A scattered collection of thoughts
597901
The author gives a lot of information, but it's just dumped out there for you. It's not organized in a clear conceptual way. Also, some terms simply aren't defined. He started talking about the merits of "pulling guard" without ever defining the term. I had to go check the web for what it meant, but that sort of knowledge is exactly what I was looking for in the book in the first place.
27855
I was looking forward to this book.  However, in reading it I was a bit disappointed.

The descriptions of the 26 thought experiments are not very deep and are often not very clear.  In particular, the entry on "Identity of Indiscernibles" consists of a few long block quotes from an important philosopher and a few pages of barely relevant remarks (a few of which betray the author's ignorance of Leibniz's philosophy).  Other entries, like the one on "Maxwell's Demon," are clearer and more helpful.

There is a bit of additional material before and after the descriptions of the thought experiments, leaving only 85 pages for the discussion of 26 thought experiments.  To make matters worse, many of the pages are half white space.  This means that none of the thought experiments is covered in much detail.  That is a problem since many famous thought experiments were devised to influence debates of complicated scientific or philosophical matters.  Cohen doesn't spend much time on this background information; he doesn't take the time to lay out the precise context in which each thought experiment was invoked.  Furthermore, the short descriptions he gives us are not always as careful or clear as they could be.

All that said, for a reader with a bit of knowledge on the history of science and history of philosophy, this book can serve as an entertaining refresher.  On the other hand, I would not recommend it for someone who has little background in such material.

One final gripe:  The author misspells the name of famous contemporary philosopher Judith Thomson (Cohen spells it "Thompson") in his "V" entry on Thomson's violinist thought experiment.
1480048
This book reads like a set of blog entries.  I've read his other book which I thought was better. I liked this book, it was interesting, but I'd hesitate to recommend it due to the style.  I'm a little surprised at all the really good reviews saying this book is well written.  I think it could have been a very good book with better editing, but it's rambling and loose and conversation-like. I have higher expectations when I pay for a book.
4795788
This is interesting as a concept, but there are several arguments for this "bursty" self-organization that simply don't ring true.  I walked away feeling like I got very little from this book.
3401758
Poorly organized, this seemed like a stream of consciousness collection of thoughts the so-called writer had. It also seems much of the content is copied from online videos. It really gives you little useful information.
51342
Indeed, I was anxiously waiting for a HA proper dictionary and, alas, what I received instead was a collection of essays dealing with some of the major topics in the work of HA (which also means that not all of the major concepts are treated in these essays). Being, in turn, a collection of essays, this work is in some sense quite redundant, for there are quite a few good collections of papers on HA around.

And while I have not read any of the essays (for I have just received the book), another thing that bothered me was that none of the scholars present are top-notch HA scholars (Benhabib, Villa etc.), as good as they may be. In sum, I believe the title of this work is misleading, and as such I will keep on waiting for a proper HA dictionary, and not just another collection of essays.
1508179
There are several good ideas in this book that warrant a revisit or a redescription but unfortunately, pearls of thought are often diffused by the litter of anger, snide comments about this and that, and the author's habitual prose of discontinuing the argument with side remarks and personal rambling. While I have no problem with Taleb's prose--and it was cute just before the fifth bracket containing these rambling; and by the way, please use the double dash--they become especially burdensome when you have to read through multiple pages like that in a 329 pages book excluding the bibliography wondering where you were the last you read sensibly. These continuous streams of side remarks and rambling certainly make the reader feels like an unwilling audience chained in following Taleb's own wanderlust through nothingland. But Taleb did warn the reader somewhere in the beginning that this was his own private novel--a device for synthesizing his thoughts. I guess this caveat should have been part of the title--think "The Black Swan: One Man Search for Understanding"--or this tome sent to the fiction section.

If I have only but one content criticism reserved for this book--and it is not Taleb's wayward reading of Popper's Poverty of Historicism, which he concisely but mistakenly summarized as Popper's thesis that prediction for the social world is impossible because we are unable to predict technological innovation (gosh!)--then it is his major claim on the fallaciously severe, knowledge-impeding concept known as the narrative fallacy.

Unless I am mistaken, Taleb seemed to have made one self-contradicting claim here. For only through conjecturing--the act of constructing a series of explanations of some phenomenon that may resemble a narrative--can less robust conjectures be refuted and new knowledge constructed. But if like Taleb, one argues that narratives are fallacious for aiding knowledge growth, then there remains no other way for us to reconstruct some explanation of the past, and by doing so, nothing to be refuted and therefore no knowledge gained.

Unless of course, Taleb understood this point outright and mangled the book in a way such that no major argument, even less a narrative, could be gleaned from it after many frustrating but precious hours of a reader's time.

I give one star for the attempt at tackling an interesting topic that in the hands of a more committed, and yes, more grave thinker with better command for the jewels of thought littered across human history, would have been a mind-warping work; and I also give one star for the excellent and extensive bibliography that has been underserved as a pretty vase for this book.

For such an interesting topic with major repercussions for the existence of human beings in the coming ages of grave uncertainties, who would want to take such an entertaining but unthoughtful approach? For this Taleb should learn something about representation from the book jacket artist, whose designs I give one star as well in both editions of this book.
1789564
Disappointing. I opened this book hoping for inspiration and a philosophic guide to living with less in the way of material possessions. Instead I found a laundry list of how to choose cooking equipment, or travel without a car. Plus a whole section on the supposed benefits of veganism and the benefits of exercise. This book just misses the point and clutters my mind. One to get rid of.
2474477
This book although well intentioned seems to be a poorly written and carelessly edited bunch of ramblings. It's almost as if the author just spilled out every thought in her head onto the page without thinking about expression, grammar or use of language, for example - "The benefits to the patient are said to be highly beneficial."

The section on tarot is mildly interesting but if you want to learn more about the psychic and spiritual side of life there are much better books available written with professional authority and experience rather than just a selection of opinionated musings.
2341392
I've read a lot of books about rock, but never one so lazily assembled, so transparently tossed together for a quick buck.

The book is a collection not of serious, in-depth reflections about prog-rock artists and music, but mostly just a bunch of personal history/memoir essays focusing on how each author was introduced to the music of some prog-rock band. (SPOILER ALERT! First exposure to Yes/ELP/Genesis/King Crimson/etc. was through the cooler, slightly older kid next door. And this is supposed to be some sort of revelation?)

Some of the authors are rock writers, some not, but the writing in general is even lazier than one might expect from third-tier rock writers. One writer goes on and on about how bad Jon Anderson's lyrics are, singling out "Yours Is No Disgrace" for particular scorn. He suggests the lyrics are meaningless, yet Anderson has previously said they're directed at soldiers drafted for the Vietnam War. Even if the author didn't want to do a quick web search, it seems to me that one might put together "1971 ... song with numerous military references ... gee, I wonder if this is about Vietnam?" And did it ever occur to the author that Yes might have wanted the lyrics to be more evocative than literal, to better fit the more abstract nature of its music?

Here's another example: The guy who writes about Todd Rundgren says Todd played all the instruments and did all the backing vocals on his first three albums. C'mon, is it really THAT hard to look at the credits on the CDs? Or, for God's sake, to hear the horns and FEMALE backing vocals on side 4 of Something/Anything?

I had assumed that my time as copy chief of Spin magazine would have exposed me to the worst that music writing had to offer, but I was wrong. This is a new low.
3621238
A little disappointed as it rambled on.  Some interesting tidbits but not sure it was all worth it.
742117
From the description of the book, I expected On Beauty to be an interesting, insightful work that would influence my thought processes and bring to the forefront of my mind issues that I otherwise would not consider. While the book had moments of truth, of insight, and of humanity, they were strung together incohesively, rendering the novel almost impossible to comprehend in its entirety. There were too many issues brought up and too many characters followed, that the experience was rather overwhelming.

Of course, the focus on many characters would not have been such a negative thing had they been developed properly. Instead, they seemed to remain the same from beginning to end.

On Beauty is not an engrossing story. It is, instead, a slice of life from the Belsey and Kipps families that is all too stagnant and ultimately leaves the reader wondering what the author was getting at in the first place. Its lack of momentum left me wondering if I should even finish. I pulled through it, though, and was left disappointed.
4856572
I found Ms. Barnier's book to be a collection of rambling anecdotes and uninformed philosophical musings about ADHD and education. Some of the games and activities might be useful to homeschoolers who have no resources to get started. If your child has reading difficulties/dyslexia, be warned. Ms. Barnier's advice about how to approach reading is based on her "feelings", not any background in evidence-based instruction.  The book reads more like a collection of blogs.
3257321
Perhaps I was looking for more from Country Living, but this collection of "ideas" was pretty drab. It starts with pages and pages and pages of different christmas tree themes. I started skipping pages to see what else was in the book. I did look at every page, and every idea, but really was yawning over these pretty ho-hum ideas. The way the book is organized is a little too formatted - one picture for each idea (or at least most ideas) which makes for little creative browsing. Personally, I would have preferred a bigger spread picture with several ideas being identified from the room or view.

At the end of the book, they have a few pages of 'credits' for each idea. That kind of trivialized the whole thing for me as well. It brought to mind how this probably worked... a company-wide email "Hey guys, we're pulling together a christmas book of ideas. Send your idea in, and we'll use it in our book." There really wasn't a cohesive tone or style to the book, and it was pretty darned dry.

When I'm looking for holiday ideas, I'm looking for inspiration. Both for decorating, and for putting me in the holiday spirit while I leaf through the pages. I really got neither from this book, and it'll go in the "to sell at next yardsale" pile. I get more interesting or usable ideas from one Country Living, or Martha Stewart magazine than I did in this book.

At the same time I ordered this book, I also purchased the Farm Chicks Christmas book&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/The-Farm-Chicks-Christmas-Merry-Ideas-for-the-Holidays-Country-Living/dp/1588165213/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">The Farm Chicks Christmas: Merry Ideas for the Holidays (Country Living)</a>&nbsp;I really preferred both the ideas and the format of the Farm Chicks book.
885392
In one story, the mortician's daughter felt "crazy and alone as a mouse trapped in a hat box." (31) She was always the outsider, always the oddball, always the one that got constantly teased and ridiculed. But perhaps this dark poet may be just the person to lend a willing ear.

In another story, one aspiring writer is dramatically taken by the genius works of Kafka. "I also read with deep shame at the jealousy I felt: jealousy that someone should write better than I; jealousy that another writer should say his part, then have his stories stories as timeless as a platonic formsit on the shelf of a second-hand bookstore collecting dust while I labored vainly, foolishly even, on flawed nonsense, thinking I was producing great art." (52) With his idol holding on to his last breath, the writer wonders if his writings should "be printed and sold like vegetables at a market." (56)

This small collection of stories is a well-written account of incisive wit and raw sensitivity. I thought the writing style was reverent and intelligent with a quiet solitude, but the stories didn't quite captivate me. While some were more enjoyable than others, most of them felt "unfinished," leaving the reader with questions rather than answers. And perhaps that was Dubbs' main establishment in these works. It's clear that these stories contain a philosophical approach that provoke critical analysis and pensive thought.  Like the stories that ran rampant with no end, perhaps this book would inspire the same in critical thinking, ensuing in a torrent of questions with no answers.
2721509
Scattered, random thoughts that have been said before. Not worth reading even for free. Recommend finding something more authoritative, organized, and well edited.
3711840
There are few good ideas in here. After spending money for the book, I found that I would be SPENDING more money to get organized.