No substance. Many pointless anecdotes.
593502
No useful content that you haven't seen a dozen times over.
By removing all the rambling, poorly written anecdotes this book could be condensed down to a pamphlet or a magazine article.
Summary: Save 10% of your income, invest in low-cost index funds/ETFs, eat pumpkin pie.
224945
Don't bother. Lots of hyperbole but little content. Not a travel guide. No useful information. What a waste!  Poorly written.
3726064
This review is based on the audio book version.
The author is an organizational psychologist at Stanford who, as he repeatedly points out, first published the ideas in this book as an article in the Harvard Business Review. Once the novelty of the admittedly catchy title (quickly) wore off, it seemed to me that the ideas contained here could have been concisely and adequately presented as an article in a lifestyle magazine. The rest seems like filler, and self-contradictory at that. First we are told how toxic and irredeemable "a*holes" are. Then it is revealed that we are all, occasionally, "temporary a*holes". The final chapter, with no apparent irony, even explores "The Value of A*holes"! If we are all variously afflicted with a trait that may have some adaptive value, what is the point of the title's "rule"? To provide more filler, I suppose, we are treated at the end to an obsequious "interview" where someone who sounds like a grad student desperate for credits lobs scripted questions about the professor's academic and consultant work.
The author seems to divide the world into either a*holes or "spineless wimps". There is no discussion of how to achieve the  happy medium of assertive yet non-aggressive communication.  His advice? Avoid (or fire) a*holes. Except maybe a few, if they already happen to be successful CEOs. Hmmm... if you are looking for thoughtful, constructive suggestions to improve workplace communication, look elsewhere. As mildly entertaining or cathartic as it may be, this book's divisive, name-calling approach won't solve anything.
3903838
Just a bunch of sarcasm and hardly any usable "advice" given. It's like reading a book of guy-talk tossed around at a bar. Not much useful info from this to help out new dads and I was actually pretty pissed I bought it.
651948
Not long before her death, Carson McCullers dictated some disjointed, random recollections to a secretary in an effort to create an autobiography. Very little was accomplished; what she did come up with has been presented in this book as her "unfinished autobiography." Actually it doesn't come close to being an autobiography, "unfinished" or otherwise. It doesn't even seem like the beginnings of one. It really is that unsubstantial.

This book was obviously published in hopes that fans of Carson McCuller's novels and stories will rush out and and buy it. If they do, they're in for a big disappointment; there is nothing very interesting here and McCullers tended to play fast and loose with facts pertaining to events in her life, her relationships with other people and her tortured marriage to Reeves McCullers. She also liked to gloss over the numerous flaws in her own personality; her alcoholism, her overinflated ego, her immaturity, her tendency to suck the life out of people with her unceasing demands for attention and adulation.

The book is padded with dull letters McCullers and her husband sent each other and the outline of a book called "The Mute", which eventually became "The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter." It would seem the publishers were willing to fill this slim volume out with anything in order to make this seem like something appropriating a memoir of sorts.

Don't be fooled. This isn't even an "unfinished" autobiography. This should not have even been published. That's how little this odd little book of meandering thoughts is worth.
754467
The first two chapters or so are interesting and the chapter on willpower is also somewhat useful. The remainder of the book is filled with pointless corporate stories that are only tangentially related to habits. Overall it's a waste of time and money and provides little help for anyone wanting to learn about habit formation or useful ways of breaking habits.
647320
I purchased this book after reading a strong review.  While it was interesting, it was an 80 page story stretched to full length. I enjoy memoirs, mysteries, and family drama-- unfortunately, there was actually little content here.  Long passages describing locations, and the "theoretical" passages in italics felt indulgent and  a journalist's trick to create drama. The "secret" is no surprise, and the author's introspection feels forced -- like he's really trying too hard to write something "deep."  Unfortunately, it wasn't.  I'd recommend a library copy-- not worth purchasing.
738724
Poorly written and edited Williams has the writing ability of a teenager.

Although better than her last self indulgent memoir which had no real depth or substance, this book is full of contradictions and at times is rather blase to cover the fact the author doesn't have the answers.

There is nothing ground breaking, new or revolutionary in this book, and it feels like a very dumbed down, basic book on the souls journey. Full of errors and contradicting itself from paragraph to paragraph, Williams should stick to what she's good at- selling herself and putting on a show.
769123
This amounts to a mixture of useless conventional wisdom concerning behavior change and anecdotal recommendations that can be summed up as follows.  "Just do what I did."

The author may have had good intent but there is nothing of value here.
677114
Common sense stuff, no revelations here, don't waste your money
538508
This book has no flow and there are random facts about the story throught the book.  Add to that the writer uses words that aren't even in existence and never will be because there is already terms to discribe what what talked about.  This is a waist of the paper it was printed on.
1463291
I bought this pamphlet based upon the rave reviews.  The "book" is 94 pages and it is the size of a Jehovah Witness pamphlet.  Why the publisher didn't put this in traditional book form is beyond me.  The writing was tiny and, basically, it was a bunch of hyperbole--a bunch of words with no substance behind it.

Basically, the author analyzes the player (in simplistic terms) and gives you advice on how not to fall for his game.  A prime example of the nonsense in this book:

Question: Should I be in a monogamous relationship with the player?

Answer: No.  Don't be monogamous.  There is no legitimate reason to be monogamous with someone else who is not.

Well DUH!

Instead, this is the only advice you need: KNOWLEDGE is the key to not being played, common sense and intuition gives you that.

Anyway, I would not recommend this book because it said nothing.
3539908
Poorly written. Shallow content. Not helpful.
1485913
Having spent most of my adult life working in the non-profit conservation field, and as a parent, and as someone who had the good fortune to spend lots of time in nature as a child, I read this book in the hopes of learning important things. That turned out to be a forlorn hope.

By a quarter of the way through I was rolling my eyes; by the halfway mark I was actively insulted that this author would expect anyone to buy what he was shoveling. I finished the thing only out of grim curiosity.

Louv has about three major points:

(a) American kids circa 2005 are much less active outdoors than American kids circa 1965 were;

(b) that change is due to computers, personal-injury lawyers, and various other things that people Louv's age don't like;

(c) being "in nature" is important to kids' development and to human health generally.

Point (c) is blindingly obvious, is not news to anyone, and is the only major point for which he offers any actual evidence which wouldn't get laughed out of the offices of a peer-reviewed journal.

For points (a) and (b) he offers zero evidence, nada, zip -- absolutely nothing but anecdotes, leading rhetorical questions, and straw men. He sounds like nothing so much as Joseph McCarthy wondering whether Communists "might be" undermining American foreign policy from within the State Department. Indeed he uses precisely that rhetorical construction repeatedly, always a signpost of intellectual flabbiness.

Obvious logic flaws abound, as do laugh-out-loud factual mistatements. In the first half of the book I started jotting down glaring holes in his argument but gave up in disgust when I realized that most of his factual claims weren't even footnoted! Louv isn't even consistent in his straw men: one moment he's talking about when he was a child (1960s, roughly) and the next moment he's quoting somebody talking about how much kids were outdoors in 1910, or 1860!

While he offers no actual evidence for his broad proposition of a new "nature deficit disorder", he does throw tangential facts around some of which I am in a professional position to quickly confirm. I checked a half-dozen such, and the score was that he got 1 substantially correct, distorted 2 beyond recognition, and got 3 dead wrong.

I could go on but enough already. This thing isn't worth the paper it was printed on.
857666
The only thing creative of this book is its attractive title. There is no substance in its content. The author kept repeating a few obvious points in the book. Not recommneded.
1914681
The lack of imagination in this book is incredible (it is, in fact, the only incredible thing about it). Ms. Bushnell merely takes clichd ideas of powerful, wealthy men's lives and applies them to four women. The result reads like a collection of phony Playboy short stories -- only with female names.

There is really very little character development. I had no feelings one way or the other for any of the characters.

Also, there is no development of the relationships between the women. There's just no glue there -- it is as if it were written about three unrelated strangers.

Additionally, it's one of those books where you keep waiting for something to happen -- and nothing ever does.

Sorry, but I really found nothing entertaining in this book.
2759260
This author attempt to prove the existence of an afterlife, though valiant, and interesting at times, fell far short.  He set up a internet web site so people could chime in with anecdotes of their Near Death Experiences, or NDEs, and uses arguments of their similarity across various differences among them - cultural, age, etc - proves post-life existence.  However, he presents no scientific or other proof regarding the credibility of the anecdotes, nor does he adequately address medical explanations for NDEs such a hallunications caused by the pumping of brain chemicals such as adrenalin in anticipation of one's death.

In short, reliance on numerous anecdotes may be interesteing but proves nothing.