Martin

Quantity Over Quality

Reviewed: 01-11-16

Even though the authors do their best to make a case for it, this book suffers from its origins, articles on their website. There are some interesting parts to it but it is way too scatter-shot. Some of the ideas are introduced in very cursory way and then left dangling in mid-air. I know that the warning is in the bye-line - " and 131 more warped suggestions and well intended rants". However I still felt short-changed when they simply threw an idea out there and then abandoned it without much attempt at follow-through. One of the authors, I think it is Levitt, has a lisp which makes his portions of the audio hard to understand.

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When All You Have Got Is A Hammer ......

Reviewed: 07-12-15

I needed a quick introduction to scrum and decided to go to the source based on the reviews. I was ultimately disappointed with the audiobook. There is way too much proselytizing and self-congratulating going on in it for my taste. I just wanted him to cut to the chase and explain the method. As another reviewer mentions, he also seems to have fallen into the trap that he has found a panacea for all the world's ills. The author follows a trend very common in technology writing of using lots of testosterone driven analogies and metaphors. Even though he is all for diversity in teams his language would be a major turn-off for a significant percentage of the population. It does eventually cover the ground but I would have preferred a shorter book by someone else that ditched the evangelical zeal.

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81 people found this helpful

A good pep talk just before an interview

Reviewed: 07-12-15

The headline for this review more or less sums things up. I would recommend listening to this in the day or so leading up to a phone interview. It is like a pep talk from an enthusiastic and informed friend. There is nothing particularly earth shattering in the recommendations but it is surprising how often they are not followed by prospective interviewees. If nothing else, it acts as a check-list that you are properly prepared.

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Well Turned Phrases

Reviewed: 07-12-15

One of the pleasures of reading good writers is when they describe situations or feelings you have experienced yourself in a way that resonates. Several times listening to this audiobook I felt like pausing it and noting down a phrase perfectly capturing a moment or idea. Not necessarily an easy listen at times but worth the journey. He does ruminate at length on various friends and relations which can get just a little tedious. It struck me in the piece about a male friend who was married and then separated and got a sex change that he never once considered how his/her partner might have felt about the whole experience. But these are minor things. He also has a very good speaking voice so he is good at delivering his own material which is not always the case for authors who narrate their own books.

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Hard To Follow Jonathan Strange

Reviewed: 05-31-15

I really liked Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell so I was a bit ambivalent about reading this one given that it was likely to suffer from the "difficult second album" syndrome. It turns out to be a series of shorter stories set in the same "world" as the first novel. These vary in quality but they still contain a lot of the qualities that made Jonathan Strange such an enjoyable. However in the end I did feel a bit short-changed. The narration was excellent - Simon Prebble is one my favourites and I would seek out books narrated by Davina Porter based on this.

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2 people found this helpful

Applied Mindfulness

Reviewed: 05-31-15

One of the books I listened to based on many positive reviews. I was a little bit underwhelmed by it. On the positive side it is clear and concise. Many self-help books contain lots of padding, presumably to justify the cost of entry. Having said that, if you are already acquainted with Mindfulness and what it entails then this book will contain few surprises. The narrator/author is also deadly earnest and serious and I could have done with a lighter tone and approach at times.

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Worth it for the opening line alone

Reviewed: 05-31-15

"It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me." So begins Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess. This line alone should be enough for most to decide if this book is for them or not. Burgess was a fan of James Joyce and a lover of words for their own sake as well as a means to tell a story. It portrays the life and times of Kenneth Toomey a gay writer across the span of the 20th century. It is a huge novel with many themes including the experience of being gay in that century particularly as a believer and how it changed over time, the problem of evil, the role of the catholic church. It requires a big investment of time and concentration but is well worth it. It is both funny and tragic and filled with vivid characters. If nothing else, you will join the ranks of those who can quote the opening line by heart.

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15 people found this helpful

Key Event In English History

Reviewed: 06-01-14

The Norman invasion is one of the pivotal moments in English history. However, beyond knowing the date 1066 and the "fact" that Harold died with a arrow to the eye, I did not know a whole lot about it. This book covers the event in pretty exhaustive detail. As another review has noted, the narrator does make listening to the book a little hard going. He has a strange rat-a-tat delivery and reads as if he is using an auto-cue. However, in mitigation, he has a very clear voice and delivery. I cannot speak for whether the material presented is controversial in any great way. The writer does lapse into the slightly irritating style of academic texts such as prefacing an obscure fact or complete conjecture with "Of course .." and using words like "ostensibly" and "arguably". Having said all that, I listened to the finish and felt somewhat more enlightened. I would recommend the book if you are interested in history in general and that period in particular. If not, I would not choose it as a starting point as its style is somewhere between an academic text and a popular history and it may not grab you.

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8 people found this helpful

Sheepish

Reviewed: 05-05-14

I was lured into spending a credit on this book by the short snippet of a preview for it. The interaction reminded me a bit of the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy's ship computer Eddie. Unfortunately, the book never really lived up to that level. On the positive side, there are lots of clever ideas in the plot and a wry sense of humour. So much science fiction and fantasy has been written over the last 50 years that it is an achievement to come up with anything original. It is narrated well by Wil Wheaton, who always seems to do a good job. It just never really sparkled for me - I was happy to listen to it but it didn't completely grab me. One of those books to while away a long journey.

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8 people found this helpful

Hellish

Reviewed: 06-26-13

What would have made Inferno better?

Somebody helping Dan Brown with his writing skills. He has a facility for ripping-yarn style plots but his writing can be quite painful at times. Why does he keep repeating obvious plot points over and over? Why does it feel that he lifted a lot of material from travel guides to Florence and Venice? He is really heavy-handed delivering any kind of explanatory information. Why is there not even a glimmer of a sense of humour in the writing?

Would you ever listen to anything by Dan Brown again?

There is a horrible fascination with reading his stuff and trying to work out why his books are so popular so probably, yeah

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

The narrator was blameless. There is no way anyone could deliver some of the dialogues in this book in a way that made them sound like them came from real human beings.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

It provided great material for rants during coffee breaks at work.

Any additional comments?

Makes Agatha Christie read like James Joyce in comparison.

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2 people found this helpful