A very dry book filled with a lot of facts
589700
I was not impressed with this book.  The writing was good but it was very dry.  It did give a good insight to his life but it was dry reading.  I am glad other people liked the book but it was just not my cup of tea.
2428871
There is a ton of useful information but is very dryly written.  This book is best used as a reference.
1411739
I first heard of the murder of Professor Culianu when I was an undergrad at the University of Chicago. I was immediately drawn to find more about the man who allegedly believed in the magic he studied. After reading "Eros and Magic" and "Out of this World", I thought that this biography might shed some additional light on the man, his scholarship, and his occult dabblings.

  I must admit I was somewhat disappointed. The book is very dry and factually oriented. The facts themselves appear to be well-researched, but are simply presented without much else. Mr. Anton tells us where Prof. Culianu was born, where he studied, what books he wrote, but seldom goes deeper than that.

Ironically, given the themes in Culianu's work and life, Mr. Anton fails to realize the importance of evoking the imagination in telling the story, to bring the facts to life in a meaningful, interesting way.

  There are only the slightest hints of the exciting ideas that motivated Prof. Culianu's scholarship and personal life.

It is said that Prof. Culianu took a personal interest interest in the ideas he was studying, actually practicing divination and teaching a course on it. But rather than exploring in any depth either Prof. Culianu's professional ideas or personal interests, these facts are simply used as "hooks" to carry the reader along.

  If you are interested in the ideas of Prof. Culianu and/or his interest in occult scholarship, this book will probably disappoint you. If you are looking for a lot of biographical facts about Prof. Culianu, then this book may be for you.
1593062
I was looking forward to my database class until I started reading this book. It is really dry and doesn't do much to keep your attention.
2962902
Presents some interesting facts but writing style is confusing and boring
3148460
I absolutely love books on the human experience in many different forms, but this one was extensively dry, filled with too much of her own thoughts and feelings and not enough about the experiences she was having.  Plus, her vocabulary is outstanding, but to the average person they would not be able to understand the information she is trying to relay.  I will admit I got about 50 or so pages into it and stopped, mainly because I was bored, so I have not read the whole book.  Maybe I will try to get a little further in it to see if it picks up...I just know that I kept falling asleep trying to read it.
2939197
A but of a disappointment in the way it is written A bit dry, dusty, and even a bit preachey. I did not enjoy it as much as I had hoped even though it did present a lot of information.
618454
As one other reviewer called it, this is a "great history book about a rather dry topic". That may be true, but there's no escaping that this is a REALLY dry topic.

To be fair I think the author does the best that he can with the material available but I'm just not certain that a history of management consulting and/or strategy frameworks will ever be the basis for a gripping book. If you happen to be interested in this very narrow topic for some reason, then you may not have any choice since there aren't many options. Aside from that, though, I'm not sure who I would recommend it to (if anyone) since it doesn't offer much substance on any of the frameworks covered, any meaningful insights into the firms, and isn't a terribly interesting or well written story.

Anyway, I really wanted to like this book, but I was bored to tears and eventually gave up.
4087370
When you read Hislop's book your doing it for information not for pleasure. This book is a very dry read, but it is full of very great information. For example, where did the practices of easter came from (what does an easter egg have to do with Christ?), the christmas tree, and others. This book can be offensive to some (especially if your Roman Catholic) but it is informative. I use this book to do research on where some of the pagan practices that are common in modern day christianity came from, and I believe this book works well for that. As with all books outside the Bible you have to search the scriptures to see if what it says lines up with the accuracy of Gods word. If your looking for a book that's a little easier to read and less than 150 pages on the same subject you might try "Babylon Mystery Religion" by Ralph Woodrow.
1241734
A little dry and lacking personal stories which break up pure information. That being said, it has a lot of biblical truth
111210
Not as well written and formulaic. A lot of recapping of background information
1940305
This book was very dry and complex to understand. After reading the first part of the book, I just shelved it and will probably put it in my next Goodwill donation.
4578194
The book has a lot of well organized information.  It can be very dry at times.  I learnt many things that I didn't know.
2264412
Very dry and had a lot of names rthat held no meaning and were only featured one time. It is definitely a historical account of a sliver of time.
3632611
I'm liking this because it's obvious Carrier has done his research.  But he's not a very engaging author.  It's a dry read.  While I appreciate the content, the delivery puts me to sleep.  This book was written for the purpose of making a case -- a very thorough case -- to other scholars who have, like Carrier did himself for a very long time, dismissed any theory that challenged a historical Jesus.  He takes the reader through the research and methodology -- in meticulously and repetitive detail -- that changed his mind.  I get it... he's trying to get the scholarly types to reconsider their positions, but for those of us, like me, that don't need that much convincing (I stopped believing in a historical Jesus years ago) it's redundant and boring.  Nevertheless, a thorough explanation of his research and methodology IS  necessary if scholars and lay people alike are ever going to stop taking for granted that there was a Jesus (just because the Bible says so) and actually start looking at the evidence (or lack thereof) from an objective point of view.
4878926
While some of the information is useful, this is essentially that nightmare of textbooks with which all of us are at some time or another saddled: a fascinating subject presented in the most dry, uninteresting and monotonous fashion possible.  If you're into that kind of book, indulge in some stale crackers and brackish water as this book lobotomizes you page by page by page.
1643509
The topics covered in this book are worth learning about and I found myself instantly engaged after reading the first chapter online. However, after getting about halfway through the book, I found myself quite bored. The writing is very dry and the book follows a very cookie cutter format of laying out an experiment then explaining the results with quite a bit of unnecessary filler in between. There are many experiments where the results are quite obvious, and while I understand the need to prove them through experimentation, their explanations are often too drawn out.

This book could have easily been at least one-hundred pages shorter and made its point with far more precision (I don't know if it is just me but there was a definite overuse of exclamation points that made the writing seem less credible). I think perhaps the writer could have taken a few tips from his research to convey his information in a more digestible format.