Gibbins books talk too much
596132
David Gibbins books ought to be exciting, but they spend too much time talking about the past history.  It gets boring.  Admittedly, I've read several of them.
221820
too much introspective stuff that appears to be in the book to make it a larger book than need be
629155
The author uses way too many words that makes you have to keep a dictionary with you so you can look up meanings every paragraph.  It's OK to let people know how intelligent you are, but doesn't make for good reading for the common person.
2692437
James Vance may have been the world's preeminent historical geographer focusing on transportation.  I enjoyed reading his "The Continuing City" and "The North American Railroad".  But this book -- now titled "Capturing the Horizon" -- is way too much.  Chapter 2, for example, covers canals during the renaissance and early industrial periods.  It is 114 pages long.  Overkill!  It was all I could do to force myself to read it.
  In his "Postface to the 1990 Edition", Vance traces the history of this book, which evidently began life as a textbook that "enjoyed modest academic and mild commercial success."  Perhaps it would have done better if an editor had forced Vance to cut perhaps a third of its content.
2417028
The author makes some interesting points about the history of science and its processes, but uses far too many words to get there. The book is three times as long as it need be..
4638233
I wish I could praise this biography of Harold Arlen but I can't. Not because the author doesn't make an effort to try
to please with a plethora of information. That's the problem- too much information. The book is a sequel to an
earlier one done by the author several years earlier.  There is just too much information. Over 360 pages of small
type and to the bitter end I was constantly looking ahead to see how many pages left and determining when to
skim sections.

The biographer felt it  necessary to give us background information on every person Harold met and dealt with.
No! Write a book about them if it was important to detail their accomplishments.. This could have been cut down
by at least 75 pages if the author had been more disciplined.  Maybe part of the problem is that Harold had a
great run in the early part of his career but by the early 1950s he was used up emotionally and it affected his work.
Much of that had to do with poor decisions in life on whom to partner with romantically as well as musically. So
how does one have anything positive to say about a person's last 20 years of life when there really isn't?  I found the
only thing of interest at that point was his travails in getting in and out of Russia.

To be fair, the author seems to know a lot about music and goes to great lengths to explain the music theory
and chromatic patterns of Arlen's work. That's nice but how many of us are music majors who understand that?
Bottom line- if you are a music lover and appreciate the guy who wrote  the music (not the words) for
Over The Rainbow, Get Happy and many other classics- read the book but don't feel compelled to read every
page or embarrassed to skip along.
4153698
I liked the book. I thought that it was good, but it had way too many rambles from Lemony Snicket. It felt like I had been cheated out of a good book. Book 11 was good and had a lot of exciting and new information, but all book 12 does is give you an overview of the people the Baudelaires have met through their series or unfortunate events. The book does add some interesting information to the series and also has a well written ending. I'm hoping that
book 13 is better than the next to last peril (penultimate peril, book 12).

thank you for your time,
Loran
4928097
The author's defense of introversion is very important and usually well-argued and interesting. But she relates too many studies defending some aspect of her argument. I just got tired of reading about so many studies which weren't always interesting.
3453726
I can't believe people talk like that in family situations.  If XXX rated language doesn't bother you, the book is basically a summary of sayings that most people who grew up in the 40's and 50's would speak.
4197992
Dad is fat the books isn't really all that fat on jokes.  But what really bumped the rating down a star was how preachy he became in the last two chapters.  Apparently he really is tired about being asked about the number of kids they have, if they are going to have more and he takes this opportunity to let us know this in no uncertain terms.
I am still a big fan of his stand up but would most likely not buy another of his books.
2108041
Interesting book but full of too much self congratulatory and name dropping.
1562572
This book is very talky. I do not like information books that are talky. I have to skip over all the stories to get to the information Im looking for. I can hardly finish it. I have to force myself because its so talky.
554963
These Private books (along with most of Patterson's other works: NYPD Red, and the numbered series) are low brain-power reads or listens, as is the case with the audiobooks, which makes them fine for commuting or wandering around with headphones doing housework.  However, the British reader for this book, Paul Panting, should NEVER be allowed to do an American 'accent' again - it was SO bad that it was distracting.  I listened to the previous books in this series and there was another British reader, Rupert Degas, in the 2nd installment who was just fine reading American parts.
374199
Did not like:
So much dialogue in the book that if it's true, should be cited, and if it can't be cited, shouldn't be said.  Found myself skipping lots of verbose, unscientific text

Seems like the whole book could be summed up with:
1- find clever ways to stretch through each joint's range of motion
2- foam roll
3- when foam rolling gets easy, buy more expensive rollers.

Did like:
Some nice take-always on working for joint mobility
2491517
This otherwise well-written book spent way too many words telling me about what food and liquids Mr. Wilson ingested during his days and too many flowery descriptions of the sunsets and other things he viewed out the window.

I wanted to know much more about his initial training (almost no information provided about that), the operation/maintenance chores of the tractors and trailers (some of that provided, but not enough) and the financial aspects of being a long-haul trucker (very little mention of that). Also almost completely missing was information about the well-known sordid aspects of truck stops.

Mr. Wilson seems to be a fine writer and should know his stuff about trucking so I'd ask him to write another book, this time mostly about what he omitted from his first book.
4696515
He presents an argument that cannot be refuted without resorting to myths and personal feelings.  He is too wordy.
2298960
I listen to audio books in my car as I do quite a bit of commuting.  Let me say up front that I love listening to Christopher Hitchens.  I've seen him on TV many times and even saw him speak in person once.  He is a fascinating orator.  But he is NOT the right person to record his own audio books.  His volume varies too much.  One moment he will be rambling along in a low tone and then suddenly step up his volume in the middle of a sentence to emphasize a point.  I couldn't understand much of what was being said because of the background noise in my car.  If I turn up the volume enough to hear the softer parts, then it is completely jarring when he abruptly increases his volume.  It was a choice between missing 2/3 of the content or being randomly blasted by the speakers.  I had the same problem with Hitch 22.

Mr. Hitchens, do yourself (and your fans) a big favor:  Next time hire a professional audio book performer (preferably British) to record your book.  Someone who is crisp and has a steady volume of speaking.

I would strongly recommend that consumers check this out at a library instead of purchasing it, particularly if you can't use headphones, have hearing problems, or plan to listen in an environment with background noise.

The content that I was able to understand was interesting and compelling.  What a shame that it wasn't presented in a more effective format.