Paul
I was expecting more of a self-help book, but I found this to be another one of those pseudo-psychology books for the “smarter than you” set, like Malcolm Gladwell (which shouldn't have surprised me, since he has a quote on the cover). A lot of handy tips & pointers for some, I'm sure, but I'm just not into that.
I started reading it, but ended up paging through trying to find something interesting. I ended up...at the end.
One of the best books I've read in a long, long time. Great, great writing, and it's refreshing to read a book centered around WWII that doesn't fall into the usual tropes. Even though it's pretty long at over 500 pages, the structure allows you to take breaks easily; most sections are less than five pages long.
I usually keep only the highest quality books, and donate the rest of what I read to the local library. This one stays on the shelf. If you want intelligent writing, an intricate plot, and tons of great characters, this is the book for you.
Now that I've read the book, I've gone back and read some of the reviews, and the gist of it is: if you like Murakami, you'll recognize a lot of his previous works in this book.
As someone who hasn't read anything of his before (actually, I read What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, which is non-fiction, not realizing it was the same author), I went in with an open mind.
I found the book pretty rote, similar to what they refer to “on rails” when talking about video game. Very linear, lots of loose ends, and not a ton of deep thoughts being provoked. I'd say about a quarter of it was pretty good, a quarter was ok, and half was kind of pointless.
Given that two stars here means “It was ok”, I'm giving it that rating because it's pretty much exactly how I felt about it. It was ok.
Burned through this in two days, which is pretty rare for me.
Very entertaining book, and great writing. Not sure how accurate it is - some parts tend to be exaggerated to the point of hyperbole - but that doesn't take away much from the sheer entertainment in reading about the events.
Recommended, and you don't have to be a runner to enjoy it.
Very good retrospective on Pixar, with a lot of great advice on management and creativity. Sometimes gets a little too much into the “and then we solved it, aren't we great” side of things, but that's really just a minor quibble. The afterword, on working with Steve Jobs, is better than the entire Steve Jobs authorized biography.
Great, quick read about how one person, after researching some of the “self-help” gurus, reluctantly started down the path of meditation. I really liked his writing style, and sense of humor, and I really identified with a lot of his reluctance. If anything, it was good to know that others feel the same way.
Highly recommended.
I felt this was a bit slow, but I'm glad I kept with it. The second half is much better, or at least it spoke to me more. I probably would have liked it more, and given it a higher rating, if I hadn't just read Bird By Bird right before this.
If you're interesting in writing, it's a definite “should read”.
I really liked this book; I constantly ran across examples where I was behaving similarly in my own life, and I appreciate the pointers on how to address some of the problems. I'll be keeping this one, and I can see re-reading it in the future to brush up on some of the things I learned.
The only real niggling issue I had with the book was the constant references to “Some studies”, “recent research”, etc. It got pretty repetitive. Also, I usually think twice when I see references to “some” studies, because it makes me question whether the author is cherry-picking research to support his or her thesis (see Gladwell, Malcolm). Fortunately, the end of the book is filled with references to the actual research mentioned in the book, and although I haven't had the willpower to validate them (see what I did there?), it at least makes me more comfortable that it's legit.
Also, big props to the larger print. It's nice to be able to read without squinting.
