david

I, as a skeptic, freethinking, being have to lend credence to many publications before reading, otherwise my views on reality and audible books would be...um...not as balanced and fair as I have tried to be as a member here. I gave this a chance, and found it ridiculously misleading. The book is completely built on strawman arguments. It will use real evidence from studies to lead you down a path that is not causally connected to the evidence, but easily misinterpreted as evidence for what he wants you to believe(or that he believes...though I doubt it.) This is a book designed by Wilcock to, what I believe, purposefully play on the gullibility of humanity for him to earn a pretty penny. This is an abomination if that was his intentions. I hate to give this book such high performance and story scores, but the narrator did a great job. The story was told in a way easily misunderstood as truth. Don't buy this without first listening to Nonsense on Stilts or Bad Astronomy(other much more informative publications available here on audible.com). That is the best advice I can give. Enjoy if you dare go down this ridiculous path.

Dunbar shares a great deal of interesting study results with us, all of which as far as I remember have been reference in other books on this site. He does weave them all into his own postulations about love and betrayal, but I find the study results here more interesting than his interpretations.

The narrator with his accent was slightly annoying. At times he didn't seem to know where the mood of the paragraph was going, and came off as awkwardly inflected. It could be that I, after writing enough reviews here, am becoming overly critical(Na, he wasn't great).

The analogs between human behaviors, and with animals are fun! Although I am not rating this very high, I can't say that it isn't worth a credit. There is plenty to be learned from this book, however will leave you hopefully believing that there are plenty other educational books that are in my opinion more valuable here on Audible.com.

This was an inspiring listen about phi a name for the golden ratio; I found myself looking up more in-depth information on the web relating to some of the places where phi reveals itself. I haven't thought until now, to look up whether they have a phi day or not, but if not there certainly should be. There isn't much to say here that wouldn't just be spoiling the revelations in this book, other than it was organized well; mostly in chronological order, starting with many of the places speculated to have phi engineered into it, then explaining why many are spurious speculations. All famous mathematicians and other people mentioned are followed by the date of their birth and death. That was an enjoyable tidbit.

About the narrator, I was pretty content with his performance. The few pronunciation errors that were made that I know of are common in other physics books here at audible.com as well. I have now only really fault the reader if it is just annoyingly read, and this was not one of those narrators.

This was an all-around entertaining book. I don't expect more than this when I make purchases here. Not the best, but certainly worth a credit, and the time invested in listening to it. There is no reason not to follow up one of the books here on pi, with this one about the golden ratio.

I don't normally listen to or read fiction, but when I do I either get lucky picking the books, or just don't realize how entertaining it can actually be. This was fantastic! I enjoyed the characters, the discriptiveness of her sentencing, and the drama. Oh and the taboo also added to the appeal...whooa!

The narrator was the best. She had different voicing for different characters, and seemed to express the intonations assocciated with the emotions being expressed in each of the quotes. I often wonder if the readers read each paragraph before recording to master the emotions, or just get lucky with a once through reading prior to recording. Either way this woman did a phenomenal job in my oppinion(if this comes off niave it is only because I don't have a large collection of fiction in my bag).

I have to give this 2 thumbs up, and guess that all will be quite satisfied with this purchace, or at least not feel cheated with the expenditure of a credit. Enjoy all!

The amount of knowledge that can be gained from this book is extraordinary! I thought it was such a fun read, even if I didn't imbibe one mixed drink throughout the entire program. Even beer drinkers like myself can gain fun info about the making of, and some history of the processes that culminate with the delicious beverages that craft brewers make today!

This book is not just for the college student that drinks and happens to be studying botany(or related fields), but for anyone that is curious about plants that just so happen to be made into alcoholic beverages. I was skeptical as to the level of enjoyment I could obtain from this subject matter, however with Amy Steward's fun, and sometimes sarcastic writing style I truly found myself interested in a new field of science!

If you are just a drunk looking for recipes they are in here. If you never touched a drink in your life this is going to be exciting as well, as you will read of many famous consumers/creators that you may or may not be aware of and their escapades. If you are uninterested in consuming, you can still learn much from a botanical angle on many of the ingredients that go into a large chunk of the economic machine that turns the world.

This has been one of the better finds on this site. I can't see anyone really being disappointed with this purchase. Enjoy!

The reading, and now the listening of this most grandiloquent piece of literary perfection brings me to a level of ebullience that Elisabeth Browning must have been feeling when she wrote How Do I Love Thee? This is the only book I have ever read that captures the ache, nay malaise that is caused by loving someone with a deepness expressed with all parts of one's soul and being, without the reciprocation by the one loved. This book accomplishes this feat with such belletristic guile, it leaves those who have had the pleasure of completing this book dumbfounded upon acknowledgement of this being Mr. Nabokov's second language! If the human heart was a combustion engine, this would be a fuel capable of running it through and on all cylinders. If H.H. can be considered the antagonist of this book, it leaves us feeling at least understanding of his situation, and at most and from a more demoniacal end of the spectrum, sympathetic. He has filled the book with foreshadowing that is really indecipherable until it is too late or upon rereading. It makes this a perfect book to read more than once. Anyone here on audible.com that hesitates to listen to this is making a grave mistake. This is quite possibly the best production on this website from a literary viewpoint. Have at it fellow audible fans!

This is very difficult to digest. I loved it, but must reread(listen). This is a fascinating book in at least the regard to helping one realize, after reading a handful of physics books written for laymen, that physics is not as easy as one may think. If you hang out in the Science and Physics portion of Audible you have to give this one a try. Enjoy!

I really love a book that can run me through my emotions. This book was able to play my heart strings, from the beginning to the end! The character Pi has been developed so well, you can not help but love him, and root for his safe rescue or return to safety. If you like books where you are wiping tears off your face so you can finish an intensely written page, you are gonna love this(I predict future classic) in audible form, as you don't have to dry your eyes to continue along the trail of magnificent literature. Don't you dare hesitate to buy this one!!

I like Nassim Nicholas Taleb's other books; Fooled By Randomness, was a stand alone masterpiece, tying mathematics and story masterfully together. The Black Swan does the same thing, and did it receiving even more accolade! This book gets its theory across clearly enough, but just seems to carry on too long in many areas. It just seems to be over-reaching. It may very well be reaching in the right direction, and toward a noble concept, it just wasn't a direction I was as enthralled with as other titles by Taleb. If you are a Taleb fan, you have to get it, but if you are just in search of something new in the realm of laymen literature on statistics and mathematics, I suggest you start with his other stuff first. Or even The Drunkard's Walk by Leonard Mlodinow. Anyway...it was well read and transitioned well from section to section.

This book is a self-help book, told through use of many famous and inspiring people's lives. Robert Greene shares some ideas for improving our disposition throughout the book, at times even suggesting we be deceptive to co-workers under particular circumstances. I found that tidbit of advice entertaining, if not mildly surprising. The biographical aspects were by far the most exciting for me. Greene was able to bring new life to the iconic persons in his book through bits of their lives, either unbeknownst to me, or shared from a fresh perspective.

As far as his advice, well I take it as mostly optimistic opinion. He bases his overlying theme of 'long intensive work equals positive results' on real and sound data, however some of the advice seems to be extemporaneous concepts contrived while he was conveying the dilemmas in his subjects lives. Don't get me wrong; good advice is good, whether fabricated off-the-cuff, or through years of mental labor. It just feels awkwardly and forcefully placed, when he puts his ideas in action, as a parallel to these great men and woman's responses to their struggles.

The narrator was absolutely fine. My idea of a perfect narrator, is one that I don't even regard; I am to engrossed in what I am hearing and interpreting to fathom. I would guess my concentration on the material was broken three times throughout the entire sixteen hours due to mispronunciations. That is by my standards awesome!

Now that I have the negative criticism out of the way, I would like to say that this is a great book. I found it reminiscent of Malcolm Gladwell's 2008 book, Outliers where he too, writes extensively on the ten thousand hour rule. I learned plenty for the money I spent on it, and who knows I might even decided to master something. Enjoy, this is a great bargain!

I may wax philosophically once in awhile, but by no means call myself a philosopher. After reading this; what I would describe as an introduction to the giants of philosophy, would be less than ever likely to compare even my most perpending thoughts to those of these great thinkers. Will Durant does a wonderful job at sharing the concepts of these pillars of philosophy, as well as expressing how their ideologies may have effected the societies and cultures of the relative time.
This is a book for people like me, who have heard the names, Friedrich Nietzsche, John Stewart Mill, or Francis Bacon, but understand them vicariously through brief mentionings and opinions of other authors(for me authors not even in this field). I began this book with ignorant curiosity, and finished with a love of the subject. There is so much information here, you must read it more than one time just to take away from it a basal construct of the philosophies tought within. I suggest bookmarking this cover to the hilt, because it reads like a reference book. More than worth the single credit! Have at it fellow Audible fans!