Michael

It was a lot of fun, well-written with a good explanation of the science behind the topic. I think probably more interesting for science fans than true crime fans, but certainly with plenty of material for both!

Definitely could've used an updated edition, as this book was written right at the height of the 2008 crisis. It would've been great to get some of the later insights about it added into the analysis.The book definitely has a bit of a bias, but does a great job of explaining the thought process behind its philosophies. Overall I probably preferred [b:Value(s): Building a Better World for All 54503528 Value(s) Building a Better World for All Mark Carney https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1621249054l/54503528.SY75.jpg 85069723] for a discussion on similar topics.

Overall definitely enjoyable! I think I would've preferred it if it had a bit more of a focus on athletic performance, but the amount it did have was good and I'd recommend it.

Short, charming, and lovely! Fully recommend.

I think though that if this was your first Cosmere book it wouldn't be quite as good. We're starting to get to Marvel levels now where background story knowledge is becoming more and more essential.

3 out of 5? That's Numberwang!

It was good, but I say good as an extended syllable with some hesitation.

Realistically I read it as a collection of the author's favourite history fun facts, that occasionally felt like they fit the overarching theme but usually didn't. And that's fine! I wasn't ever really convinced by the thesis of the book (was there one?) but the writing in the middle was solid and I learned a thing or two.

For a book that started off describing in painful detail how neutral it would be, neither portraying Champlain a saint nor a demon, it pretty quickly portrayed him as the greatest man of his era, with no moral faults just occasional miscalculations.

Oddly patronizing in its writing, and weirdly edited (one favorite sentence was along the lines of “the war continued until the solider didn't want to continue”).

Also, perhaps not the fault of the author but a book like this could've really used a better narrator for the audiobook. Perhaps one who actually speaks French. The book got better in the second half because the narrator has a tendency to pronounce years like ‘1603' as ‘sixteen-three', which was super odd.

Nothing particularly wrong with the book, just read much better versions of the same information in [b:How to Prevent the Next Pandemic 59900689 How to Prevent the Next Pandemic Bill Gates https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1644297792l/59900689.SX50.jpg 94172452] and [b:The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History 29036 The Great Influenza The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History John M. Barry https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386924908l/29036.SY75.jpg 29511].

Overall I really liked it. I enjoyed the focus on systemic issues and how it's missing the point if you're berating yourself as though it's a personal failure.

That being said, the author definitely comes across as insufferable and holier-than-thou in the early chapters. That perception fades pretty quickly into the book, but starting off with a smug anecdote about being on your phone slightly less than, and yelling at, other people isn't exactly charming.

Again, overall very good and gave me lots to think about!

Lovely short read in the Cosmere.

3/5 stars per Goodreads' “I liked it”.

As a Brandon Sanderson Cosmere book, it just didn't wow me as much as I've come to expect. It was certainly better than Elantris but not as good as Final Empire, Way of Kings, or Warbreaker. Unlike most of the earlier books, I think this one suffers if you haven't read most of the other Cosmere books, and the way that characters are starting to crossover between series is getting pretty MCU-ish, and not exactly in a good way for me.

The main plot line was quite a bit more ‘super-hero' than ‘Victorian detective', as opposed to the other Wax and Wayne books, which I found disappointing too.

I think I'll need to let it digest and process some more of my feelings, but overall I think it was just ok.

I suppose if I'd read the description of the book better, I'd have been less surprised by this book. I definitely thought it would be more of a look into our internal workings when we're in love, perhaps along the lines of [b:Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst 31170723 Behave The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst Robert M. Sapolsky https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1517732866l/31170723.SY75.jpg 51808259]. While it started promisingly like that, it quickly diverged into the author's personal story which, while equally charming and heartbreaking, really took away from the science in the book.There's this thing that some popular science writers do where they over-insert the science into their personal stories and recollections in a way that never feels truly genuine. One line in particular along the lines of “I could feel my friends' sympathy with my mirror neurons ...” really put a bad taste in my mouth. The original science was interesting, I'd love to have heard more about her contributions and studies, but overall it was a disappointment for me.

As a series of articles updating people on the latest science, this is quite good. And for most people who'll pick this up and read it, that's probably exactly what they're looking for and I'm sure they'll be satisfied.

But boy was it tough to get through as an audiobook. Very disjointed, not a great narrator, and shows why most Science article writers haven't broken into popular science writing. Two out of five stars to adhere to Goodreads' guideline, it was ok.

Holy moley that was long. Though of course you can't be surprised given the scope of the subject matter.

Overall it was pretty good, but paced like a game of Civilization (the section on The Blitz probably lasted longer than entire earlier decades). As other reviewers have said the book was largely organized chronologically though with occasional thematic chapters that would take a wider view. Of these, the last one was unfortunately the least interesting to me, and so the book ended on a bit of a low point personally.

Quite good! Much like [b:Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams 34466963 Why We Sleep Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams Matthew Walker https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1556604137l/34466963.SY75.jpg 55587034], it really uses the “scared straight” approach to convincing me that I should be in bed much longer than I usually am. It was helpful to get more chapters on circadian rhythms in general and how they impact other elements of your life (especially drug timing!).

Not quite as good as the other books of his that I've read, but I was thoroughly engaged the entire way. Bit of a weird discussion on climate change, one that I certainly hope the author would have updated between the publishing of this book and now.

Overly romantic at times I suppose, but completely up my alley and I enjoyed almost every minute of it!

One of the funniest descriptions I've heard for Canada as a country is that it's really more of two resource extraction companies in a trenchcoat than a proper country. This book really highlighted just how true that may be.

As far as I'm concerned, this may as well be the definitive early history of Canada. I'm not knowledgeable enough about the era to fully comment on if it's a perfect representation of events, but it felt like a fair take when considering indigenous-European relations.

As an aside, it made it truly discouraging just how many buildings, towns, and monuments are still in place near where I live that are named after people (almost exclusively white folk) in this book.

Reading this book gave me the impression that the author actively enjoys sitting on the fence, laughing at people on both sides of an argument for being shallow-minded and beneath her. It was a very tough visual to knock out of my head as I finished it.

The book occasionally touches on interesting ideas (obviously at one point I found the premise compelling enough to pick it up), but suffered from “when you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail” syndrome. Everything that's wrong with society was suddenly manufactured shame by the elites to keep everyone else out of power, and the examples got more and more tenuous as the book went on. Not everything in life is shame-based, and that's ok.

Lots of it was completely fascinating, but there were a lot of strange tangents it went on occasionally that I felt took away from the central narrative. So much so that they started to feel like padding to the story, which was a bit of a shame.

One star per the goodreads “I did not like it” rating system.

This book had precisely the opposite effect of what was likely intended. It should have been a series of blog posts, it was all over the place in terms of writing quality, and very rarely got to the point apart from listing a bunch of hypothetical solutions.

I think the message of this book is fascinating, and the science in it is a cause for optimism and exciting new research, but a lot of the actual writing (especially some of the narrative conversations) was pretty rough.

I was so encouraged at the beginning, it felt like the book really directly identified issues that resonated strongly with me, and I was excited to see what solutions he'd offer.

He didn't. At least not really.

Most chapters took the format of “Here's an issue, here's what a perfect ethicist and philosopher thought about it, and if you do too you can live a better life. But I tried it and it only sorta worked.” It felt very much like most chapters didn't really conclude, more like they were weird primers to aspects of philosophy.

Right at the end, in the postscript, there were 10 suggested concrete actions one could take that were actually half decent, but otherwise a very strange read.

Really fascinating deep dive after some of the books I've read recently. Wish this guy had been a household name, I really liked the narrative.

Very good, very thorough, though I imagine if I wasn't listening to it on audiobook I'd have gotten a bit bored as it goes quite deep into detail at multiple points. Certainly informative and feels very well-researched.

Speaking of the audiobook, I'm pretty sure that the narrator says “Australian” instead of “Austrian” at least twice, which made me chuckle.