Stekke

Well... This was awful.

Who moved my cheese was one of the books that made me lose interest the minutes I opened it. It only holds a little amount of pages, but it reads like it was 1000 pages long and every page is the same.

The story addresses a group of friends who all have dealt with changes in their life. Imagine a stock picture of a bunch of random people in a coffee shop sitting together. One of them tells a little story about two mice and two mini humans, who all search for cheese. The cheese is moved and everyone acts different. The friends reflect the story on their lives.

The way the book is written makes you feel like it was written by a writer who was fired on several sitcoms and found a way to express his sadness through telling his sad story mixed with some leftovers from the sitcoms. The whole book feels like it was written on a pamphlet you could hand out when you fire somebody; ‘Your cheese has moved, please move along mice'. It even has no shame in addressing that fact. ‘Please buy this books to give it to your employees (you might fire hehe)'; Read between the lines at Page 1.

Let me say first and foremost I am not against people seeking help for changes. I mean, I read this book because of it. But this book is not going to help you one bit. It's just Kubler Ross' change curve personified in four characters, portrayed as a children's's tale written in font-size that will give you epilepsy.

The bottom line of the book is also very depressing and not something I can personally get behind. Here are some things I can get behind. Change is all around and will always occur and monitoring and predicting change may be hard but is worth the effort. Here is the bottom-line of the book, which I don't agree; “Change will happen, find a way with it or be left behind”. Which roughly translates in “Be one of the mice”.

Especially don't take your time to be sad, or have some doubts. You don't need doubts. True business players have no doubts. They never hesitate, let alone not take action on changes. Or if you lose somebody that was very close to you. Just be the action mice. “Get over it, you silly boy!”. Just don't have doubts, changes will always turn out right in the end and life is a maze one day you'll find cheese.

Most of those statements are dated philosophies in my opinion. There isn't a cheese for everybody. Moving on isn't always the easiest and best option and shouldn't be forced. Changes aren't always positive and shouldn't be chosen for you.

You should decide the tempo. Don't let anyone haste you into the process of mourning or choosing the right path. That's for you to find out. It's better to think about it and lose some time, than to take the path you don't want to or are forced upon.

I just picture some corporate leader firing his people, sending them a mail; “Don't worry this book will cheer you up! Change is great ! “, and getting a mail back “Instructions unclear, couldn't feed starving children with book.”. Or somebody who lost his partner to cancer. “Just move on to some other Cheese, society doesn't want you slacking around”.

And that's the bottom line. Society doesn't want you slacking around. It wants you up there, working, being a good model employee and participant. Not feeling or doubting. And if you should feel some aspect of doubt or loss, here is Kubler Ross' change curve portrayed by some mice. This will make you feel better.

This was one of the worst books I've ever read, and I don't advise anyone to read it.
I'm going to leave it at this. You've read enough of my review anyway. Now, stop feeling sorry, get back to work and stop wasting time on the internet. There is cheese waiting somewhere in the running wheel the'll portray as a maze full of opportunities.

Voorgesteld door Storytel, aangezien het bij de populairste boeken stond. Dan maar een kans gegeven. Mijn verwachtingen waren vrij laag, maar zelfs dat bleek nog genereus te zijn.

Het boek is eerder een persoonlijk dagboek waar af en toe eens verwezen wordt naar waarom je zou moeten stoppen met drinken. Er wordt te veel ingespeeld op de negatieve side-effects en het sociale verwachtingspatroon om te drinken. Er zijn geen guidelines, geen echt overtuigende argumenten en er wordt te weinig gekeken naar de motivatie. Standpunten worden zelden onderbouwd en alles komt voor uit “Ik voel...” vaststellingen. Wel wordt er lustig gepraat over voor de hand liggende persoonlijke ervaringen met opdringerige vrienden en hoe vreselijk dronkaards zijn als je zelf nuchter bent.

Men had het boek op zijn minst “Mijn leven sinds ik niet meer drink” kunnen noemen, dan wist de lezer bij aanvang al dat het een veredeld dagboek was en dat men voor een objectieve kijk een ander boek kon raadplegen. Het had mij alvast kunnen verhelpen een zes uur lange ingesproken “Stop Met Drinken”-editie van een roddelblad te beluisteren.

2,5

Enkele goede vragen om bij stil te staan, maar naar het einde toe toch te veel persoonlijke invulling, met te ongenuanceerde opvattingen over bepaalde topics naar mijn insteek.

Describes a lot of random stuff and scenery

Drops absolute amazing one liner

Continues describing random stuff and scenery

Veel van de gebeurtenissen in dit boek zijn zware, beklijvende ervaringen die traumatisch zijn voor de persoon die ze meemaakt. Het boek is echter geschreven alsof een tienermeisje het vertolkt in haar dagboek vanuit een warme veilige omgeving.

Dat is het grote probleem aan dit boek voor mij. Als men bij Hallmark iemand zoekt voor opschriften van kaarten te verzinnen, lijkt Ish mij de meest geschikte persoon. Dat de inhoud van dit boek niet al te realistisch is, dat wil ik in het midden laten, maar de manier waarop dit geschreven is ergerde me mateloos.

Al blijft het een kunst om zo een donkere topics zo luchtig te beschrijven en daarom las het boek wel vlot. Misschien wel te vlot, als een voorgekauwde speech waar men de essentie in moet zoeken. Echt oprecht komt het boek daardoor niet meer over, maar eerder als een parodie op een Hosseini. Achja, volgende keer beter Ish.

I read this book for a design class at college. The book is alright.
It explains a lot of the basics and it gives some good examples. It covers pretty much every thing you need to know in order to get your design basics right and it's written at a level everyone could understand.

The write up however, lacks a lot of punch and feels sloppy. The items and examples are connected in a way that makes the book a real drag to read. It's very objective and the level of the writing is at times childish. I feel like it could have been more interesting if other examples were used and the writing was more passionate.

The writer also uses way too much personal information. She constantly refers to her own writings and the Shakespeare scripts she has published (or tries to publish). I'm not a big fan of this, as it feels really like a marketing trick to include this in the book, and it doesn't add any value at all.

I'm so glad
I torrented milk and honey
And not bought it
With my own fucking money

Oh, well why
One may carefully ask me

It's because indenting sentences
Doesn't make it poetry.

Hyperfocus by Chris Bailey caught my attention because it spoke to me a student with ADHD. I now wish I left the book at the store. Let me tell you why...

The book is based on a bunch of researches. Most of them aren't explained properly and are just statistics out of context. The actual research is never explained and the headlines of the researches are used as anecdotes. The write up between them is horrible.

Bailey constantly showboats his ability to write a lot of words in small periods of time because of the use of his methods. I can't argue with this, because I don't know the speed at which the book was written.
But in my opinion, it's all about quality and not about quantity. And the book absolutely lacks it.

Chapters aren't exclusive and sentences are often repeated. Sometimes even whole parts and anecdotes are repeated. And even the repeated parts ain't worth repeating. Sentences aren't straight forward. Bailey turns simple tips into 4 page ones, without adding value.

When some tips offer real value and are good, they are lost in a sea of unnecessary cheap talk. Other tips are just plain stupid or don't apply to most of us. Tips like, ‘Hit the gym or the sleeping room at your work'. I don't see most companies offering a sleeping room in their building.
Tips like ‘Put your phone away and unplug your lan cable.' aren't that great working in sales or IT and tips about how meetings are setup and who should be present aren't applied to most of us, because guess what Mr Bailey... Most of us aren't writers and can't get these privileges but listen to their boss.

This is the real pain point of the book. The book is written from a bunch of random researches, patched together by some very personal perspectives. Everything is written from a single perspective. Its written by, and for, people like Bailey. And it seems Bailey loves to hear himself talking. Its all about how he likes a cup of coffee, how he loves this coffee place, his meditation and Ed Sheeran.

For me this book is a definite no go. I read it completely and at the end of the book it said “Invest your time wisely.” and I felt like I hadn't been doing the same. I wouldn't advise anyone to buy it and I wouldn't even advise you to torrent it. The actual value of this book was to me practically non existent. The few good tips in the book don't weigh up against the nonsense the book is patched together with.

A story with a great message about the fragility of men gets lost in a bunch of clichés and sloppy writing. If one had put more hought into writing a coherent plot, instead of describing the beautiful scenery for pages, this book would have been way better.

Soccernomics has given me some great insights about soccer I hadn't thought about. It makes you wonder about certain aspects of the sport you hadn't thought about.

It debunks a lot of clichés, by using clear and understandable data. The authors take a lot of factors on and of the pitch in consideration and have put a lot of work in making sure stats are as realitic as possible.

The book is far from perfect however. Certain points are given a way too long introduction written at very slow tempo. Quotes that are outdated and unimportant to the plot are often recycled and sometimes examples of statements are too long dwelled upon.

Another flaw about the book is that it is written as an alternative to the book Moneyball, but for soccer fans. The book tries to hard to imitate Moneyball, by constantly using it as a reference and referring to chapters and statements in it.

Well, this did not meet my expectations. Starting this book I felt like this might be a 5 star, but I quickly noticed it would not be the case.

Pacing is very off in my opinion and characters have little development. Characters are only described in their physical aspects and characters such as Richard and Meridith have little to offer besides being handsome people.

The plot of the book was also very predictable in my opinion. The storyline does not move in ages and suddenly explodes in the 5th chapter.

The ending also left me baffled and wasn't really realistic in my opinion. The last chapter felt really rushed. Disappointed writing this.

Packs a lot of content and is a very solid guide. The book offers a lot of insight on a selection of topics, which it does in great depth.

Despite this, the book touches and repeats a lot of predictable insights. Some insights were really basic and generally known, but the depth in which the author explained them made up for it.

However, I felt this book was heavily inspired by a lot of other popular self help books and felt a bit like a write up between them. More, I felt like I was reading parts literally copied from other books at times, adapted from a more personal view.

Overall, I still enjoyed some parts of the book and i think it's a solid read if you haven't read many self help books. However, if this is book number x on your shelf, this book won't bring you many new insights.

This was such a shallow, predictable and pretentious read. I almost threw up a little on some pages.

The book is about somebody who wants to commit suicide and gets a chance to get av view in her parallel lives.

The women in question, is very smart and loves philosophy. She has a quote for everything and knows practically every obscure fact ever scientifically proven. Furthermore she is a musical genius and she has (despite being an absolute amazing person) no friends except for one person at the other side of the world. Im thinking I heard all the clichés at this point.

Instead of actually going into some of the core issues that lead to the suicide and the real angst, the book dances around some predictable mini stories of which most are just plain boring. She becomes a loved rock star, she becomes a scientist, she wins a gold medal (laughing out loud at this point). Only to realize, she has been living life wrong this whole time !

After she has visited a lot of lives, sometimes feels quite untrue. Furthermore, she has concluded there is no life in which she is fully content. Without a proper solution for her former problems, she wakes up and decides she wants to live. Ain't that confusing!

The book is written in such a childish manner. Nora's personality is based around some small, but very specific topics, on which the book constantly hammers and the author manages to include the topics in every conversations. The author clearly wanted this girl to like philosophy.

You can imply these things, but this just felt really shallow. This book felt fake at times, felt like a parody. I wouldn't pick it up again.

As many have mentioned before, this book feels a lot like something we could have predicted knowing it would be written by James.

The book is definitely not bad. It has some good insight and some funny anecdotes. Some questions are very good and chances you know everything addressed in the book is small.

But it is way too safe to be entertaining. The quotes and anecdotes are that old or known and the topics the book touches are too safe. And even when the book picks a daring topic it gets answered the most Milner way possible. With utmost respect for everybody and in the most professional way possible. There is not a glimpse of controversially in this book.

James is a great footballer and an example professional, and this book reflects the latter perfectly. It's a good mirror for James' professional career, which has always been trademarked by his love for the game, his professionalism and his lack of temptation for the pitfalls that some other footballers fall for.

James Boring Milner he is often called. I don't want to give him that name. He is not 100% boring, which he tries to prove real hard in the book. And I can't argue, I don't see him as all boring person. You get what you expect with James. Professionalism, a safe bet and somebody to give with a great work and off pitch ethic. Some may find that boring, but I think those qualities are admirable and often lost on footballers. Yet it doesn't make for the most intriguing reads.

Bij aanvang vond ik dit boek niet al te slecht, maar naarmate ik vorderde, begon ik mijn aandacht al snel te verliezen.

Als het puur over inhoud gaat, vond ik dit boek matig. Er stonden enkele goede tips in en enkele nuttige voorbeelden. De inhoud is relatief beperkt en niet echt uitdiepend. Ook het gebrek aan echte overzichten, cheat sheets of concrete take-aways is onbestaande.

Stijlmatig vond ik dit echter een vreselijk boek. De schrijfstijl komt kinderachtig over en klinkt alsof het voor een alledaags tijdschrift is geschreven. Ik heb het boek beluisterd via Audioboek, waardoor de gesproken taal al bij al nog niet compleet belachelijk over kwam. Maar zelfs dan kreeg ik stuiptrekkingen bij sommige verwoordingen. Ik heb getwijfeld om het audio-boek niet uit te luisteren, maar heb het toch gedaan door het sterkere begin. Al bij al, niet mijn beste keuze.

Een te korte en te oppervlakkige benadering van wat hij in de gelijknamige talk op een uurtje uitlegt.