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Review Date: 6/20/2014
Helpful Score: 1
I'm a big baseball fan, and I thought it would be interesting to learn more about the history of the game, but I found this book very hard to read. It's very dry, and goes off on long, meandering tangents about the personal lives of the people involved, even when the tangent has little to do with their place in baseball history. At other times, some of the things I found most interesting were mentioned almost as an aside in one sentence, then never discussed in more detail. Finally, the narrative jumps around in time, making it hard to keep track of who is who and what is going on. Maybe this would be more interesting to someone who enjoys studying history and also happens to like baseball. Then you might appreciate all the little details that the author goes in to. But if you're a baseball fan looking to learn more about the game, I recommend looking somewhere else.
Review Date: 8/10/2015
The story was interesting, but it was a very slow read for me, as it went into a lot of details and tangents that were not that relevant to the story. To be fair, I read more fiction than nonfiction, and I've had this same complaint about other nonfiction books. I guess it just especially stuck out to me here, because before reading this, I had seen a review that it "reads like a novel," and I strongly disagree with that.
Review Date: 11/20/2009
Helpful Score: 3
This is the fourth book in the Bourne series, and the first written by Eric Van Lustbader. If you're considering the series as a whole, you should know that beyond the concept of a skilled assassin who has no memory, there is very little similarity between the books and the movies. The first three books (by Robert Ludlum) were very good. In this book (and the subsequent books written by Van Lustbader), though, there is no continuity with the earlier books in the series. Van Lustbader takes the name Bourne and a little bit of the history, but changes everything else to write the novel he wants. Major characters are killed off just because he doesn't want to deal with him, Bourne has moved to a different city just for convenience to the novel's plot, he seems to be much younger despite the fact that this novel is set many years after the first three, etc. Everyone has their own opinion, and I'm sure there are many people who love Van Lustbader's Bourne books, but my recommendation would be to read Ludlum's original Bourne trilogy, and then stop. Reading Van Lustbader's books is just frustrating because he ignores so much of what is built in the original trilogy.
Boys Will Be Boys: The Glory Days and Party Nights of the Dallas Cowboys Dynasty
Author:
Book Type: Hardcover
16
Author:
Book Type: Hardcover
16
Review Date: 7/6/2010
Interesting content, but I wasn't impressed by the writing. Pearlman often uses off-the-wall references that serve no point other than to draw the reader away from the story. For example:
"Jimmy Johnson, a man with an ego as large as the Qinghai-Tebet Plateau"
"Switzer approached discipline as if he were the proprieter of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch"
"he and Martin stared at one another like Ali MacGraw and Ryan O'Neal in Love Story"
There are many more; those are just a few I found quickly flipping through the pages. Rather than set the scene, they make me wonder what the similes/metaphors have to do with an NFL team in the 1990's.
I also didn't appreciate how Pearlman seemed to side with some players/coaches/etc., making the case for their side of a story convincingly while vaguely (if at all) presenting the other side of the story.
All in all, this was an interesting read for the content, but I think it would have been a much more enjoyable read if it were written by someone else.
"Jimmy Johnson, a man with an ego as large as the Qinghai-Tebet Plateau"
"Switzer approached discipline as if he were the proprieter of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch"
"he and Martin stared at one another like Ali MacGraw and Ryan O'Neal in Love Story"
There are many more; those are just a few I found quickly flipping through the pages. Rather than set the scene, they make me wonder what the similes/metaphors have to do with an NFL team in the 1990's.
I also didn't appreciate how Pearlman seemed to side with some players/coaches/etc., making the case for their side of a story convincingly while vaguely (if at all) presenting the other side of the story.
All in all, this was an interesting read for the content, but I think it would have been a much more enjoyable read if it were written by someone else.
Review Date: 2/27/2012
Some interesting parts, but I was mostly just skimming by the end. Part of why it didn't keep my attention well was because I was expecting it to be about economics. Instead, it's mostly about autism. If you're prepared for the fact that the entire theme of the book is the cognitive strengths of the autistic way of thinking, you may be able to follow it better than I was.
Review Date: 6/29/2009
This is a great book that begins a great fantasy series. Jordan develops his characters well, and knows his world inside and out, providing detail behind everything that happens. I highly recommend reading this book and the entire Wheel of Time series.
However, I must warn you that this book starts very slow. The first time I started reading it, I actually gave up on it, because it was hard to get in to and I made the mistake of starting it during a period where I didn't have much extra time to read. However, I went back later and gave it another shot. It turned out to be one of my favorite books, and is actually all the better because the slow start really sets the tone of what these people's lives are normally like before all of a sudden big stuff starts happening.
So, in summary, read this book. If you start reading it and don't think you like it, give it a couple hundred pages. I think you'll change your mind.
However, I must warn you that this book starts very slow. The first time I started reading it, I actually gave up on it, because it was hard to get in to and I made the mistake of starting it during a period where I didn't have much extra time to read. However, I went back later and gave it another shot. It turned out to be one of my favorite books, and is actually all the better because the slow start really sets the tone of what these people's lives are normally like before all of a sudden big stuff starts happening.
So, in summary, read this book. If you start reading it and don't think you like it, give it a couple hundred pages. I think you'll change your mind.
Fooled by Randomness : The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets
Author:
Book Type: Paperback
16
Author:
Book Type: Paperback
16
Review Date: 6/23/2009
Helpful Score: 1
There are some interesting things in this book, but I really don't like how it's written. Taleb seems like one of those people who thinks he's always right about everything, and condescending toward anyone who disagrees with him. I don't enjoy talking with those people, and I don't enjoy reading books written in the same manner. Also, based on the subtitle, it would seem like the discussion of markets would be secondary to randomness in all walks of life. However, the majority of the book talks just about markets and traders, and it's not until the second half that it gets into the more interesting theoretical stuff about life in general.
Review Date: 7/25/2009
Helpful Score: 1
Dando-Collins is a historian, and this is his first fictional book. The concept, of a Roman questor who is tasked with disproving the rumors that Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead, is interesting, and since he knows his historical facts, the backdrop of the novel is very detailed and realistic. But it sort of fell flat for me towards the end. It's like Dando-Collins put all this work into it, then couldn't figure out how to end a story about investigating the death of Jesus.
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