This is a stunning book - easily the best (and most important) book I read all year. Hallie Rubenhold tells the stories of the five women killed by JaThis is a stunning book - easily the best (and most important) book I read all year. Hallie Rubenhold tells the stories of the five women killed by Jack the Ripper. This is as close as we will probably get to hearing them tell their stories in their own world.
It's not perfect. Hallie spends too long for me on whether the five were sex workers or not. It really does not matter. It may have been an issue at the time of the murders, but not any more.
There is also a lot of conjecture due to the limited sources of information. In a way, that does not matter either. Hallie had to work with the information that is available.
All told, a fabulous book. It's hard to read but well worth the effort.
This is one of those books that you want to give two ratings - one high and one low.
If you come into this expecting or wanting a mildly-scandalous flThis is one of those books that you want to give two ratings - one high and one low.
If you come into this expecting or wanting a mildly-scandalous fluffy chat, then you won't be disappointed. You will be reaching for the 4s or 5s. It's like having a naughty friend who drinks too much and gets very indiscrete when there's enough fizz in the tank. Or going into the dentist's waiting room and reading one of those scandal-sheet goss magazines that you wouldn't pay for.
Sasha is a reasonably good writer exception where she lapses into purple prose. It's fun to hear behind-closed-doors gossip about people we had seen on television.
It all feels very decadent. So much so that I started thinking it was a spoof. Surely this was written by someone pretending to be a Tory. No-one could really be like that in real life, can they?
Then you notice the things that are missing. There is very little sense of politicians serving the public. Of policies that are meant to do some good. Of any politician actually achieving anything other than promotion or media fame. This is politics as a series of parties, bitching and shopping.
The tone is at times puerile. A political enemy called Claire Wright is repeatedly called Claire Wrong. Wow. I wonder how long it took to think of that one? Remainers are that old chestnut "remoaners". Yes, really.
Speaking of Brexit, she has an instinctive anti-European stance but can't explain why Brexit is a good thing or why she doesn't listen to her "remoaner" friends.
So the marks stand at 4 for the fluff and 2 for the politics. Let's call it an average of 3 between friends. This book is political fluff - the drawback is that it does the fluff much better than the politics.
Incidentally, the diary ends with Boris Johnson winning his 2019 election victory and Sasha gushing about how wonderful he is. It's easy to be wise in hindsight, but fast forward to 2022 and we have partygate and Boris forced to resign because of his repeated dishonesty.
Recommended for the fluff. Not recommended for the politics. ...more
This book is majestic, enthralling, superb ... right up to the point where it isn't.
First the good bits. The language and characterisations are wonderThis book is majestic, enthralling, superb ... right up to the point where it isn't.
First the good bits. The language and characterisations are wonderful. We really do get inside the head of the first person narrator. About half way through I was ready to sing this novel's praises from the rooftops.
I loved that the heroine had imposter syndrome doubts and the clever way that we could see some of what was coming even if she couldn't. I appreciated how her character grew as the novel went on. Instead of being the simpering young girl she turned into something more.
I mostly liked the twists in the story. At times it felt a little too melodramatic, but hey I was in the zone and rolling with it.
About two thirds of the way through it all started to go a bit wrong. We had the coincidence of a boat going aground the day after a costume party. The introduction of a diver to uncover the wreck of Rebecca's boat.
Then we had the world's most inept coroner. The planking in the bottom of the board was damaged and the sea cocks were turned full on? That must be suicide then. Yeah right.
Then the bizarre episode where Maxim can summon the magistrate to hear new evidence in his drawing room. The peculiar drive to London to hear yet more evidence. A retired doctor conveniently having his medical records at home instead of, oh I don't know, handing them over to his successor. That doctor breaching patient confidentiality. The magistrate closing the case for ever on the basis of circumstantial evidence that might affect motive but nothing else in the case.
Then I started to notice stylistic problems. The endless blobs of exposition by huge screeds of dialogue. A tiresome succession of posh people talking in drawing rooms. The plot contrivances that are needed to set up the set pieces - our heroine and Max need to be in the car at night, so let's invent a need to go to London with the magistrate, then drop off the magistrate and not get a hotel.
Having loved the first half of the book, I so wanted to sail happily to the end and slap on the full five stars. But the second half or third was so silly and unrealistic that I was sorely tempted to throw the book at the wall ... if I hadn't been reading it on the kindle app on my phone.
Don't get me wrong. Some elements of this book are fantastic. It is deservedly a classic and much loved. So it's a three for me - but only on the Goodreads scale where 3 means "I liked it". On Amazon I'd give it a four. Not average, but not outstanding....more
It is hard to fault the premise of this book. We spend a lot of our lives doing low value things. Wouldn't life be better if we focused on things thatIt is hard to fault the premise of this book. We spend a lot of our lives doing low value things. Wouldn't life be better if we focused on things that made us truly happy?
Stephen argues that a great deal of modern life is low value, superficial, convenient, prosaic. Instead we should be surrounding ourselves with art and things which connect us with analog instead of digital. He quotes one example of Microsoft releasing a game which includes the whole world, which Bayley thinks is a terrible shame because it demans the world. We will come back to that one later.
It's a fair point. Who hasn't found themselves sucked in to an internet rabbit hole where time seems to fly by and we don't achieve all that much? So, yes, I can buy into what Bayley is selling.
William Morris said it in one sentence: “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”
Yup, I can buy that.
Then we run into problems with the book. At times it feels like a unstructured rant. Bayley will make a good point but then hop straight into a different point altogether. We should all live like Robinson Crusoe. Peasant living is good. Lemons are better than oranges.
He also contradicts himself. He tells us that analog is better than digital but then praises the i-phone. He rails against women's fashion but tells us to buy good quality men's suits.
A handbook, it most certainly isn't. It's a series of mini essays about the things that Stephen Bayley likes and dislikes. If you happen to agree with him, fine. If you don't you may find yourself scratching your head at times. Apparently we're supposed to carry around a sketch book to draw freehand pictures of architechture. Why? Because that is what he likes. He gets turned on by the engineering of a luxury jet's engines, but hardly mentions the environment.
In the end, this is one man's opinion. He makes some good general points, but it's still one man's opinion. Frankly you can save yourself the price of the book by living by the William Morris quote about beauty and usefulness.
One particular thing bothered me about this book. It started with that microsoft game which so annoyed Stephen because it modelled the entire world. I'm pretty sure that game is Microsoft Flight Simulator - a program which has been modelling a large part of the real world since the 1980s. And while this is a digital program, the experience that we have with it is analog. Ir brings just as much pleasure for those who get into it as Stephen's obessessions with cars or jet engines or architecture.
But Stephen either couldn't see the merits of that program or he didn't want to. Because he was blinkered by "analog good, digital bad" he couldn't see that some digital can also be good, if we use it consciously.
Frankly I'm bored by the paper book vs kindle argument. I am perfectly happy with either or both. It's the writing that matters, not whether it's on a machine, on paper, on papyrus, whatever.
So it's three stars. It has it's moment, it is occasionally thought provoking, but it still feels like a blinkered rant.
Oh, and I read it on kindle. Sorry, Stephen. Go sue me....more
I have a confession to make. In over 40 years of trying, I have never before managed to finish The Fellowship of the Ring.
Of course, I've seen the movI have a confession to make. In over 40 years of trying, I have never before managed to finish The Fellowship of the Ring.
Of course, I've seen the movies. And Game of Thrones. And the Hobbit movie trilogy. And Princess Bride. And ... you get the picture.
Read many Tolkien-wannabes. Played dungeons and dragons which is really Tolkien with dice. Played Skyrim, Baldur's Gate and the like, which is really Tolkien with the computer rolling the dice. Read and re-read The Hobbit.
But I'd never read the three books that make up the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I had tried several times, but usually lost the will to live somewhere between page 50 and 1o0.
On holiday last week I decided to put that right. I loaded the trilogy onto my kindle and knuckled down. And in the course of five days I finished it.
Now I have a second confession to make. I didn't love it.
The bad news first - the book isn't perfect. The reason I had previously got stuck is that the action is at times very slow. It takes ages to get the hobbits out of the shire. We get long pages of talking. Great globs of exposition. Huge world building but relatively thin characters.
A case in point - there is a scene where the fellowship meet in Rivendell and they fill each other in on what has been happening in their part of the story. Page after page of tell not show. There is little by way of scene-setting. Next to no tension. It's a passage that a modern editor would take a red pen to and probably delete 50% or more.
There is lots to like, of course. Tolkien not only built a world, he invented a genre. But like many pioneers he wasn't the complete article.
So to a rating. I can't give it the full five stars, but out of respect for its importance I'll say four stars. It's like listening to the early Beatles songs. You know they are important but you can't help feeling that they are out of time.
You ought to read it, of course you should. It's Tolkien, after all. Just make allowances as you plod your way through the boring bits....more
This is one of those books where you get the impression that the author and the blurb writer never actually met. Because one thing this book certainlyThis is one of those books where you get the impression that the author and the blurb writer never actually met. Because one thing this book certainly isn't is a guide on how to read Shakespeare.
What we actually get is a series of essays or chapters on selected plays. A chapter on Romeo and Juliet, a chapter on Richard II and so on. In each chapter Emma Smith makes a point about the play in question.
For example in the chapter on Romeo and Juliet she focuses on the fact that the play starts with the prologue which basically tells the audience how the play is going to end. No need for spoiler alerts here. And that gets us into a discussion about inevitability and audience expectations. And while it's all very interesting, it doesn't feel like an introduction to Shakespeare. It's a collection of moderately random essays based on something in each play that the author finds interesting.
Some of the chapters are more convincing than others. There's a discussion in the chapter on Comedy of Errors which points out that this play is more prop-heavy than other plays. This then spins off into a discussion about how objects define individuality. And while that's all very interesting, I can't help wondering if a better explanation is that in a play about identical twins and mistaken identities, the props help the audience to work out who is who. Part of the humour is that the audience knows more than the characters.
If this really was a guide on how to read Shakespeare, I would have expected that sort of point to be explained and not the fairly esoteric argument about individuality.
There's nothing much wrong with the book as long as you treat if for what it is. It is a fairly random collection of essays on some elements of some of the plays. It's not an introduction to Shakespeare. It won't show you how to read the plays.
I've given it 3 stars on the GR scale where 2 stars means "It was ok" and four stars means "I really liked it". I did enjoy the book. Emma writes well and clearly knows her stuff. Some of her points resonated.
But that blurb writer really ought to exit pursued by a bear. Because this is a book that doesn't do what it says on the tin.
This book is an odd mixture. The many photographs give a sense of what it would have been like to have lived through the war. The text doesn't.
The wriThis book is an odd mixture. The many photographs give a sense of what it would have been like to have lived through the war. The text doesn't.
The writing is all of the style of "General X did this. General Y responded by doing that. President Z disagreed. He ordered General X to ..." And on and on it goes. If the ordinary soldiers were "lions led by donkeys", then this book is very much the story of the donkeys.
I suppose it's a generational issue. The teaching of history used to be mainly about the doings of the famous and powerful. Now we have a stronger bias towards social history. We expect our history to be more about the "ordinary" people instead of focusing almost solely on the rulers and decision makers.
When we read a book like this we are getting two perspectives of history. Obviously, we are getting an account of 1914-1918. But we are also getting a sense of 1963, when this book was published. Or more accurately, the late 1950s when the book would have been researched. The trend towards more social history hadn't really begun.
Recommended ... ish. It's an easy read. It seems comprehensive. The photographs are excellent. But don't be surprised if the perspective feels a little old fashioned. It's a 120+ year old story told from the perspective of more than 50 years ago....more
A curious little book. It ought to have been a double tick. I like Bill Bryson's writing - tick. I'm interested in Shakespeare and many many moons agoA curious little book. It ought to have been a double tick. I like Bill Bryson's writing - tick. I'm interested in Shakespeare and many many moons ago did an English literature degree which included an entire year reading the bard - double tick.
And yet ... and yet ... I struggled to love this book.
We don't know much about Shakespeare's life and what we do know doesn't explain where his genius came from. As a result countless authors have invented all manner of wild stories culminating in conspiracy theories about alternative authors.
Bill Bryson gamely works his way chronologically through what little we know and on the way slaps down all the madcap theories. The result is a pretty dry and unspectacular little book. Away from the page and the stage Shakespeare comes across as either a mystery or just another bloke who happened to be a dab hand with the quill.
The biggest disappointment is that there is much more about Shakespeare's history than there is about Shakespeare's writing. Which is a shame because his history was dull and the writing is ... well, you don't need me to say it, do you?
It's well written. It seems to be reasonably well researched. It's a Bill Bryson after all. But it didn't set my trousers alight.
You might like it. My wife - an inveterate finisher of even the worst books - gave up about half way in.
This is a first person novel that puts you inside the head of Gary, a petty criminal and drug addict. That's not a comfortable place to be and this boThis is a first person novel that puts you inside the head of Gary, a petty criminal and drug addict. That's not a comfortable place to be and this book won't be for everyone. But if it clicks, it clicks.
That's 3 stars as in Goodreads rating scale which means "I liked it". Not 3 stars in the traditional sense of "I neither liked it nor disliked it".
To That's 3 stars as in Goodreads rating scale which means "I liked it". Not 3 stars in the traditional sense of "I neither liked it nor disliked it".
To be perfectly honest, I was expecting to like this one more than a "meh" 3 stars. James O' Brien is a good writer and broadcaster. I largely agree with his politics. I get hacked off by the same things that he gets hacked off by. We're in similar tribes.
So why only 3 stars?
One of the problems is that he likes to win arguments by what I call "zingers" - a killer fact that destroys the other person's argument. When this works it's a thing to behold. The other person collapses into a gibbering wreck. High fives all round for the tribe! Yay!
Take his arguments against "homosexuality is banned in the bible". He makes one good point - that the same bit of the bible that bans homosexuality also bans lobsters and most modern clothes. But then he majors on the non-argument that Jesus didn't write the bible. And he repeats this point more than 20 times to a caller who responded with "so what?"
I have to say that the caller was right. If you believe that the bible is the word of God as expressed through people like Paul, Matthew, etc ... then it doesn't matter one jot that Jesus didn't write the bible by picking up a pen himself. Heck, I'm an atheist and I wasn't remotely impressed by the "Jesus didn't write the bible" argument. It's a zinger that doesn't zing.
There's another problem. O'Brien uses some arguments inconsistently. He argues, rightly, that you can't condemn an entire group because of the actions of an extreme minority. Not all Muslims are terrorists. But then he uses the exact same argument - in reverse - to defend one of his points. Some men groped waitresses at a high profile charity dinner therefore all men are gropers. Okay, so he doesn't say that explicitly but the hint is there.
Probably my biggest reservation is that he seems to be polarised in that he will defend some groups utterly and condemn other groups equally utterly. For example, he doesn't seem to have much sympathy for people who voted to leave the EU. He likes to score zingers against these people because, say, they can't name a piece of EU legislation that they don't like. But he doesn't seem to realise that they have similar issues around identity and feelings of being persecuted as, say, someone in the LGBT community.
Maybe he is more balanced in real life. But in the examples he chose to show us, he comes across as someone more interested in cheap zingers than getting to the truth.
So it's (Goodreads) three stars. If you are of a similar tribe you will like what he is saying. He does hit more than he misses. The book is mostly an enjoyable read.
But ... I wasn't impressed by the zingers. Sorry....more
I really liked this book when I was a kid (a looong time ago). When someone told me it was out on kindle, I had to get a copy and see if it was still I really liked this book when I was a kid (a looong time ago). When someone told me it was out on kindle, I had to get a copy and see if it was still as good as I remembered.
And the verdict is ... mostly.
The last Hell's Angel is Hell Tanner. In a post apocalyptic world, he is recruited by the Government to drive a plague serum across America. Think of it as a cross between Mad Max and the Kurt Russell character Snake Plissken from Escape to New York.
We get lots of action featuring a hard-hearted tough bad guy turned sort of good guy - an anti-hero with a heart.
Okay, so there are some issues. The writing occasionally borders on the self-indulgent. The dialogue tends towards the overlong and expositional. The plot is as old as the hills, but let's give some respect because this was published in 1969 - long before post-apoc was the industry it has since become.
All in all, it's a recommended from me. It's a good-natured romp, if you can make allowances for the 1969ness of it all. Perhaps the biggest recommendation is that 30 odd years after I first read it, I could still remember most of the plot and a fair bit of the writing. I could recite the last couple of sentences almost word for word. Almost. And you can't say that of many books that you read in your lifetime.
I started this book with high expectations. I had really enjoyed Dean's first book "Idiot Brain". He is a good writer who mixes solid science, extensiI started this book with high expectations. I had really enjoyed Dean's first book "Idiot Brain". He is a good writer who mixes solid science, extensive research and a witty writing style. Neuroscience is a topic that fascinates me, because a lot of the decisions we make are strongly influenced by the way that our brains work. All the signs were good. This was going to be a corker.
So I bought this book almost on the first day it came out. I snuggled down in my favourite armchair, closed the door so that I wouldn't be disturbed, put the iphone onto silent ... and proceeded to be mildly disappointed.
For a book about happiness, Dean seems to be permanently grumpy. He tells us that he wasn't sure that he wanted to write this book. He tries and fails to get a session in an MRI scanner because he can't afford it and his publishers won't give him the money and anyway the doctor told him that it wouldn't show him much. He continually recounts examples from his own life when he wasn't happy. And on and on it goes. You feel like giving him a hug and saying "there, there, it's not so bad really."
Then he starts asking weird questions. He seems obsessed with the idea that there is one part of the brain which is responsible for happiness, and then gets annoyed when there isn't. He wonders what would happen if we could produce more dopamine - the so-called happy drug - then argues that cocaine produces dopamine so that's probably not a good idea.
Then there are the interviews. He wants to find out more about fame ... although I'm not quite sure why ... so he goes to talk to Charlotte Church. Because she's famous. And all the scientific credibility that he's built up to this point goes out of the window as his readers shout "But Dean that's a sample size of one!" And then he does the same thing in most of the chapters. One interview per topic. Yeah right.
This wouldn't be so bad if he brought it all together with a good conclusion. But he doesn't. His conclusion is mostly a summary of what each preceding chapter has said. He doesn't take his thinking on that one last step to answer the "so what?" question.
There are some good bits in the book. Ignore the slightly crass interviews and there is some proper science in there. It's a fairly good overview of the science of happiness. Unlike many pop science books, it's littered with references and foot notes. But Dean adds relatively little of his own thinking apart from some slightly dubious humour. Maybe his innate grumpiness stops him from drawing conclusions or thinking a little deeper.
Frankly, it feels like a rushed job to build on the success of "Idiot brain". It's an okayish 3 stars when it could and should have been much better....more
You probably start this book thinking ... "Sue Perkins? I've seen her on the telly. Isn't she the skinny one from Mel and Sue? The ones who do Great BYou probably start this book thinking ... "Sue Perkins? I've seen her on the telly. Isn't she the skinny one from Mel and Sue? The ones who do Great British Bake Off? She of "soggy bottoms" and "baaake!" fame? I didn't know she could write. No doubt it was ghost written."
And you end up thinking ... "Sue Perkins is a fabulous writer. Who also happens to be on the telly."
This is a glorious laugh-out-loud book. Sue tells her life story in a totally unique way. She has a gift for making the mundane seem special and hilarious.
Caveat - this review is based on the first half of the book only, for reasons which will become apparent.
This is an odd one. I've heard friends ravingCaveat - this review is based on the first half of the book only, for reasons which will become apparent.
This is an odd one. I've heard friends raving about it. My 17 year old son and I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. It's about my era - the eighties. It's about computer games. There should be every reason why I would love this book.
So why the 1 star rating? What's not to like?
In a word - the writing. It's a bingo card of almost every newbie mistake. There was hardly a page in the book where I didn't wince and wonder where the editor was. Or if there was an editor.
Let's start with the biggie. The first chunk of the book is one huge info dump. Nothing much happens for the first one hundred pages or so apart from the first person narrator telling us the back story. And after that we keep on getting more big dollops of exposition.
Then there's the usual advice of "show don't tell". Or in this case, "tell don't show". Huge amounts of action happen off screen and we only get to hear about it.
Then there's the first person narrator's voice. It is supposed to be a teenage boy but the language and sentence construction sound more like a middle aged man.
There's a huge amount of filtering, where the author says "I heard..." or "I saw...". For that matter every other paragraph starts with "I" - something that you really ought to avoid in first person.
The speech attribution is sloppy. We get book saidisms with characters hissing, interjecting, growling and so on. A ton of "said xxxly". A pile of cheesy action beats - a lot of eye rolling and grinning.
2 dimensional or even one dimensional characters.
I could go on, but I probably shouldn't. Don't get me wrong. There is some stuff to like in the book. The basic premise is fun. I liked the occasional bit of imagination like calling the egg hunters "gunters". The stacks were cool. Spielberg made a good film out of it (possibly because we don't have to suffer the writing).
If that's enough for you, you might like it. If you're not a writer you may not notice some or all of these problems.
But if you are a writer you might find yourself doing what I did. I gave up on the book half way through when it was obvious it wasn't going to get any better.
This is one of those books like the Da Vinci Code or Fifty Shades of Grey where the fans love it, it sells by the bucket-load, but some of us find it unreadable....more
Disappointing. There is nothing wrong with the book's main thesis that we should "work less, then obsess". In other words, do fewer things but focus mDisappointing. There is nothing wrong with the book's main thesis that we should "work less, then obsess". In other words, do fewer things but focus more on doing them well. Can't argue with that. There are six other principles including such obvious nuggets as "work smarter, not harder".
The problem is how the book justifies this point of view. Most of the book is argument by anecdote. Person X did this and it worked out ... therefore we should all do this. That's hardly a strong argument as the examples are all hand-picked to prove the author's arguments.
The book is also based on research (a survey) which seems flaky. People were asked to rate their performance and the performance of their bosses and employees. Then they were asked to say how well they, their bosses and employees exhibited a range of skills and behaviours. The problem is that the only positive skills and behaviours in the survey were the ones that the author was advocating. So inevitably there was a high correlation between high performance and these skills or behaviours.
That isn't science. It's snake oil salesmanship.
The book also misquotes Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers. Hansen argues that Gladwell was wrong to say that 10,000 hours of practice is what it takes to excel at something. Instead, Hansen says (quite rightly) that it needs to be good practice. The problem is that Gladwell says exactly the same thing. This makes me wonder whether Hansen had read Outliers or was deliberately misrepresenting it. Either way, it didn't give this book much credibility.
Two stars (three on Amazon). There is nothing wrong with this book, but it doesn't say much that is new and hasn't been said much better before. ...more
This is a hard book to rate. On the one hand, it seems to be a pretty thorough account of a turbulent time in British politics. As far as I can tell, This is a hard book to rate. On the one hand, it seems to be a pretty thorough account of a turbulent time in British politics. As far as I can tell, Tim Shipman does a good job and chronicling who did what. We get to peak inside Number 10 and hear about David Cameron's discussions with George Osborne. And for balance we see what was happening in the Labour party and UKIP.
A few pages in and I was thinking that this was an excellent book. A solid 5 stars. The definitive account of Brexit. And that's a good thing because we have a fascinating Games of Thrones style epic of courage and cruelty, loyalty and deceit.
Kudos to Tim for being reasonably even-handed too.
But then something started to niggle away at me. There was something missing. In fact there were four things that I expected to see but which weren't there.
First, while the book is good on the "who" and the "what", it's not so good on the "why". I didn't get much of a sense of motive or that politicians on either side were doing this for the good of the country. It all seemed to be about self-interest and party politics. Maybe that's a fair reflection on the debate. Maybe it's something missing from this book. I don't know.
Second, I was surprised that there was almost nothing about the views of other countries in the EU. This book is an account that rarely of ever crosses the channel.
Third, there is very little economic or factual analysis. This book is all politics. That's a shame when some of the issues, such as the infamous £350 million a week, really need to be explained in some depth.
Fourth - and perhaps most tellingly - there is very little here about the public. This book is about the political in-fighting that led to Brexit. It's stage is Number 10 Downing Street, not number 33 Acacia Avenue.
All in all, the pluses outweigh the minuses. It's a riveting story of political tricks, manipulating the public, outright lies and friendships broken. It shows quite clearly that the result could have gone either way. A few changes of history and we might be looking at a different result.
But the "total story" ... no, it isn't that.
And while we're nitpicking, Brexit didn't sink Britain political class. It brought a few careers to an end, including David Cameron and Nigel Farage. But we've still got the same political class in charge, the country is as divided as ever and our politicians are still playing the same games more than a year after the referendum.
So it's 4 stars for me. Good book. In parts, it's a fascinating book. But "the full story"? Nah, not quite.
This is one of those books that looks initially to be quite impressive, but then seems to grow smaller as you read it. I wouldn't say that it's entireThis is one of those books that looks initially to be quite impressive, but then seems to grow smaller as you read it. I wouldn't say that it's entirely a case of "style over substance", but the emphasis is certainly more on presentation.
First, the good news. The book is quite well laid out and easy to read. It has frequent summaries, quizzes and memory markers. I enjoyed reading it.
The book is also a complete repertoire for Black. Unlike some repertoire books, the authors take the time to cover the awkward and offbeat openings that White can try.
Another plus point is that the repertoire is basically sound. The authors don't try to advocate a relatively simple universal opening which may be easy to learn but can often lead to poor position. Instead we are given a repertoire based on mainstream openings - the accelerate dragon and the nimzo/bogo indian.
So far, so good, and I guess some of you will be reaching for your credit card around now. Unfortunately, there's some bad news. This book is a mile wide but only a few inches deep. Because it tries to cover such a large amount of ground, I constantly found myself wanting more analysis and more discussion of positional themes.
One example ... A common move against the nimzo is 4. f3, which can transpose into the Saemisch (4. a3). This book covers it by discussing the first 18 moves of one game. That's it. There is some discussion of alternatives around move 9, but that's all we get. A major response to our repertoire is covered by one game.
I know, I know, you're going to say that they had a lot of ground to cover in one book. That's true, but then the book seems to have rather more padding than I was expecting. Lots of adverts for other books by the same authors. Discussions of openings that aren't in the repertoire. Analysis late in a game when this is supposed to be an openings book.
It's 3 stars. At times it works well, at times it doesn't. ...more
Reading Dr No these days (2017) is something of a guilty pleasure. It's an exciting read, but a modern reader will wince at the casual racism and sexiReading Dr No these days (2017) is something of a guilty pleasure. It's an exciting read, but a modern reader will wince at the casual racism and sexism.
The Bond of the books is less of a caricature than the Bond of the movies. He doesn't just drink vodka martini, shaken not stirred. He adjusts his tastes according to the country that he's in. It's Ian Fleming mansplaining how to be a man, and a particular kind of man. The whole novel is one of those glossy men's magazines full of sharp suits, watch adverts, car reviews and ladies with not many clothes on. It's GQ or Esquire in paperback.
It's also a travelogue, and here we have to make an adjustment for the age of the book. The average first time reader when the book was first written would not have traveled much. And that was part of the appeal of Bond. Fleming was giving his readers a glimpse into a world that they could not know for themselves.
It's not perfect. At times there is far too much exposition, info dumping and villain-monologing. It feels like Ian Fleming talking which can get irritating. There is some sloppy writing with head-hopping and some of the adjectives are a little over the top for modern tastes. But apart from that, the book clips along at a reasonable pace.
I've now read this book twice - once as a teenager and then once in my fifties. First too young to be Bond and then too old. But it both cases I couldn't stop myself from imagining what it would be like to be him. And that, I suppose, is the mark of a successful book, if not a great one.
Three stars. I liked it, I don't rave about it. Recommended - ish. If you like this sort of thing, you'll like this sort of thing....more
Let's do the fabulous bit first. This book is one of the very first self-help books. It helped to invThis is a fabulous book with a sting in the tail.
Let's do the fabulous bit first. This book is one of the very first self-help books. It helped to invent the self-help industry and has sold a gazillion. And with very good reason, because it is 99% brilliant.
The basic premise of the book is that it is much easier to become friends if you are nice to them. Respect their opinions. Don't try to change their minds. Listen more than you talk. Learn about them.
And if that sounds trite, it isn't. This is genuinely ground-breaking stuff. It ought to be required reading for anyone who has tried to win an argument (on the internet or anyway else) on the basis of facts and evidence. The other person almost certainly isn't listening because it is very difficult to shift someone away from a belief or an opinion.
Whether we are arguing about Trump vs Clinton, or Brexit, or Climate Change or whether my car is better than your car ... we are all wasting our time because the people arguing with us are not going to change their opinions, just as we are not going to change ours.
Powerful stuff. Life changing. Refreshing. Fabulous. You really must read this.
But ...
Here comes the sting in the tail. Dale Carnegie argues that you can get people to do what you want by telling them what they want to hear. That is all fine and dandy if you are a vacuum cleaner salesmen/ woman. You'll sell more if you follow the advice in this book.
But what if you are not a salesperson? Then the book starts to feel a little manipulative. It is only a short step from "telling people what they want to hear" to misleading the public by promising them something that can't be delivered. And that feels very uncomfortable in these post truth days when politicians think they can make outrageous claims by promising us things that they cannot deliver.
Read this book as a sales manual and it's great. Five stars. Highly recommended. It really is a life-changing book.
But read it as a politician and this book is a manual on how to manipulate people to vote for you. Tell em what they want to hear, even if that isn't truthful.
Recommended. Of course, it's recommended. Everyone ought to read this book. And then realise that there are times when we shouldn't tell people only what they want to hear. ...more
Loading...
