Seth House

Not great; not many English alternatives

Revisado: 07-02-19

There are not a lot of English language audio books available on the history of Brazil. I did learn quite a bit however I was left wanting more at every turn.

The narrator is good but does not speak Portuguese (probably some Spanish and French) and her pronunciation is often bad or incorrect which is distracting when you know the actual pronunciation.

The first half of the book dives into the colonial era and spends quite a bit of time trying to convince the reader that slavery is awful. Not even Brazilian slavery, just slavery in general. I would have appreciated more juxtaposition to the north American system and I wanted way more detail on the very interesting nationwide efforts to move the culture past those sins.

The second half focuses on modern era. The author never really gets you inside the heads or hearts of the subjects in the book. It's often a series of factual accounts loosely strung together and every single chapter or section left me wondering "why?" or wanting more detail. Why were the people upset this time? Why did they reinstate him with limited power? Why does the military keep trying to take over? What are the motivations or philosophy of this general or that politician? They lost control of congress? I didn't know there still was a congress. The author often throws out a name soup of people or organizations or artistic works that are never mentioned again which makes it hard to follow which subject we should be paying close attention to. The cultural aspect assumes you already have knowledge of notable artists, songs, movies, etc.

The writing style is also hard to follow. It needs a good editor. It will frequently jump around to different time periods then return. I think the intent is foreshadowing but the execution is awkward. It reads as though individual topics were pulled from another source material and doesn't flow well from event to event. Several times the author will state something like, "The <political maneuver> was a complete success. Unfortunately it had disastrous consequences." Or it will conclude a period, then jump back and talk about something different from that same period.

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esto le resultó útil a 18 personas

Excellent follow-up to Chernow's Hamilton

Revisado: 04-10-19

I listened to this on a whim after listening to biographies on Hamilton, Madison, and Jefferson and was very pleasantly surprised! Burr was a fascinating person and decidedly not the one-dimensional villain often portrayed. His reputation was railroaded in life by his enemies and again in history by star-struck biographers wanting to use him as a foil for other founding fathers. This book had me riveted from start to finish.

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Incredible voice work

Revisado: 03-05-19

All the characters in this narration have unique and identifiable voices. The character work of the book was great and the narration made it even more so. That alone has made this one of my favorite listens.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Timeworn story, lackluster and gross characters

Revisado: 02-20-19

Only made it half way through. The story is a rehash of every aliens story ever where they're on a space station as a company weapons experiment and break loose through improbable, boring, and predictable circumstances. The characters are universally terrible people and unrelatable, uninteresting, and gross. If you've seen the first half of Aliens 3 then you're up to speed with the first half of this book.

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esto le resultó útil a 4 personas

Engaging sci-fi romp in the tradition of Star Trek

Revisado: 01-23-19

An easy recommendation for those that enjoy the sci-fi "what ifs" of the early Star Treks and DS9s. If you, a nerd, were made into a sentient AI what would you do with your immorality?

The narrator's voices and characters were just great.

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Best "agile training" I've been through

Revisado: 01-11-19

As a professional programmer I've been through several mandatory agile training workshops throughout my career. This book is the first time I've understood the "why" of kanban, sprints, and the reason those things should be important for the rest of the company.

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Good content; rough narration

Revisado: 01-08-19

The content of the book was informative. I enjoyed the broad historical overview. However the narrator's cadence and tone were more what you'd expect from a parable or a fairy tale -- very distracting. It was possible to overlook and to focus on the content, but it was sometimes quite hard to do so.

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esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

Funny, absurd story; amazing narration

Revisado: 12-31-18

A lot of the humor in this book reminded me of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, just with superheroes and more sex jokes. The narration alone is worth the price of admission.

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Fun, informative, and thought provoking

Revisado: 12-29-18

Eugenia Cheng delivers yet another delightful romp through the world of mathematics. As usual, there's just enough explanation for lay-people that haven't been in a math class in many, many years (like me) to follow along without trouble. She's funny and witty -- and has good practical advice.

This book is for you if you're keen to see category theory compare a geometric representation of prime factors of a number to a geometric representation of how someone with white privilege can still feel underprivileged.

She touches on logic, fuzzy logic, infinity, set theory, complex systems, axioms, and more. All the while explaining how to see and understand a perspective you may not agree with. Our political debates would be much more productive and less divisive if everyone applied this advice.

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esto le resultó útil a 6 personas

There's something in here for every American

Revisado: 10-30-18

There is something in this book for every American of every political leaning. If you are a conservative this is an easy recommendation. If you are a liberal there is a lot of non-confrontational insight here into the conservative mind. And if you are a liberal who hates Ben Sasse, this book is still definitely for you. You will be surprised at how many common values you and Sasse share. Take this advice from a fellow life-long liberal: it's worth your time.

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