author that much more because of the book I read just before this - The Power Broker : Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, by Robert A Caro. Robert Moses story showed that its not the elected official or overt policies that necessarily determined the priorities and progress of society, but instead much of our reality is shaped by the influence of a few individuals, some abstract seemingly mundane legal clauses, structures that the ordinary citizen doesn't really understand and which the media fails abysmally to explain.

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No Maps-No Caribbean-Dated Info bt Good Narration

Revisado: 04-25-20

The intriguing concept of the book, and the bold title, are what attracted me to read this book.

This book offered a fresh perspective of the world by showing how the geographic factors of nations - borders, mountains, rivers, ports, potable water sources, desserts, transportations routes, natural resources and the location of your enemies, directly impact how world leaders think and act.

With the content of this book in mind you are less inclined to be surprised at certain recurring conflicts in the world, which, I guess is helpful in removing false hopes.

The book, sadly did not live up to my expectations, for two reasons.

1. This book has no account of the Caribbean, with over 44 million people and 26/30 nations. He addresses issues touching on Cuba, in dealing with other nations but the Caribbean is not addressed. I thought it would have been lumped into Latin America, even that unfortunate misclassification would understood, but the absence of region betrays a lack of thoroughness on the part of the writer and is unfortunate.

2. I expected a master treatise on the determinative power of geography - I expected MORE historical evidence of the geography shaping lives, and less of what sounded like a international news roundup. The book focused on 1) the national political level and 2) information so specific to the politics of the moment in which he was writing (the book was published in 2015), that it seems to date the book; in April 2020 as I listen, many issues he mentioned are becoming irrelevant.

For that same reason I would have expected the writer to give more examples, over the course of the history of the various nation states to solidify the argument that the problems faced are truly perennial.

3. The lack of the personal element was another missed opportunity. For example, the writer showed how Europeans drew artificial lines in various regions in the Middle East and Africa, was a great fact that helps to explain ongoing conflict. Ok, but how exactly were these borders detrimental and determinative for the people living there? He says vaguely that the concept of needing a document to travel somewhere that was once considered one area was a foreign concept, but he simply did not develop and show examples of the point.

That the narrator was Scott Brick was not something I considered, but having just listened to Atlas Shrugged in January, which he narrated masterfully, I was most enthused when the production began and his narration is one of the few reasons I completed this book.

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GREAT STORY & NARRATOR, (MINOR RECORDING ERRORS)

Revisado: 04-23-20

THIS WAS AN ABSOLUTELY GREAT STORY AND ADOJA ANDOH DOES A GREAT JOB AT NARRATING.

This book exposes the brutality of attaching childbearing to the value of a human being. It SHATTERS so many misconceptions of how we view children, as though they were some holy talisman that, once attained, will immediately satisfy and beautify our lives. On the contrary, their birth may usher in pain so harrowing that all we endured to have them pales in comparison - as a new father, I felt this the most. Finally, I think this book is most significant for what it says about men and how much a man’s inability to accept, not his reality, can cost and cost and cost and cost and cost.
Adébáyọ̀'s use of langugae is outstanding. The creativity, not simply of her vocabulary but the brightness and aptness of her imagery, the variety of perspectives and topics presented, ensured that the story was consistently engaging to read.
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WARNING - The book addresses sexual themes and there are two instances of cursing.
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///// RECORDING ERRORS////

:( There is one sore spot for me, not related to the novel itself, but to the audio production of the book which I devoured. The pull of great audiobooks is that they bring great stories to life. The problem however with otherwise great audiobooks is that because the listener is so engaged, every error is significant. I was able to hear three (3) errors in the audio recording. I only made a note upon encountering a second error:

1) This is minor. A voice over. As stated, I didn't note this one.
2) Chapter 27/min 4:00 - a break for 9 seconds
3) Chapter 32/min 416 - there is an overlap.

Hopefully these errors will be addressed.

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Worth it! I ended up buying BOOK too.

Revisado: 03-15-15

The narration is masterful. Always captivating. You will not want to stop listening.

The story is incredibly well written. The research and commentary on the life of William Wilberforce by Hague has made me come to value Wilberforce 100 times greater.

Get this book.

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