A good read but nothing revolutionary
358837
A good read but nothing revolutionary. Despite its secondary title, I still do not know what the codes stand for... I like that she puts a good deal of emphasis on caring for yourself because nurses often neglect to do that.
3141847
It's a quick read, the story is a bit simplistic and somewhat predictable. You've seen it a thousand and 8 times if you've seen it once. The story is also poingient though, highlighting issues that, sadly, still exist in our country today. This is a good book and worth reading, just don't expect to be blown away by plot twists, high mystery, intense action, or overly engaging characters. The author seems to pull in every well-worn story element ever conceived and tries to weave them together and make them work. In my opinion more effort should have gone into creating a deeper storyline. This would maybe be a good book for tweens.
1745826
A novel revolving around organising an ultra trail race in a remote place

I heard about this novel so many times. I do not full understand the fuss after reading it.

The main story is simple. There are lots of side stories about athletes, running tips and Indian tribes. I can feel the authors enthusiasm towards running, which I greatly appreciate. I guess the book is interesting enough but far from exciting. Be aware most of running tips (food, barefoot, etc) are either unproven or unscientific.
4724655
The book has a good amount of sound leadership advice, and it is a quick and easy read. I do feel a little bored by it at points, and I don't think the author has broken down all of the major points into a way that is easy to remember and apply.
4887924
This book featured a captivating story interspersed with little nuggets of wisdom. It was a quick read, and I found myself eager to read the next encounter with Jones and what wisdom he would impart.

But the stories were a little simplistic and predictable. Rarely is change ever as instantaneous and easy as the author made it seem.

Overall, I thought this was a good read. Just don't expect anything amazing.
4414225
"Three Hearts and Three Lions" is a good book, but it's not great.  It was groundbreaking in its time (the 1950s) but now appears dated and rushed, mostly because this book was originally written as a serial for magazines.
Knowing that, it's easier to comprehend the less-than-fully-fleshed-out characterizations.  Holger Carlson, our man out of time (he's from the 20th century and is adrift in a new, fantastic world filled with "swan-mays" and witches and elves), is a cipher at the beginning, and is almost as much of one at the end.  He wants to do good, and does it -- but is hampered by lack of faith, and is sometimes helped by greater knowledge of engineering, chemistry and especially physics.
All of this is realistic, interesting, and well worth your time to read.
Where this book falls flat, in my opinion, is in the realm of characterization.  Granted, this was the 1950s, so Alianora the swan-may's fluffy characterization was about the best most authors would manage.  However, Mr. Anderson had already written about a strong woman in "Brainwave" if I recall correctly; he knew how to get strong women across in the marketplace, and moreover, he knew how to write romance.
This is not romance by any stretch of the imagination, although there's a fair amount of sex (along with a goodly amount of violence).  Unlike much literature of the 1950s, Mr. Anderson makes Holger question his morality and judgement; this, in my opinion, is the one really good bit of characterization Holger has, and is the only reason he is likable.
The good points about "Three Hearts and Three Lions:"  It's quick.  It's interesting.  It is realistic.  And there are spots of humor.
The bad points?  There isn't much characterization or romance.  Alianora the swan-may is rather trite and boring, and most of the other minor characters are no better.  And there isn't much explanation of why everyone recognizes Holger, but why Holger doesn't recognize them.
Still.  It's readable, interesting, and has its good points.  And it was groundbreaking in the genre.
Better reads by Mr. Anderson include the massive "King of Ys" saga, the Dominic Flandry series, the "Last Viking" trilogy about Harold Hardrede, and "Brainwave."
Compared to those others, this is a three star novel, and that's how I'm rating it.
Barb Caffrey
1492288
I have to say that I found Timothy Naftali's work to be interesting.  He did provide a broad brush overview of Bush 41 but did not really give us any insights that couldn't be gleaned from other people's memoir's. It would seem to me that he read what Bob Woodward, Colin Powell, Norman Schwartzcroft and company had to say and simply gleaned off his own interpretation.  Granted I don't think the books in this series are supposed to be of tremendous relevance for the more recent presidents, but I certainly hope that for future generations they can provide details on the lesser known ones.

I think this is an interesting and very light read but it does tend in my opinion to reinforce the notion that George H.W. Bush was as much an observer of history than a participant.  He was the guy who just happened to be sitting in the Oval Office when this stuff happened and his presence really didn't have that much to do with the rapid changes in the world at the time and quite the opposite, he nearly prevented them from happening.  Anyway it's an interesting afternoon read, but don't expect to come away very impressed with Bush 41.
4369535
Well written, fast read, not so very enlightening as I was hoping. I'd say that it was slightly trivial IMO.
2160217
I really enjoyed reading this book, but I found the author's writing style to be slightly awkward and wordy.  I have to admit that I picked up the book with a very conservative mindset, so I agreed with much of the book.  I was not surprised much by any of the subjects, and found a lot of things that I already knew.  This may not seem like a big deal, but I consider myself to be a little ignorant when it comes to history, and I expected to learn more than I did.  I also think that American history has the potential to be very funny (sarcastic,) but the author did not seem to exploit this.

I think that I have experienced a situation where this book really did not edify me.  I can imagine that it would do a lot of good to force congress to read it.
4916617
Overall, a good book that is well-intentioned and sends a positive message. The story however is quite simplistic and predictable but accomplishes its main idea
246821
I was surprised at how succinct this was.  I had hoped for some more depth.  That said,  while I certainly didn't find it revolutionary,  this work provides a fairly easy to down summary of Rothbard's ideas,  and leaves the reader with a host of topics which warrant further thought and analysis.  I found that while I didn't necessarily take any specific lessons from this,  I was left with a list of topics which I now intend to investigate further. So,  as a definitive work,  most will likely find this disappointing,  but as a quick summary that points the reader to more paths to delve into on their own,  it's quite good.
4537564
This book was well written and organized in a fashion which is easy to follow and understand.  Still, there wasn't really anything new here.  Only book on this subject that is different and a bit more truth driven is The Renegade Writer.

Although I only gave it 3 stars, it is one you might find used and spend less than cover for - might be nice to have in reference library.
1612332
The book is good but not exceptional, a little bit repetitive On the argument in favor of Wall Street, updated with recent changes to political landscape and in need of more true life examples (probably to be found in his other books)
1658811
The book is a good read but nothing out of the ordinary, with all the five star reviews I was expecting something epic. The characters are interesting but not always believable, but the author did a good job of bringing them together in a clever way.
4946002
This is an easy to read introduction to DRP. It outlines the technique as  well as the main advantages thereof. The explanation is done over an  example which makes it easy to be understood. Nevertheless, there is a lack  of a deeper insight (no math is used) and of some kind of software isuues  related. There is also too much hype on DRP as the final solution for many  problems (which isn't by far), which makes the reading close to those books  bought in the airports book shops. All in all, is a good overview of this  technique.
106501
This was a nice, pleasant book but nothing was new here.  It told the stories of three families and their trials and tribulations.  The author wants us to believe that something sinister is coming, but it's not at all sinister.  It was well written, but very routine.
3051796
Unless you can expect to have the financial security the author and her husband enjoy, this book isn't going to be all that inspirational. Her idea of a budget and my idea of a budget are pretty different. I learned a couple of things about traveling to specific places but nothing I wouldn't learn from other sources. She does paint a nice picture of some of the places they stayed.