Carrie Dils
The book was intriguing, but ultimately was too complicated to deal with... The plethora of subtitles, Latin sidebars, and sideways text was a little too much. Not to mention the book was physically heavy and clumsy (even in paperback) to the point of being uncomfortable to support in my supine position (I do most of my reading on the way to sleep).
The musician Poe put out a CD called Haunted that takes it's inspiration from the book. It was interesting to listen to the CD after reading a bit of the book.
In the end, I'll keep the CD, but the book will remain unfinished.
Overall enjoyed the story and the intertwining of past/presence (along with a dash of meta). There were TONS of footnotes. This was super annoying to read on a kindle – footnotes took me completely out of reading flow every few pages and didn't really add much of interest.
This is quintessential Highsmith. Who's guilty? Who's innocent? Whose murder are you happy occurred and who do you feel sympathy for?
A bizarre justice comes around and you wonder how so much tension can mount when emotions seem to run even keel.
Nothing terribly actionable about this book (other than to pay attention to the little things), but it was incredibly interesting.
Read this in high school. Remember very little other than being proud of myself for pronouncing Fyodor Dostoyevsky correctly.
I read this many years ago and had forgotten the title until a recent book I read mentioned it. Hands down, it's the best book for explaining why bottlenecks exist and how you can re-arrange workflows to alleviate the bottleneck. The book is a novel set in a manufacturing plant, but the principles apply to any industry.
The upcoming season of my podcast is themed around “automation.” Before you can create an automation to help your business you need to be able to 1) identify where an automation can help and 2) make sure that automation doesn't create bottlenecks or system strains elsewhere.
If someone reads this and creating automated systems to scale business is a passion of yours, ping me. I'd love to talk.
One of the most impactful business books I've read. Here's a review on my blog: https://carriedils.com/book-review-the-12-week-year/
I rated this 3 stars on my first reading, some years ago. I appreciated the writing and storytelling more this time, though it was still just as sad. You know the futility of George's “plan” the whole time, yet there's some dim hope/desire for a better outcome that keeps the story moving forward.
Very well written and suspenseful (in a non-scary way). Just so darn sad and not redeeming, hence the 3-star.
I typically don't care for stories that happen off planet earth, but this was a fantastic narrative that kept me engaged at every turn.
Ann Handley,C.C. Chapman,+1 more
As someone already very familiar with content marketing, there was nothing earth shattering in the book, however there were some good reminders.
If you're new to content marketing, the book includes practical, actionable advice.
This book didn't translate well to an audiobook. Too many quotes and snippets cited that it was a little disorienting. Overall, the content was decent.
A hallmark of a great story is that you're fully engrossed in it. I was pulled out of the story multiple times by poor editing and weird, crammed-in details that didn't serve any purpose (IMHO).
