Reviews and Comments

An enjoyable book about Barcelona during the middle ages, a wonderful story and historically accurate giving lots of information what the life and times must of been like in the 1300's

The book goes into far too much detail with so many people, places, events, and politics it was too hard for me to keep track and even understand the basics of the history. It might be good if you come in with a base understanding of the History of Spain but it was too dense for me.

An interesting but long book that highlights numerous examples covering world history - the main gist is that institutions that embrace inclusivity, property rights, technologies and a fairness to the many will succeed over institutions that are exclusive and set up to extract resources from the many to benefit the few.

An excellent book about practicing meditation, mindfulness, and kindness. How by doing so can lead to your happiness, and success -- and even world peace. The author includes practical lessons to get started, explains it with research and case studies.

As a former engineer, Chade-Meng Tan explains mindfulness in a direct and clear way with little of the typical "holistic mumbo jumbo" that surrounds the topic. He keeps things straight-forward and his instructions for exercises are flexible and easy to understand, providing Easy and Easier options. Instructions often include "whatever that means to you" easing the internal pressure of thinking you're doing things wrong.

I checked the book out of the library but now considering buying it to be able to review as a refresher over the years.

The book contains good concepts and clearly explains deliberate practice and how practice is the defining characteristic of excellence and not any innate talent. The authors are presenting their very thorough research trying hard to convince anyone who might be skeptical I suppose.

However, it is quite repetitive in showing case study after case study how deliberate practice played the critical role for memorization, for doctors, for golf, for violin, for piano, for chess, for mathematics, and on.

A good concept on exercising your mind like a muscle to be able to generate ideas. However, I had to put it down when it said by following this book you too can become a billionaire like Mark Zuckerberg. A little too much snake oil.

Great interesting premise, but slow going, plot just sort of meanders along; not as enjoyable as many of his other stories