Roman

I find this book extremely useful. I prefer books that are scientifically strict and contain no pseudo-motivational bullshit. This book is a great example of how good material makes a great motivation itself.

I have no professional knowledge in medicine, yet still somehow the examples, terms and facts in the book are so really interesting. Yes, the author uses complicated terms quite often, but he really repeats them over and over and always explains briefly what they mean. If you're interested in a particular term, you can always google it and find out some more on the subject. But the book presents a great deal of fresh information, exciting studies and some personal stories. It covers aspects of exercising for different stages of life and genders. By reading it, you will not only understand how to take care of yourself, but how and why you should motivate other people to do exercises.

I'm a programmer and an entrepreneur and I really enjoy learning all the time and getting more knowledge. As well as I enjoy staying fit. But until I read this book, I couldn't mentally connect these two things. I've been lifting weights and doing my cardio for over 4 years now and I've always noticed how they make me feel better, but I didn't know why. And, sometimes the motivation for the workouts slipped away because I couldn't see the measurable results. Now, thanks to the book, I have another source of motivation, which is supported by hundreds of scientific studies and facts.

I fairly don't understand people who complain this book is biased. So what? The bias is easily distinguishable and it doesn't compromise the facts presented in the book. You don't need to convert yourself in to a free market economist to learn a bit of the history. At worst, you would know one biased point and it'd give you an even better perspective while reading a different point of view on the same economists or events.

As the author noted, it is important to try to avoid discrediting all of the person's work just because his or her major theory was proven or considered false (he was talking about Marx, btw). Thus if you disagree with the author on some major grounds, I think it's always a good exercise to try to find things that you agree with and can make use of.

Good book, great narration. Giving four stars because the story may have been a bit monotonous at times.

This book is a truly deep and interesting research, observation of patterns and analysis of races and cultures. If you ever wanted to understand why certain nations, races and cultures are/were more successful than others in certain periods of human history (or at least, get closer to understanding, because even the author says many things are yet to be explained) - buy this book. If you're genuinely interested in history of human development as a civilization and different subtle patterns of interactions between different cultures and races - buy this book.

You will not only get some of the desired answers to those questions, you will also be presented with various fascinating examples from the history of different cultures and will learn a great deal of facts you may not have known. For example, a chapter on slavery is one of the most interesting ones in the book, as it portrays this institution in great detail pointing out not only the slavery in the western world, but in the rest of the world as well, describing various customs and peculiarities of slavery in different cultures. Turns out, Arab world imported a number of times more slaves from Africa than the US did during the same period of time, but because western world was much more concerned with slavery very little data and literature exists about slavery in the Arab world.

To sum it up: great book, very interesting story telling with lots of facts, superb narration.

First of all, go read all the gorgeous reviews on amazon for the printed version. It's a very popular book. In short, it goes into describing toxic people, their strategies for manipulating others and the weaknesses they exploit. And it offers strategies for dealing with them.

The reason I think this book is a must read is because we come across these toxic personalities more often than we think we do. They can really destroy your life in a very subtle way, so that you would barely feel this. The book offers an essential knowledge that any good person needs in order to survive.

I expected this book to be less scientific and less valuable than it turned out to be. Not one of those stupid motivational books, but rather a good theory source with real-life cases as illustrations.

Some of the chapters move you away from the major subject while trying to prove a point, and discuss things like, for example, delaying gratification studies or skills acquisition processes. These topics, however, are presented in a great scientific manner (well, maybe not a scientific, but at least authors are not bullshitting with you and consider you to be smart) and are supplied with data and good examples, so it's a pleasure to read (listen to) them.

I also think this book is a must-read for entrepreneurs, as they are the ones, who must influence people all the time and be good at it. And while they usually learn to do so by practicing, this book might provide a great deal of theory to start with.