David T.

Good book

Reviewed: 10-05-20

This is a good non partisan book about how we've become so partisan (mostly from having only two political parties) and strategies to fix it. While I really enjoyed it and think everyone should read it, I'm disappointed that the audio book doesn't include a PDF with the described diagrams. Several times the auto book asks the reader to refer to figure X but of course you can't. The book does read off parts of the diagram so you know what it is, but this should be included. I hope future publishers will realize that we buy the audio book and don't want to have to buy the physical copy to see the diagrams.

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6 people found this helpful

Ruined by narration

Reviewed: 05-07-19

This is the first time I've attempted to read Augustine.

I absolutely hated this audio book, the prose seemed way too archaic and I was extremely bored throughout it. After about two hours I gave up thinking life's too short to continue with this. At first I blamed the translation, but eventually I got the Simon Vance version and wanted to give it a second chance. With the Simon Vance narration, the book seemed lively and wonderful. I came back and relistened to parts of this one and discovered that they appear to be the same translation, how could it have been so tedious before and wonderful this time?

The problem is the narrator, he reads with a weird cadence, almost like this is a prose poem (which it isn't) and he has weird breaks in the lines (frequently mid line), it's almost like he's reading one line at a time from a sheet and breaks before the next like regardless of the actual punctuation. The constant rhythmic reading almost lulls me to sleep. It makes the already archaic prose seem even more ancient. In the end, this is just a bad reading (for me at least).

Glad I gave this a second chance with the Simon Vance version, I'm about 1/2 done and loving it this time. Make sure you listen to the full 5 minute sample before buying this version, the reading isn't obvious at first but give it time.

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3 people found this helpful

Good as always.

Reviewed: 04-10-19

I've been a Robert Caro fan for a while, The Power Broker was one of the first books I bought when I joined Audible in 2012 and I'd list his LBJ series as my all time favorite book (when taken as a whole). While this book isn't the final LBJ book that I've been waiting for, I decided to buy it to support an author that has given me so much enjoyment.

The book itself is enjoyable, it's full of anecdotes of his time researching his books and my rating reflects that. A little over 1/2 of the book is actually articles released in magazines like the New Yorker collected here, the rest is apparently semi new (but not entirely).

The biggest negative though is that the Audible original On Power that was released a couple of years ago is basically large sections from this longer work condensed down, and there were several parts that I thought were better done in abbreviated form On Power. Having previously listened to On Power I knew many of the stories and often the sections in this book were word for word duplicates of On Power. There are some interesting new sections, but for anyone who's listened to On Power this will be very repetitive. I'd almost think of this as an uncut extended version of On Power more than an unique work.

I'm happy to support Caro, but just like the disappointment with the Audible Original of Micheal Lewis's The Coming Storm which was really just the last part of the The Fifth Risk, Audible needs to do something about releasing sections of a book as an Original and then charging us twice for basically the same work (in each case the longer more complete work was released a little while after the Audible "Original"). If you haven't bought On Power skip that and just get this work, 90+% of that original is contained in this work.

Glad to have more Caro, just wish it was more unique.

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34 people found this helpful

Excellent, probably my favorite evolution book

Reviewed: 08-06-18

This book so far is my favorite from Dawkins. His tone is far less assertive and arrogant than his later books, he'll often times admit when something is just his idea and that it very well could be wrong. In this one he's trying to bring more attention to the selfish gene theory, he takes a more cautious approach and tries to convince the reader this is correct and not so much that anyone who disagrees with him needs to be conquered. Also until the end his usual religious rants are completely absent and even then its only a few brief pages (I don't mind this but I know they'll completely turn off some readers).

This book helped to popularize the gene theory and introduced the concept of the meme and regardless of anyone's views of the two ideas, Dawkins influence from this book is enough to at least be a little respected. For me personally, I do think the selfish gene theory is plausible and Dawkins does present a good case, although I don't know near enough to actually have a valid opinion. In the end I really wish Dawkins would have stayed more like this, he seems to ramble more in later books and is more concerned with eradicating the world of creationists and theists than writing books for people who accept evolution and want to learn more about it. I have high hopes that The Extended Phenotype is more of the same (even if the reviews I've read seem to indicate that it will be over my head).

As for the narration, it's excellent. It's co-narrated by Dawkins and Lalla Ward and if you've listened to any of the other many books they've narrated together you'll know they always do a good job (I especially loved how the end notes where included near the text that they are related to, I wish all audio books did this). I loved this book and I'm really just hoping now Audible will get an unabridged edition of the Ancestors Tale soon.

Highly recommended.

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Sagan's lectures about the possibility of God

Reviewed: 11-13-17

This audio book is mostly a transcript of Sagan's Gifford lectures from 1985, where Sagan discusses his views on the question of if there is a deity. According to Druyan (from the appendix), she felt the need to publish these now with the growing “extreme fundamentalism violence” and when the United States is in a state of “phony piety”. I partly assume this book was published a few years ago to cash in on the new Cosmos series and the then huge popularity of the new atheist literature. Compared to the modern new atheist movement, this book is far less of an anti-religious polemic but more of a discussion about why when Sagan looks up at night he doesn't see the work of a interventionist deity. (For this reason, I think the book might be a better introduction to some reasons why there might not be a god, than something like End of Faith).

As for the book itself, a major reason Sagan doesn't believe in a god is because of the vastness of space. I can see his point, take a minute watch a youtube video or get a book such as Sizing up the Universe which shows the sizes of the planets relative to the sun and the sun relative to some of the large stars. The earth is just a minor spec in our solar system and our solar system is just a spec in our galaxy and our galaxy is just one of hundreds of billions of galaxies. It definitely puts things into a different perspective, it could cause a loss of faith. If everything was created by a deity and humans were the culmination of creation, then everything else sure seems like a waste. Of course to a theist this could have the opposite effect and confirm how magnificent god is, it all depends on your mindset.

The book is far more than just this one argument though and I don't want to list them all out now. I enjoyed it a bunch, I really liked the Q&A where Sagan was questioned by theists and while disagreeing with them, he seemed to at least respect their opinion and give real answers. This is the least offensive agnostic/atheist book I've read. As for the arguments and book itself, I previously read Pale Blue Dot which contained many of the same arguments (although not as focused), and really if you've read then many parts of this are redundant.

The narration is like the other Sagan books on Audible, it's not world class but average and get's the job done.

Also I wrote this during 20 anniversary stuff so:

Audible 20 Review Sweepstakes Entry

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12 people found this helpful

Good enough for what it is

Reviewed: 10-24-17

The title of this book is misleading, it's a general history of the time period instead of one just about capitalism. This book was originally supposed to be released as part of the Oxford History of the United States but ultimately was released through a different publisher and instead the Oxford series released The Republic for Which It Stands a few years later. This book has it's flaws and really isn't up to the standards for the Oxford series, but I'm glad I bought it and it makes a decent substitute until Audible finally gets The Republic for Which It Stands.

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Great book

Reviewed: 06-12-17

For the first few hours I found the narrator distracting, he is a little too upbeat and over dramatic, but by 5 hours in I started to enjoy his narration.

The book itself is great, it makes me want to go back and rewatch the series.

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One of my favorite books

Reviewed: 06-05-17

Any additional comments?

I have a long history with this book. It was probably the first non fiction book I bought (15+ years ago, back during the original picture filled printing). It was after reading this book that I moved away from an adherence to a fundamentalist version of Christianity. This book was partly responsible for my passion for astronomy. This might also be my all time favorite book. So when I saw this was being released on audiobook, it was a day one purchase.

As for the audio you only get Sagan’s voice for only the first 4 chapters (about 2.5-3 hours) and then the next 10+ hours is the Druyan new recording. Druyan does a good job, but I really wish they could have used more of Sagan. There was an unabridged Pale Blue Dot recording where Sagan did the first 4 chapters, all chapter introductions, occasional sections of other chapters and most (if not all of) the final chapters. I really wish they were able to use those parts, but apparently the masters degraded too much to be used (honestly I would have been happy had they just used a cassette copy if it meant more Sagan).

As for the book itself, the books spends time talking about (1) astronomy, its history, the planets and the voyager probes, (2) philosophy, religion, climate change and mankind, and (3) the future of space exploration.

The astronomy part was very informative and well done, but by now it’s getting a little dated. He also talks a bunch about future NASA missions, many of which are taking place now (such as new horizons). Much of the information is still relevant and very interesting, such as how they discovered the conditions on Venus and how different it was from previous expectations, or the various history lessons such as how we got from the geocentric mindset to realizing just how vast the cosmos is. The parts of the future of space exploration were a little speculative but fun and entertaining.

The religious / philosophical parts are probably where some could find this book offensive (these are also the only parts narrated by Sagan), unlike some other atheist/agnostic authors, he doesn't just attack religion, but from his perspective the huge vastness of space makes it very hard for him to believe that there is a deity which is concerned with an individual species (or a religious subset of that species). He has some pretty great parts about how rare life is in our solar system, so far it's only been confirmed on one planet, and so we should cherish, accept one another and take care of the planet. These are also the first 4 chapters and could be skipped (although I think they should be listened to at least once).

Overall I'm glad that I listened to this book again; it's as great as I remembered.

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3 people found this helpful

Excellent book from a young Darwin

Reviewed: 05-17-13

Have you listened to any of Richard Dawkins’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Dawkin's is one of the best audio book readers out there and his British ascent works perfectly with both Darwin books.

Any additional comments?

This concise book is easier to read than the full version and Dawkin's does an excellent job reading it.

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1 person found this helpful

Decent

Reviewed: 05-17-13

Any additional comments?

Harris is a decent reader. This book explores free will, but honestly is too simplistic and short to really be worth anything more than a dollar or two.

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