Kyle Michel

Such a great book!

Reviewed: 06-03-24

For anyone who grew up in the 60s or 70s and loves music. For anyone who love the Boss. For anyone who wants to read an incredible perspective on popular American culture over the past 60 years and, of course, for anyone who just loves Little Stevie - this is a great book. You will not be disappointed. If the book itself weren’t enough - and trust me, it is - Little Stevie’s narration is quite possibly the best of any of the 40-50 books I’ve listened to. He is such an authentic guy. The true Jersey guy with all the salty, funny, gritty, real color commentary on the world around him in his original Jersey accent. Very very enjoyable.

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This is a dumb book

Reviewed: 12-15-23

The author should have written a philosophy book. Instead, she creates monolithic, not believable characters and makes them do not believable things to try to lay out a social philosophy and make some overarching statement on society that I’m sure was more relevant 100 years ago than today. In the world I walk in, the world doesn’t “hate” people for being non-conformist. The characters are super-serious, overly dramatic, and just bizarre (Dominick gets off on staring at buildings? Really? And to show her love for Howard, she tries to destroy him. Nice!). The obvious black-hat characters are so overdone, dripping with negative attributes. Then when the white-hat guy comes on the scene, just being in his presence is life-changing, glorious, shape-shifting - and this is a guy who humorless, without empathy, inflexible, barely conversational, alas our “hero”! I mean, C’mon! Serious dummy-dumb stuff here. These are the words that kept coming to my mind throughout this book - contrived, insipid, cheesy, sophomoric, banal, dramatic, platitudinous, schmaltzy, campy, hokey, eye roll, goofy - you get the picture. The reader isn’t terrible, but at times reads through more serious passages like a 70s a.m. disc jockey. His 1990s performance should be updated by some of the narrators of the 2020s that are so much better. I had such high expectations for my first Ayn Rand book. Hard to imagine I’ll read any more.

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Just not a good writer - unless the goal is to confuse your reader

Reviewed: 09-13-23

The guy has a good story to tell, but he jumbles it and confuses it and jumps from time to time and speaker to speaker so much so that it is incredibly difficult to follow. It’s almost like he is taunting his reader. A truly good writer writes clearly and walks her reader through the story with respect. This is just not good writing IMHO.

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Not what I was hoping for.

Reviewed: 08-30-22

This book was a disappointment. I was hoping for a bio on George Gershwin that explicated the person and placed him in the context of his times. That book would relate to the reader his personality and his relationships with others around him. It would talk about Gershwin’s artistic work and how his art innovated on others’ before him and how it affected what came after him. It would talk about how he was perceived by the general public compared to how the general public was perceiving other artists at the time and how the general public was accepting/reacting to the same and other musical styles. It would leave the reader feeling like they they had a good sense of what it was like to know George Gershwin if you had lived in his times and followed his career.

The reader gets a little bit of that, and can kinda intuit some of that. But, this book leaves the reader feeling more like they would had they sat in a library and read old newspaper and magazine articles about Gershwin and his musicals and performances.

The author spends way way too much time detailing the plot of every. single. musical Gershwin wrote - even the ones that were commercial flops. These are drawn out mechanical descriptions of the characters and the scenes and storylines of every one. The detail is too much to follow probably because this just isn’t what I, as the reader, was looking for. I wanted to know about Gershwin, not read cliff notes on all his plays and musicals.

When the author does talk about his life, we get some feel for who he was, but a lot of what we get is detail on contracts, where he went when, and performance dates (including one inexcusable section where the author just lists ad nauseum something like 30-40 dates and venues on some tour Gershwin did). Again, mechanical recapitulations of objective facts that don’t really give the reader a feel for the person who was George Gershwin.

This book may be what others are looking for, especially if they are interested in brief (somewhat) summaries of all his different musicals, musical pieces, and Porgy and Bess (an hour-plus walk-thru scene by scene - whew!). That just isn’t what I was hoping for.

Finally, the narrator is competent, but has a somewhat droning, slow-talking sorta 1970s newscaster throwback style that does not help liven the authors’ somewhat lifeless content.

I’ve never given a book fewer than 4 stars. I was just disappointed with this book and it didn’t get better as the book went on.

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1 person found this helpful

Highly recommended, enjoyable book

Reviewed: 08-31-21

Five stars. This is a very interesting walk through the lives of nine US Presidents through the lens of their relationships with their best friends. The idea is intriguing from the start. But, I was a little concerned that the product might be disjointed from varying levels of information available on each “friend,” or that it might be a little fawning in its treatment of the friendships. My concerns were unwarranted. The book is well-sourced with ample material on each friend and how they interacted with the President prior to, during, and after the Presidency. The friendships are treated honestly and in a straightforward fashion with the author noting the extraordinary qualities of some aspects of the friendships, but he avoids the temptation to overstate the impact or import of the friendships on the Presidency. The book is also well-structured, with each of the nine friendships presented in a manner that gives biographical sketches of each President and each friend. The author also tells the reader the historical context of each Presidency, providing nine succinct history lessons on each Presidency and the context of the times in which they held office. The author follows each President and friend all the way through their lives, letting us know how the friendships played out in their years after leaving office. Finally, the narrator is not the author, which I typically do not like. But, this narrator is above average with a nice treatment of the material, in contrast to some 3rd party narrators who sound like game show announcers making a little money on the side. Highly recommended for an enjoyable jaunt through American history from a very interesting perspective. Well done!

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6 people found this helpful

Enjoyable book looking back over the last 30 years of politics

Reviewed: 06-19-21

My friends on the far right never liked Boehner because they say he compromised too much. My friends on the left just don’t like Republicans. As a centrist and pragmatist, I always liked the guy. This book reaffirms and puts a few exclamation points on that affection. Boehner is a straight shooter who calls ‘em like he sees ‘em, but understands a leader has to lead and get things done. A very enjoyable read/listen.

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Great History Lesson

Reviewed: 08-08-19

I live in South Carolina and this is a great history lesson for anyone in SC, but it is also a great story with national importance for anyone interested in the civil rights movement in America.

I wish Judge Gergel had read the book. The narrator’s voice was not quite the right fit for this book.

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Just what I needed

Reviewed: 05-28-19

This book gave a concise overview of bonds and bond investing and answered the questions I had about how bonds work - price, yield, coupon, why bond values and interest rates vary inversely, the yield curve, etc. Highly recommended if you need a good primer on bond investing.

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