Navillus82

Entertaining Listen for F1 Fans

Revisado: 03-27-24

The book is an interesting listen even if you think you know everything there is to know about modern F1. The book gets docked a star for two reasons. First, there are some glaring errors in the manuscript. Valtteri Bottas will be shocked to discover that he is Estonian and not Finnish (seriously, did anyone fact check the book at all?). Second, the narrator absolutely butchers the names of a number of individuals and locations (e.g., adding an extra "o" to Nico Rosberg's last name"). If you are going to accept the job as narrator of a book or producer of an audiobook the least you can do is make sure you bother to learn correct pronunciations of words used in the work (unfortunately, a far too common occurrence in somewhat specialized works like this audiobook from my perspective that affects not just this recording).

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Interesting but likely not what reader expects

Revisado: 02-23-24

Let me be clear from the outset that I enjoyed The Unit and would recommend it to others. However, I gave the book 4 stars not 5 stars, because I think the marketing around the book is a bit misleading. This is not like most of the books by former operators where you get a sanitized version of their experience in the military. Contrary to the marketing, this book is much more about the author's experiences growing up and his views on America and his place in America. If you are looking for a book about kicking down doors or practicing CQB in a kill house this book is not for you. The author's military career plays a part in the book, but it is by no means the main subject of the book. The author's military career is utilized as a means of organizing the author's larger discussion of his experience as an immigrant and the importance of immigrants to America.

Additionally, the book is just not particularly well edited. There are multiple antidotes that appear twice or more in the book more or less verbatim and often do not entirely make sense in the context in which they appear. Honestly, at times it felt like the ghost writer was just sticking stories in to increase the page count/book length to make sure it reached the contracted length.

Overall, I found The Unit to be an enjoyable and interesting listen; however, I suspect many will purchase the book based on the marketing and general content of books in this genre and be disappointed.

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esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

Don't waste your time or credit

Revisado: 05-07-23

I fully recognize that there are issues with the PE business model and was looking forward to a thoughtful analysis of such issues. If that is what you are looking for too, Plunder is not the book for you. Plunder is a borderline unhinged screed that seeks to overwhelm readers with facts, statistics and anecdotes about private equity without providing necessary context, which creates a highly misleading picture about the industry. A few examples of the many issues with this work follow.

First, throughout the book the author treats the management company, its funds and the funds’ respective portfolio companies as being the same entity. This is not the case. They are distinct legal entities, which is why the management company is found not to be liable for the acts of its funds’ portfolio companies in the myriad of examples the author cites in the book as evidence of the evils of private equity. This outcome is not extraordinary as the author would like to suggest or some magical treatment that PE sponsors benefit from. The principle at work is the same one that prevents an individual who owns stock in a publicly traded company for being sued directly for the bad acts of the company absent certain extraordinary circumstances. Takes a bit of the bite out of the argument when put in the appropriate context.

Second, the author repeatedly claims that PE sponsors are paying dividends, management fees and transaction fees without any limitation. This is simply untrue and is indicative of the extremely shallow understanding of the industry that the author possesses. The credit agreements for the acquisition debt place significant limitations on the payments of fees to the funds, including among others prohibiting the portfolio company from paying dividends unless certain performance targets are satisfied or blocking the payment of the management fee if the borrower is in default under the credit agreement. Further, the LP side letters that govern the relationship between the fund and its investors routinely include prohibitions on the payment of certain fees and increasingly require funds to share or rebate a percentage of certain fees to the limited partners in the fund. As such, sponsors are not able to pay dividends, management fees, success fees, etc. without any limit as the author repeatedly claims.

Lastly, throughout the work the author refers to bankruptcy proceedings involving the portfolio companies of a specific sponsor in an effort to suggest such sponsor and the industry more generally utilize the bankruptcy system in an abusive manner. What the author conveniently omits to tell his readers is that such sponsor's strategy is to invest in distressed companies, i.e. companies that are already in bankruptcy or on the verge of bankruptcy. As such, the fact that its portfolio companies are routinely involved in bankruptcy proceedings is far from a surprise; however, the author is either so unversed in the industry that he purports to be an expert in or so disingenuous that he knowingly omits this fact in an effort to craft his narrative about the evils of the private equity industry.

The private equity industry has its excesses and abuses, but this book works way too hard at trying to paint the industry as being utterly without redeeming value, which is simply not the case.

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esto le resultó útil a 4 personas

Meh

Revisado: 10-08-22

Kind of disappointing. The book reads more like a encyclopedia entry than a book. The author fails to create a coherent narrative beyond Trump had a life before the presidency and his life experiences were relevant to how he governed. What a shocking conclusion. There are many better options covering this subject.

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Not Exactly Ground Breaking

Revisado: 09-22-21

It feels like this book was written to satisfy a contractual obligation not because it really has anything new or important to say. The meaningful new information in this book has already been revealed in detail in the media, and the remainder of the book is a somewhat discombobulated telling of the same information that has already been put on the record in previously released books like I Alone Can Fix It; Landslide; Frankly, We Did Win this Election; Battle for the Soul; Nightmare Scenario; and Plague Year. If you have not read the other recent books covering this period, Peril is an okay read, but if you are looking for a more in depth review of the events during this period of time, I would recommend going with one of the other previously mentioned options.

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esto le resultó útil a 84 personas

Random Facts in Need of a Coherent Thesis

Revisado: 03-27-21

I wanted to like this book; I really did. However, it is such a mess that it is impossible to like. Ms. De Changy does not develop a coherent narrative and large parts of her argument are internally inconsistent. For example, the author spends a significant amount of time detailing the incompetence and corruption of the Malaysian government. However, when it suits the author's desired narrative the Malaysian government suddenly becomes incredibly sophisticated and capable of organizing an international conspiracy and coverup. Which one is it? Additionally, a number of Ms. De Changy's arguments simply do not hold up. For example, at one point, Ms. De Changy spends significant time detailing the serial numbers used by Boeing down to the serial numbers on bolts used by the manufacturer. However, after going through all this excruciating detail about Boeing, inexplicably the author uses information about Boeing's serial numbers to try and make a point about the Rolls-Royce engines on the plane. Either Ms. De Changy fails to grasp that the engines made by Rolls-Royce are manufactured by Rolls-Royce and mated to the Boeing airframe, which calls into question the level of expertise of the author, or Ms. De Changy was knowingly making a misleading argument. However, the most frustrating part of this book is the author's obliviousness to the fact she frequently engages in the same shoddy investigatory work she claims to be so frustrated by in the book. For example, in attacking the official narrative that certain debris found after the crash came from MH370, Ms. De Changy's argument boils down to well other planes have crashed in that part of the ocean so maybe such debris came from one of those planes. The obvious flaw in this argument is that large planes like MH370 are not commonly misplaced by their owners. As such, it should be fairly easy to determine if another Boeing 777-200ER had crashed in the Indian Ocean, but Ms. De Changy does not point to the crash of another Boeing 777; instead she points to crashes of other jets in the region (which is another example of Ms. De Changy's inconsistent narrative which relies on the fact that virtually every part of a jet has a unique serial number to that jet and to its model when it furthers her narrative but disregarding this fact when it helps her narrative). Further, this specific argument is made even more ridiculous by the fact that Ms. De Changy had moments before argued that the absence of barnacles on the debris made it impossible it could be from MH370 due to the time elapsed between its discovery and the crash. If as Ms. De Changy argues that it is virtually impossible for debris exposed to the ocean for as long as the MH370 debris would have been at the time of its discovery not to have barnacles and other indicia of exposure to the ocean, it is a complete non-sequitur to argue that debris that was in the water for an even longer time would not have barnacles and other indicia of exposure to the ocean. How this work got through the editing process with so many issues is beyond me. If you are interested in MH370, you will probably find some of the information in this book interesting; otherwise, I would recommend looking for another book.

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esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

Okay but narrator is not the best

Revisado: 03-01-19

Not my favorite James Grippando but it was interesting enough. My primary issue was with the narrator. He has odd pronunciations of a few words, including “grimace” which was used an inordinate number of times in this book. It was like nails on a chalkboard every time he said the word.

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Okay but not the best in the series

Revisado: 02-14-19

While perfectly enjoyable, I found this book less engaging than prior Alex Delaware novels. It is certainly enjoyable and worth the listen, but there are other better Alex Delaware titles to start with if you are not familiar with the series.

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Not missing chapters just horribly disjointed

Revisado: 11-15-17

As someone who has exhausted the available titles in the Jack Reacher, Mitch Rapp, Scot Harvath and Jack Ryan (both Sr. and Jr.) universe, Kolt Raynor was a welcome new character to me in my favorite genre. That is, until I got to Full Assault Mode. First, the book is horribly disjointed. There are multiple points where it seems like entire chapters were simply omitted. Having had the joy of getting corrupted Audible files before which did not play sequentially, I hoped that was the case here; however, sadly, it is not. Dalton Fury apparently decided that writing certain chapters was not necessary and elected to jump ahead to the next part of the plot without writing the relevant parts of the story. This leaves a number of gaps in the story that while not insurmountable to bridge with your imagination are well beyond what most people would consider an acceptable time shift in a novel. Second, in the prior books, I have enjoyed the description of Kolt's accoutrement, but in Full Assault Mode it feels like Dalton Fury was under the impression that he was writing a script for a segment on QVC selling tactical equipment not fleshing out his character. Overall, Full Assault Mode is still an interesting listen with a good but not great story, but the execution on this one was not what readers of Dalton Fury's first three books (including, Kill Bin Laden) have come to expect from Mr. Fury.

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esto le resultó útil a 2 personas