LISTENER

Anonymous

  • 28
  • reviews
  • 153
  • helpful votes
  • 130
  • ratings

A fresh take brought down by hacky self-promotion

Overall
4 out of 5 stars
Performance
4 out of 5 stars
Story
4 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 12-09-23

The book's approach to lambasting conventional, generic marketing and social media content is refreshing and valuable. However, the constant self-promotion and self-references significantly detract from the educational content. By the time you get halfway through the book, you will be sick and tired of hearing about "category pirates" and what "pirate Christopher" has accomplished in his life. We get it. You want to invent new languaging and hope it catches on, just like what you talk about in your book. I don't see it happening in this case though, guys.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

The same as all other books on this subject.

Overall
2 out of 5 stars
Performance
5 out of 5 stars
Story
1 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 07-14-23

If the core of your message can be reduced to "Just start doing things until you find something that works, and then keep doing more of and iterating on that thing," you don't need to write a book about it. Like every other book on building a social media following, nowhere does this one actually explain how you figure out what kind of content to make that will be successful because the author does not know. Like every other guru, he threw a bunch of stuff at a wall, got lucky, and built a strategy around what worked for him. This is not expertise; this is survivor bias.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Great resource

Overall
5 out of 5 stars
Performance
5 out of 5 stars
Story
5 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 07-17-22

I've always felt that a good memory was cornerstone to knowledge. Dr. Patten has just confirmed my thinking. His research and years in the field of "The Mind" have yielded him a great understanding as to just how the mind works. He gives countless examples of when an activity is conducted and the brain is scanned before and after such activity (the practicing at a piano for instance) that the brain "rearrange and grown" its syntactical abilities during the playing, and will maintain this increased syntactical activity up to 10 days later even without further playing of the instrument. Astounding. It boils down to use! If the mind is used in an artful, productive manner, it will therefrom benefit from such activity, "growing" itself by means of increased syntactical production. The mind is a muscle; exercise it! The author's phrase "Making Mental Might" is the perfect description for all the exercises he prescribes throughout his book. Granted, the individual who can benefit most from the author's work are those trying to stave off Alzheimer's or perhaps even some traumatic brain injury. I doubt they are looking to increase their feigned intelligence 10 fold, but are rather attempting to hang onto what they already have. The points elaborated upon within the pages of this book are all quite interesting, and in considering them, individually, perhaps even debating them with a friend or family member, will undoubtedly (according to the author) help you to improve your memory. Any mental activity will help with such, but it is the intricate, mind bending, creative and thorough learning activities one may undergo that will help most in one's quest for Making Mental Might. Give this one a read and perhaps you too will emerge at the conclusion of the read with a better memory--or at least grasping the concept as to how wo achieve such.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Required reading about the science and narrative

Overall
5 out of 5 stars
Performance
5 out of 5 stars
Story
5 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 12-10-21

This book is a thoroughly researched guide and inquiry into the science behind and mainstream narrative of climate change and global warming. This is required reading for skeptics and believers alike.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Title is misleading

Overall
3 out of 5 stars
Performance
3 out of 5 stars
Story
3 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 11-03-21

This book should be called Why Cunnilingus Is the Best Way to Make a Woman Cum. I bought it expecting a more rigorous and detailed examination of all areas of sexual interplay and their effect upon the female body and psyche. I was a bit jarred when from the foreword onward, it became clear this was a book almost entirely devoted to performing oral sex on women. I understand that that's the author's informed opinion about the most important part of the sex act for him (or perhaps just his personal preference), but not what I was expecting from a thinking man's guide to pleasuring a woman.

So, are women who don't particularly prefer receiving oral sex supposed to be left out to dry? No pleasure for you? And the same if you're a man who doesn't tend to express his intimacy that way? I guess your partners will be forever unfulfilled with your dick and digits?

However, the information contained about oral sex was quite thorough. If that's the kind of guide you are looking for, have at it. Although, a lot of the fluffy and new-agey wording could have been left out of this "thinking" man's guide.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

A great overview of real heroism

Overall
5 out of 5 stars
Performance
5 out of 5 stars
Story
5 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 10-28-21

As this book correctly identifies, real heroism is about remaining true to one's absolute ethical values in the face of opposition from the environment.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

It's as bad as they say it is

Overall
1 out of 5 stars
Performance
4 out of 5 stars
Story
1 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 10-22-21

I went into the Communist Manifesto with an open mind about what I would find inside. Perhaps, I thought, Marx preached some pretty reasonable things that have just been blown up, misinterpreted, and misapplied in violent, counter-productive, and destructive ways that he would never have endorsed. Maybe the dogma of communism really amounts to something simple and attractive like "share with your neighbors and take care of each other with your own property."

I am very disappointed to finally be able to confirm that this is not what Marx preached. It is clear from his own words (and the additional supplemental writings in this publication) that the philosophy of communism can really be summarized as the violent seizure of tools and other property from the producers and employers of the world to be handed over to a violent State monopoly in the hopes that they will, somehow, be more "fair" and "just".

Even if the reader can get behind that immoral idea, at no point that I noticed did Marx actually outline the means by which the proletariat would be able to ensure that an arbitrarily determined group of governors would treat them any better than the "exploitative" bourgeoisie that they hate so much. When such people look at massive evil and failed institutions like the Soviet Union that enslaved and murdered thousands of their own citizens for failing to fit neatly in the prescribed economic model, presumably they claim the only flaw in the system was that the State did not function the way it was supposed to. It was not benevolent. Never do they explain how one can actually and maintain a benevolent entity whose role it is to violently enforce their economic preferences on individuals, though.

The fact that this writing is not talked about in the same vein as Hitler's Mein Kampf is mind boggling. The narration was decent though.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

9 people found this helpful

Presents conjecture and bias as science

Overall
4 out of 5 stars
Performance
4 out of 5 stars
Story
4 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 09-16-21

I had a great time listening to this audiobook and found many of the pieces of lifestyle advice offered insightful, so long as they were backed by science and observation. This applies to about 80% of the book.

But mixed in with the reasonable conclusions were instances of pure conjecture utterly disconnected from science and reason. The author's biases, unfortunately, show up and are presented in the same light as actual science and the conclusions reasonably following from it. But because they are presented with such confidence and matter-of-factness, readers who aren't paying attention and specifically looking for them might mistake unsubstantiated opinion inserts for science, which makes parts of this book fall into the category of scientism, which is ironic since scientism is specifically called out in the text.

At one point, the author postulates that justice and freedom are on a sliding scale that cannot coexist in their ideal form, and thus her particular favored brand of legal regulations must be enforced. How does she reach this conclusion? Can she even define what she means by operative terms like "justice" and "freedom"? She presents these arguments alongside real, credible, substantiated ones like that its perfectly healthy for us to eat cooked food because we've been doind so for more than a million years. She can certainly define the biological and anthropological terms she uses when making conclusions in those domains, so at what point does the book transition into a soap box for her personal views? And how is any of this related to a hunter-gatherer view of life?

Anyway, I still learned a lot from the book, so I recommend it. But the reader must tread carefully with a critical eye (or ear) out and not take everything in at face value.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

106 people found this helpful

Great resource

Overall
5 out of 5 stars
Performance
5 out of 5 stars
Story
5 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 08-10-21

In my experience, there are two types of books written on subjects related to the criminal justice system or process of criminal defense in America, and they seem to suffer from opposite problems. Either they are very esoteric and high-minded because their target is people in the legal or bail profession or too simple for people to get real practical advice. This one is exactly what it should be and highly valuable.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Goes against the grain

Overall
5 out of 5 stars
Performance
5 out of 5 stars
Story
5 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 09-11-19

Becoming a life coach is better than the deluge of other introductory books on the topic of life coaching in the modern world because it is grounded in a variety real experiences from real coaches. Each one has their own take on this strange and fast evolving profession, and many of them are counter to what you might expect life for a life coach to be like. I hope reading this book gives aspiring and current life coaches the confidence to pursue coaching in the way that is best suited to their personality, gifts, and values.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!