Interesting topic and research, "humor" should have been edited out
921918
This would be a 5 star, fantastic book without the really annoying attempts at humor. As it stands, I found the actual material interesting, but I could barely get through the book due to the awkward attempts at humor that appeared on nearly every page. I think this author has important information to disseminate and it would be great if a new edition were released with the "humor" edited out so more people could truly get something out of his work.
2266802
I had hoped this annotated work would explain the historical facts being lampooned (e.g., Queen of Hearts and the Tarts)-- the insider's joke so to speak. That would have been so much more interesting. Failing this, the book is mildly entertaining in terms of the writing and publication processes.
3182780
The author would have been better suited writing an article to make his points. For example, the Q&A with the author is far more convicing and enjoyable than the book. I enjoyed the first paragraph, after that the author defeated every one of his arguments with his own faulty ramblings. If you take a pen and strike through all the redundant parts, you'd have something narrowed down to that Q&A article. Read that for free, and don't bother with the book. The concept of whether science can weigh in on morality is interesting, and there should be a lot to debate. However, a brighter mind and sharper writer than Sam Harris will be needed to tackle the subject.
2492332
The idea is intriguing: What if the World as we know it was switched around, the Arabs having the power and USofA being split up into Christian dictatorship with fundamentalist terrorist groups? And Ruff has definitely done some good research, he knows his religious stuff and uses it with a sometimes great sense of humour.

Ironically, it all becomes so speculative and over-constructed that the story loses its flow and the book becomes a pain to actually get through, especially the whole middle section. And the end is just too American: violence, violence, violence, almost entirely drowning the humour.

But the idea is a good one.
4075790
The information was good, but the book needs to be edited for grammar, spelling, and readability. I also disagree with the author's opinion at the end, which does not fit the rest of the material. If presented as opinion or a theory, that would have been better, but it is not informative like the rest.
2263878
The book had some really interesting information about events that are typically glossed over or are severely slanted in typical textbooks.  What I disliked about the book was having to weed through the author's constant references to, and picking on, certain textbooks.  The book was a study of the textbooks so a certain amount of disection was required.  However, the book would have beem a much more enjoyable read if the stories had been told without the constant bashing of textbook writers, publishers, and popular culture.
1512372
I picked up this book expecting a quirky and maybe humorous question-and-answer book.  I have a fascination for oddball trivia on a wide range of subjects, and if it's presented in a humorous or entertaining manner, so much the better.  And a book on medical trivia written by an actual medical doctor seemed like a decent idea, even if he did bring in another author to "punch it up" a bit.  But while this book is somewhat informative, answering a plethora of weird and even gross questions about the human body, it also feels like it was trying way too hard to be funny, and could easily have done away with much of the "fluff" and made way for actual content.

There's nothing wrong with the actual Q&A sections of the book -- they're informative, quote their sources, and incorporate enough humor to be fun without being annoying.  The major problem of this book is that large chunks of it are devoted to needless "fluff" -- chat-style dialogue between the two writers that feels pointless and an excuse to incorporate crude humor, introductory segments to each section involving the two authors at a party that grows progressively out of hand, and an overlong introduction that seems designed for the second author to gripe about a TV show he wrote that was cancelled after a couple episodes.  Much of these sections feel like they're trying way too hard to generate laughs, as if the authors were whacking me over the head with the book going "laugh, dang it!"  And I'm sorry, but laughter should come organically, not be forced out of the reader with pointless wedged-in jokes.

If you want an entertaining trivia read, the "Uncle John's Bathroom Reader" series is a much better bet.  And if you want actual answers to questions about the human body, there are plenty of other books out there to help you, as well as WebMD.  This book, while informative, is largely forgettable, and its attempts at humor feel forced and obnoxious.
1325587
Jacky Hyams seems to struggle with the fact that she is no longer a fifteen year old writing a free topic essay for her class. The facts were quite interesting, but Hyams's childish writing style made it hard to take the book seriously. She has the information repeated constantly in the book but in different sections, as if trying to fill a page quota. It would have been nice to have more stories of those who worked as Servants, or to have followed one family a bit more in detail. Jacky's EXTREME overuse of the word 'toffs' is highly unprofessional, it is a slang insult that doesn't sit well in a non fiction book of historic importance. Overall, I would have loved to have seen more research and an advanced writing style but the facts were undoubtedly interesting and still made it a fairly quick read.
4335618
On the plus side, the information in this book is interesting - very interesting, if you happen to be someone who is interested in why people do goofy things and think goofy thoughts. Also on the plus side, the author is an EXCELLENT writer. His style is very engaging, and his prose races along. It would be difficult to be bored reading this book.
On the minus side, the author doesn't really provide any insights on what you can do with the information. It's really more of a, "Based on the research presented here, people really are goofy." If you find that interesting, then you will find the book interesting.
However, if you're looking for the next logical step: "OK, People are prone to do goofy things and think goofy thoughts. What are some specific steps I can take to help me and my family members improve our lives as a result of this information?", forget it. The author provides no insight into this at all, other than two or three generic paragraphs on the last page of the book that basically say, "Now that you realize how goofy people are, you can try not to be so goofy."
Unfortunately, it's not that easy, because, according to the author's research, a lot of the goofy things people do and think really are HARD-WIRED into human brains, or, at very least, are at very subconscious levels. So, changing ones beliefs and behaviors isn't as easy as just saying, "Well, I'm not going to do THAT anymore!"
This book would have been much better, and been of much more value to readers, if the author had spent the first two-thirds of each chapter talking about the goofy things people do and the goofy things people think in various areas of their lives, and the final third of each chapter talking about specific ideas and strategies that readers can implement to address and overcome these natural tendencies.
695792
The information in this book gives a fair amount of food for thought as it pertains to the subject of black hair and the attitudes and social 'stigma' that resonates through the african-american community.  That being said, the gross lack of basic editing detracts from the quality of the information. Also, the final chapter reads like an ad for Sisterlocks. For that, I could only give it three stars.

I must admit that, even with its flaws, I did not regret overall purchasing this book.
2378979
I wanted to like this book more than I did. And there are certainly quite a few aspects of this book to like. However, there are also several points where the emperor (that would be David A. Kessler, M.D.,) is underdressed, to say the least. No matter how impressive his credentials are, no matter how detailed the research is that he presents, and no matter how well drawn many of his arguments are, the fact still remains that there are too many places where he just let the ball drop-- and somebody who was the commissioner of the U.S. F.D.A. under 2 presidents can and should do better.

Here are some examples. This is a 320 page book analyzing the science of how and why people overeat, the ways in which the food industry takes advantage of this fact, and some ideas about what might be done about it(most of which are based on cognitive-behavioral therapy techniques, but not particularly new ones-- I'm an M.S.W., so I'm very familiar with these.) In these 320 pages, less than one page, and I'm really not joking, is devoted to the topic of exercise. This is inexcusable. A doctor absolutely should know better than this! Then, the brief chapter on the deadly phentermine/fenfluramine diet drug combo too lightly skips over the tens of thousands of cases of permanent heart defects it caused (at minimum) by referring to them as "some cases" of "side effects." Its positive effects are grossly overexaggerated, and no figures or facts are presented to back them up: only anecdotes. Again, Kessler knows better than this! But the biggest problem of all is yet to come.

Then, after an entire book alternating between scientific theory and sometimes weird dwelling on "salt, fat, sugar, fat, fat, fat, sugar" in commercially available food items, we get the "food rehab" section. At last, the big answer! But the problem is that even though it's repackaged to sound new and exciting, there's nothing new here at all. It's the same old "structure imposed from the outside with meal plans" (pg. 210), planned eating, trying to talk yourself out of eating what you want, small portions, putting up "fat" pictures of yourself on the fridge door, 1200 calories a day (really, that's what he says-- this advice is 20 years or more out of date!), and so on, and so on, ibid, etc....

But this is the same controlled eating that hasn't been working for people for eighty years and more by now.  I didn't go to Harvard. But I DO have a masters' degree in social work, and I DID do a literature review article a year ago that analyzed all available controlled eating studies. Remember that "95% of all diets fail within two years figure? The facts tell us that it's a gross underestimate. 98% is much closer to the truth. And the closer that a diet plan is to what Kessler proposes, the more likely it is to fail. Excluding exercise guarantees failure. No matter how unpleasant or unpalatable this reality is, it is what we get from the facts. That's why we need to see something MORE emerge from the meticulously arranged facts which Kessler does present here.

I think that's why it's so disappointing to see the same failed plans reassembled and proposed yet again. So much more could have been done. Maybe somebody else needs to come along, take the facts that were presented here, and really use them to come up with something new that could actually work. The answer is there-- we just don't know what it is yet. But we're not going to find out by continuing to go over the same things that haven't worked the last zillion times they were tried.
2970959
The book had some good points to make and the history of Sincerity was quite informative, But it could have been edited.
3409464
I am somewhat puzzled as to why the FBI would have focused on a shabby dressed, hard drinking, and vulgarly outspoken writer. I would think that they would of had better things to do, but it was a bit before my time and I do not believe there were dark skinned terrorists roaming American soil at the time. Much of the information in this book is hilarious such as the indulging in a life without "moral values" constant drunkenness, and

engaging in obnoxious behavior. Apparently, he was being investigated because some of his notes from A Dirty Old Man appeared in some hippie tabloid and someone in a high position took it offensively. Besides that, there are interesting photos and little details here and there, but most of the information the FBI had was pretty useless and ordinary. Many of the people interviewed about Charles Bukowski could barely remember him, so the information comes off a bit scattered, however, and interesting book to read and look at.
1227504
I purchased this book hoping to learn more about the Dead Sea Scrolls and the hypotheses that surround them (read "even and objective attention given to purported theories"). After three chapters, it was clear that this author wants to spend more time complaining about academics and being angry at a profession for being what it is. I agree with him that academics do not and should not have a monopoly on knowledge and ideas (I am one myself), but he did little to establish his own ethos as a reasonable and educated voice in the discussion. No context was given with regard to current ideas and questions surrounding the subject matter. It dives immediately into his own personal beefs with academia and does not elaborate on them before jumping on to some other rant. There are number of times that he mentions that topics will be discussed more later in the book - a clear sign of disorganization. There was nothing to engage me as a reader or that I could follow so that I could be persuaded to agree with his perspectives (which I was open to doing). His strongest perspective is being mad at academics, as noted. It is odd as he seems to be mad at the nature of the beast of academia itself. For instance, he seems agitated that the date of the founding of Qumran has a variable of seventy years (14). That's pretty good for the dating of an ancient site! It is natural and accepted that scholars can't agree on one single date unless we have reliable documentation. There's no reason to fault anyone for it, as he seems to be doing. There is also an amusing example given of a segment of a scholarly article with its professional language, which is attacked for being difficult to read (24). I suppose he expects the contributors to the New England Journal of Medicine to stop using so many technical terms as well? It is an article by a professional that is written for other professionals. If you can't grapple with it, then read something by the author that has been written for the general public. Aside from that, it adds nothing to the analysis of the subject other than, as noted, ranting against the system.
There are a few glimmers of interesting ideas - connections to Egypt, for instance, but they are not elaborated on before it devolves into more ranting. As a technical point, it was also quite off-putting that the book was poorly edited and contains some basic grammatical mistakes and consistent errors in punctuation. That doesn't necessarily detract from an author's ideas, but it does very little to establish his ethos. Actually, it seems if he spent a little more time around the academics he gnashes his teeth at so much and reads their work for a compositional model, he could benefit and possibly convey his ideas in a more efficient and respectable manner. I plan to revisit this book once I have the contextual material I need to understand what he is raging about since it was left out of the beginning of his work. I do not believe this will have usefulness as a whole in regard to the subject of the Dead Sea Scrolls, but there may be a few ideas that have value once they are gleaned out of the vitriol and considered with more evidence and information. If you have knowledge of the subject matter and are familiar with the issues already, then perhaps you can find such gems in this text and do additional research to consider what value they may have. Otherwise, it will leave you with little or nothing of value.
4092276
The book was written by a German comedian who spends a chapter telling about how he made it big in German TV and peppers the rest of the tale with stories about people recognizing him and telling him how funny he is. The result is less a travelogue than an attempt to turn every event of his hike into an amusing anecdote. He also digresses into rants about his own very particular views of religion and morality with which most readers of a book on this topic will find troublesome.
31628
While the author spun a good tell, it could have been better without the heavy handed socialist overtones. Also, the author missed many opportunities to make the book more comedic as was obviously his intent. I guess dry British humor is to blame. While the Marxist propaganda was very off putting to me, the book was still good enough to finish.
4224071
Clearly well researched book about an accidental genius and the harsh circumstances. This book walks a fine line between science, politics, family, and celebrityhood - and you end up thinking about Planck beyond his science.  The problem is verbosity and the odd writing structure with no chronology. As a reader you keep going back and forth in time - eventually losing track. Beside this annoying construct, the book needs another session with the editor.