List of stats without a coherent story about the individual
342154
The book does not address Steph Curry as a person and rather focuses on stats from the various games that he played. Learned little from it and would not buy again.
3610785
Although it reads like a catalogue of names and events, it covers a lot of territory. I found it more like a scrapbook of anecdotes of various
pieces of true and false stories about the individual Jesuits, but it lacked a critical eye or perspective for sorting out the significant from the merely incidental.  More encyclopedic that historical narrative.
532902
This is just a list of 101 ways with a Paragraph or two of description. There is not one how too in the book. It's not worth the paper it's printed on.
4250937
This is a strange genealogy reference book in several ways. First, the immigrants to America to be detailed are chosen as ones that have notable descendants or are themselves significant. Robert Louis Stevenson and Audrey Hepburn are among the 600. Yes, this is one way to select families to research, but why anyone would be interested in doing so is beyond me.
As a result, this book is only useful to most researchers IF the researchers family lines include individuals in the history of someone famous. Finding those individuals in the multiple indices is possible only if you already have at least proposed and fairly complete family lines.
Second, this book gives extremely little birth and death data, no marriage dates, siblings only if they are relevant elsewhere in the book, and an occasional title. Therefore, it is only useful as a reference for the names in a family line that is already fairly well known, or to discover new reference books in the list of sources.
None of these shortcomings are even hinted in the books description.
2282477
An Interesting Resource ... Although the Word " COMPLETE " in the Title is an Exaggeration ... HERE ARE A FEW WORDS MISSING FROM THE B SECTION ....  Beatles , bedlamite , bazoombas , bardo state , Baht , bargainous , barracoon , hell-bent , Best Boy , Dhal Bhat , bidibidi/ piripiri , blootered , Bhodisattva , bogan , boffle , boxty , and " Bugger !" As a Coarse Expression of annoyance or disgust ... AND NO TERMS USED IN THE RULES OF " Tiddley Winks " like SQUOPPING and SQUIDGER Appear
93992
First off, it's not 162 stories & 162 games.  The author skipped one game to take in the Florida Marlins hurricane make-up game at Sox Park and another to take in a college football game!  Hence, squandered opportunity.  Also, doubleheaders share one story.  Lots of nice individual stories, otherwise, although they rarely related to the game "chapter" they fell into.  The errors got to be annoying, such as the story about a fan who rented an apartment just outside Wrigley Field described as being on the corner of two streets that do not intersect.
1185596
Too much personal musing and irrelevant detail
1146957
I found this book, as others have stated, compelling reading. What struck me however, was the stuff that was "missing". If you are not wildly familiar with Freud's ouvre, then the lack of illustrations of portraits under discussion (most notably Parker-Bowles's) is frustrating. In addition, touched upon by other reviewers, is lack of depth of Freud as a person.

I'm not sure though that the author claims this to be a definitive biography so perhaps by leaving his audience wanting more he is opening the way for another book. I found myself wanting more detail about his relationships with his brothers as one example.

At any rate, I'd recommend loaning this book from your local library rather than buying it - it's well written and easy to read, but lacks depth from both a biographical and critical point of view.
2858909
I was disappointed as I read this biography alongside Solle's own memoirs "Against the Wind" (Gegenwind). The biography does very little more than retelling the memoirs. Almost every telling anecdote pre-1995 that's in the biography is also in Against the Wind. There is not enough independent engagement.
What I did like though is the selection of pictures. And there is some extra info about her (especially on her divorce and second marriage) that is quite valuable. It is a carefully edited book that probably does well as a gentle introduction to S&ouml;lle. I first gave two stars but now I made it three. But I still think a biography of a person who has written so engagingly about herself should have more to add.
3268197
Useful but dull without examples and anecdotes which give the book vitality and relevance.
3680493
First, I will admit that I did not buy this book. My review is simply to inform future buyers of this book as to what information might be found inside. After I read the only other review on this book, in which the person gave it a one star rating, I decided to go to the American Ancestors site, who are the publishers of this book. On that site, they did list the surnames discussed in the book. I have ancestors that were pioneers of that region and settled Almond, NY, and are very well known historic figures of that area. They were not included at all in this book, nor any of their contemporaries that came with them, thus the reason I did not buy the book. I gave this book 3 stars only because I want to remain neutral in the fact that this book may benefit someone else who is searching for their ancestors that ARE included in this book. Here is a list of the surnames that are found in the book, as listed from the store on the American Ancestors website:
Backus  Baker  Bennett  Calkins  Crosby  Eaton  Erwin  Goodhue  Gorton  Hadley/Headly  Harding  Hopkins  Jamison  Lanphear  Lindsley  McCormick  Mulford  Paine/Payne  Patterson  Rowley  Seelye/Seeley/Seely  Stephens  Thurber  Upson  Woolcott  Young
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Good luck to those researching their ancestors!
3457028
I picked up Indomitable Will thinking I was going to get a biography of LBJ, a proper one that went through his life from beginning to end.  What Updegrove has given us is mostly a book of quotes, some narrative, and only covering in detail his presidential years.

I was put off immediately by how Updegrove decided to present his material.  Quickly flip through the pages and you will see on every single page in bold print the person's name that he is quoting.  Sometimes the quotes from multiple people go for pages with no narrative at all, feeling like a book of quotes instead of a biography.  To make matters worse when he did throw in some narrative he didn't differentiate between when the quote ended and the narrative began since he doesn't use quotation marks.  Some quotes will be 3-4 paragraphs and than narrative, or 2 sentences and than narrative, leaving me confused as to who was actually saying what.  Is this the Secretary of State talking or is this the author?  A confusing way to present information, one that put me off immediately.  Additionally, he skips the bulk of the pre-presidency years and then will randomly throw in a comment.  For example, Updegrove mentions "already a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Naval Reserve".  Huh?  Where was the part about how he became a Naval officer?  Once this was mentioned in the context of volunteering for WWII he gives a quick couple of sentence summation of his time in the war and then moves back to him being a congressman.  At least provide the background to how and when he became a Naval officer and then a little more time on his experience in WWII, both of which would have helped shape the man that he was and an important piece of information.

When you work through the quotes and read the small amount of narrative you are treated to an interesting picture of LBJ.  On the one side he doesn't look to be very unique in the sense that all his ideas or bills were essentially all Kennedy's agenda and bills that he was working on when he was assassinated.  This doesn't say much for Johnson.  What Updegrove does show, though, is how it took Johnson's indomitable will and political savvy to actually get the bills passed in to law, with 1964-1965 being some of the most productive years for any president.  Its hard to balance the two against each other.  On the one side not really being able to come up with his own bills and agenda, but on the other to being able to pass the bills and agenda with such skill as though they were his own.  A remarkable, if misunderstood, president.

In the end the form that Updegrove chooses to convey his biography is not one that I care for.  After I pushed through and read from beginning to end I slowly began to understand who LBJ was but it wasn't necessarily an enjoyable read.  Updegrove is quoted on the back cover, "For it is through first-hand narrative... that Lyndon Johnson comes to life."  In relying on "first-hand" quotes more than his own narrative he has written an account of LBJ that I would not recommend.

2 stars.
977835
A genealogy chart would have been useful and may have saved the author from making a literary faux pas.  On page 161 she tells us that, after her sojourn in Siam, Anna Leonowens went to Ireland where "Mr. Wilkinson Sr. was delighted to welcome the widowed wife of his wife's brother".  Well, not really.  She was actually the widowed daughter of his wife's brother (a sergeant Thomas Edwards from Middlesex) i.e. his niece by marriage.  The author then goes on to tell us that "It was a particularly joyous moment for Anna, ... to be welcomed into the family of her beloved Tom."  Her "beloved Tom" was her late husband Thomas Louis LeonOwens who came from the diocese of Ossory in County Kilkenny (page 56).  Thomas Wilkinson, Anna's uncle by marriage, lived in Enniscorthy in County Wexford.

Again on page 161, we are told that the Wilkinsons had "happy memories of Tom Leonowens as a boy".  This is the first mention in the book of such a confluence and it is just misinformed invention.  It was Anna's son, Louis Thomas Leonowens, whom the Wilkinsons "became fond of" when he was left with them (page 162).

The misconception may be explained by a second cousin (in 1939) having categorized Anna Leonowens as "the wife of a cousin" of his mother (on page 213) when, if fact, the two women were first cousins.  In order to sustain Anna as "the wife of a cousin" her husband has been imagined as a cousin of the Wilkinsons.  And from this error comes the fiction that the Wilkinsons knew Tom Leonowens as a boy.

On page 167 one or other of the Wilkinson Toms is said to be related to Anna as "her brother-in-law".  Thomas Wilkinson Sr. was actually her mother's brother-in-law.  Thomas Wilkinson Jr. was her first cousin.  For either Tom to have been Anna's brother-in-law her husband, Tom Leonowens, would have had to have been a Wilkinson brother.  The author has already described him as a cousin.  He was, of course, neither.

Maybe some members of the Wilkinson family had recounted stories about Tom Wilkinson Jr. (the future London barrister) as a boy and the author, perhaps following Margaret Landon ("Anna and the King of Siam"), has assumed that Tom to be Thomas Leonowens.

The book is worth reading, however, as it counteracts Broadway's fantasy and Anna Leonowens own novels: "The English Governess at the Siamese Court" and "The Romance of the Harem".  There is, however, a great deal of surmising about what Anna and the ladies of the harem "thought" and a fair amount of feminism and political correctness retrofitted to the nineteenth century.

The "book is printed on Natures Book, which contains 50% postconsumer waste" and the binding is glued, not sewn.
3406053
Humboldt and Darwin are both highly celebrated naturalists with many texts written on both, esp Darwin.  However, the other two, Spruce and La Condamine are two very interesting and important characters who deserve to be remembered as important discoverers.

This texts attempt to put together a short list of important explorers.  However, picking only 4 is a hard job, and I am not sure the author picked the best 4 possible -- others that may merit such mention include Alfred Russel Wallace, Henry Walter Bates, among others.

This book gives an idealized image of the explorers.  They are portrayed as wholly good people and anyone they encounter that is against them is portrayed as bad people.  Such shallow description of character simplifies the stories, but it does not help in knowing the truth.  Given that accounts of La Condamine's trip and Spruce's collecting are not very easy to come by, this is useful as an additional source.
4487633
I liked the facts that were never made public regarding others in the plot.  I didn't like all the names jumbled in one chapter.  It was hard to  distinguish each player.
3672666
This book consists of interviews, mostly with Jimmy Page, and background and other information. The problem with the book is thatch of this information in uncritical hagiography, frequently unsupported by any documentation.

Led Zeppelin fans who want to know more about the band will find this book informative and useful. It would have been a much better work if it had cast a more critical eye on its subjects.
137819
The author writes about being a researcher, but there's no hard data in this book - which is still needed regardless of the research method she uses. She also does not always give the source when she quotes someone, something a researcher would never do. Instead of telling the actual stories of the people she's supposedly interviewed (I only recall one story she actually quoted), her evidence is anecdotal and, worse, she uses herself as her primary source of information. Like others have stated, this reads like a self-absorbed blog. Some good premises, but she never gets to the meat of the matter.  All the meaningful take-aways were from people she quoted.