Tracee

Excellent listen!

Reviewed: 06-04-21

This audiobook was as delightful as a season of Downton Abbey. Focused on women’s history, it shows how these socialites from America obtained high status in Britain, how Americans marrying dukes was so commonplace in the era that it became a stereotype of the system.

There were about 9 of these marriages focused on in great detail - marriages of such family names as Vanderbilt and Churchill. Many more notable weddings were mentioned in passing, like how Lady Diana Spencer (HRH Princess Diana) had a great-grandmother who was herself American, brought into the Spencer family during the cash-for-class arrangement era of British noblemen of titles and American women of wealth.

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Good read

Reviewed: 10-28-20

This was an Audible Premium play so it was free. It’s a nice personal story I’d recommend for fans of his previous works, like Money Ball. He has a knack for looking at the psychology, economics, and persons behind movements and how they happen.

This short story is the examination of children’s travel rec leagues from the inside view. It’s short, breezy, parenting friendly. It takes a look at the exploitation of parents’ pockets and the family pressures that go into youth sports, including the big money to be profited off of 14 year olds playing softball or lacrosse. In the final part the author discusses how the sports system has warped American college admissions and not for the better. (The college admissions fraud cases weren’t specifically mentioned, but you can see how someone would buy their kid a fake sports record, with a college coach being more powerful than the admissions board of a college.)

Compared to prior works, this topic is concession stand “small peanuts”, directly focused about the ordinary families all across the country enrolling their kids in youth sports and how they spend their weekends driving to tournaments and living out of hotels. He covers this slice of Americana as masterfully as the bigger corporate stories he‘s told. You feel a part of the zeitgeist, and also receive a cautionary warning it’s not worth the headache, except as much as it brings family happiness.

It’s got some parts of a parent bragging about his kid’s softball days in the way only a parent can love, as you nod as a coworker talks about their kid’s epic dance recital. He knows his participation was nonsensical and yet it’s a part of his personality. He fell involved into the world so much that he describes it with accuracy and understanding of the people who buy into the youth sport pipe dream, but also is able to look at the economics of the nightmare ($15k for volleyball a year for a kid). It was a nice short listen and a reminder to balance parenting, to not be caught up in the pay-to-play industry of families living on the road spending thousands to hold that dream of being the best ball player, with a payout that has little/no career potential.
Overall, it was clear that he was a good dad. Coaching softball, analyzing it to the extent he did, seeking out positive female role models, and believing in his daughter shine through in the book. Was the the thousands of days of softball the best use of time? Probably not, but his kid came out happy and you learn by doing and making mistakes. This was a good read (listen).

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It’s well-researched. Academic, not for the masses

Reviewed: 07-21-19

I listened to this book, and thought there’d be a little more practical information for parents. It’s entirely a book about economics, from economists, even though they spice up the beginning with personal narratives about their childhood. If you’re looking for a guide on what to do with your kids to make them “better”, a la Cribsheet, this isn’t that. If you’re into education policy, or poverty reduction, this book is great. Politicians, administrators, school superintendents should read it. Parents, there’s not much to do except be authoritative (helpful and supportive) with your children, and pick good atmospheres for them to grow up in, and don’t stress too much or too little over them (and there’s a wide range in that, they show, from country to country.) Good read, informative and very well-researched. It’s a “How to make the world a more equal place, and fix tax codes and education systems” book on public planning, not a parenting book. The two author approach was a strength, too.

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3 people found this helpful

Great Book, like a real-life CSI memoir

Reviewed: 05-14-15

What made the experience of listening to Working Stiff the most enjoyable?

ALL of it. This book was super interesting. It features a hyper-career surgeon who realizes she wants some work/life balance, a great husband who loves to take care of the kids, and landing a job at the NYC morgue. There's so many interesting stories about how people die, and some of the chapters are devoted to a single cause of death - homicides, suicides, overdoses (30% or more of cases are overdoses), as-seen-on-TV construction site accidents. The good news is that we're unlikely to die a gruesome death unless we shoot, or shoot up, for it.

The final chapters are about the NYC clean-up, as Judy's team processed all of the bodies from the World Trade Centers over the following weeks. The actual process, and the recounting of fire fighters and ordinary New Yorkers from the disaster, are worth the read. The final few chapters gave some insight into what investigating into an airplane crash wreckage must be like.

What did you like best about this story?

I loved T.J. and his reflections. Judy's husband (and co-writer) serves as a character for the audience, who doesn't know all the medical lingo. Judy seems immersed in cutting open chestplates and using Latin lingo as an expert, while T.J. asks the questions we would ask off the top of our heads about a case. Judy brings the crazy stories to the table, and T.J. writes them down in a witty prose. The kids come along for the ride (I want a sequel!)

What does Tanya Eby bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

She sounded a bit Valley-Girlish. Not unprofessional, just more the voice of a middle-aged friend at the mall telling you about their homemade organic cookies and taking their teenage daughter to soccer practice. I grew to enjoy the distinctive voice after a while, and it made the book better in the end because there was a juxtaposition between a female, gushy friendly voice reading a chapter all about internal organs. It worked though, because it was similar to Judy Melinek - a mother and doctor who happens to cut up dead people and find their secrets. Something about Tanya Eby's voice made the awkward scenes more hilarious.

I thoroughly recommend this audiobook. It's like if Tina Fey were a medical examiner, dealing with death on a daily basis.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

There were a lot of moments that I found myself relistening to, or that I had to retell to the people around me. I'm sure they thought I was a bit crazy as I talked of homicides and suicides for that week. I listened through the book pretty fast - I couldn't put it down.

Any additional comments?

This book is probably not for everyone. If you like watching CSI, don't mind a dead body on TV now and then, and are okay with life's farts and falls off of a twenty-story building, then you will LOVE this book. If that stuff makes you squeamish, don't listen. Personally, I'm hoping for a sequel or two or three. Please T.J., write more!

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A good short book that motivates you to practice

Reviewed: 04-08-15

Where does The Practicing Mind rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

It's a good book, good self development nonfiction. It is a short read, so you can finish it in a couple of hours.

What other book might you compare The Practicing Mind to and why?

This book was a good book to read right after reading Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. Napoleon Hill wants you to reach your extraordinary potential, and this book has smaller aims (becoming the best you can be at a skill, and enjoying it in the process), but they pair well together. This is also a good book for parents wanting to instill good mindsets in their children.

What about Thomas M. Sterner’s performance did you like?

Sterner has a lot of personal experience with practice, and he anchors his story around his knowledge of practice. From his piano lessons, to learning to play golf in adulthood, to attending college classes as a returning adult, and his career as a piano tuner, Sterner had a lot of tips about practice that I knew, but hadn't verbalized yet.

Any additional comments?

I enjoyed the author's viewpoint with practicing and his research into the subject of practice.

This was not a book published for academia's sake. It was a book that felt like you invited your close friend who is excellent at running and picked their brain on the subject, and they turned it into a book all about the theory of running. Only instead of running, Sterner is a life-long lover of practicing. His writing style is more that of a friend and advisor than a know-it-all professor, and I appreciated that tone.

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7 Habits of Highly Effective College Students

Reviewed: 03-22-15

This reads like a young person's journey to discover himself and become a self-help coach. As such, there's a lot more relatable stories to young adults than someone who's been married and had kids, and has been "successful" for the past twenty years already. It's more about the beginning of the journey of defining your priorities and starting the life you want to lead. He discusses moving countries, living in the third world, working jobs as a teenager, and exploring the possibilities of his "authentic self", and making mistakes along the way. One was almost lethal.

I feel like this book should be marketed as a Young Adult book. It would have been an excellent read in college, for students on the leadership track who are afraid of high expectations for the future. It reminds us that it's okay to move cities, sleep in a room without a door, work for a moment in a job we dislike, if these are the first steps to getting out from other people's visions of us and building the life we want to lead.

It's like a SparkNotes, young adult version of Stephen Covey, Napoleon Hill, etc. It is also helpful at calming you down and reminding you that you don't need to chase "success" in a field you aren't interested in. That's actually misery disguised as success.

The beginning chapter of audio has some tin can quality to it, but it gets better. The author is a good narrator, very enthusiastic and contemplative.

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5 people found this helpful

More Enjoyable than the Movie, Funny & Smart Read

Reviewed: 02-23-15

I'm not a baseball fan, but I love data analysis and this book can be enjoyed by anybody. It has the Cinderella-Story baseball narrative like any sports movie, but also focuses on how success came from shunning conventional wisdom and instead turning to the computational statistics. The book isn't too mathy, so great for a general audience. (There's also a lot of nerding out, for fantasy sports fans or data-crunchers!)

This book was simply bought "for later", but once I sampled it I couldn't put it down.

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Valuable for leading a project

Reviewed: 02-08-15

Good book for managers and project-driven professions.

It helps you have breakthroughs in your thinking. The author analyzed 130 insights to see what led the person to discovery - was it creativity, seeing connections, spotting a contradiction? He goes through many of these stories (good, so you can recognize similar situations in your own life, but also boring, like he's doing a book report on many life incidents and also referring back to them). This caused the book to become boring at times. Helpful, but boring. I felt like I was listening for professional development's sake, not because it was also a fun listen.

I definitely had a few takeaways from this book. One is the idea of the "up arrow and down arrow." We focus too much on not making mistakes, without rewarding riskier efforts to improve our situation. That improves our current situation, but doesn't allow room for advancement. Encouraging creative improvements will improve a business, even if the new ventures and products result in a few kinks that need ironing out in the future.

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2 people found this helpful

Great Children's Book, Adequate Performance

Reviewed: 12-11-12

What did you like best about Mirette on the High Wire? What did you like least?

I tried liking the audiobook, but it honestly couldn't hold my attention. And it's a children's book, so it's supposed to be simple and captivating. I succeeded the most at getting through the ten minute story when I had the beautiful painted scenes of the Mirette & The Highwire picturebook in hand as I read along to the audio. But at that point, what's the use of the audiobook? The reader has a stilted (elite, but not necessarily British) accent, like a Julie Andrews, so she'd be great for a book about nannies who make you take your medicine but also fly using umbellas. Unfortunately, in this book her pronunciation of words made the audio less crisp and not easy to follow along (like watching an old BBC British show), and just resulted in odd pronunciations of simple words, like "Moscow". Furthermore, she used a second accent for all French foreign words, like they were being said by a toy poodle that speaks French rather than a more authentic French. I don't think that French people all talk with their mouths barely open and just their tongues moving.

What did you like best about this story?

Mirette is a great story about having dreams and making them come true, just don't expect to be captivated by the audiobook.

What three words best describe Jennifer Van Dyck’s voice?

studious, like Julie Andrews, but off-putting

Could you see Mirette on the High Wire being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

Yes, but they'd have to add a lot of artistic liberties since this is a ten-minute book.

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