Review: A Prescription for Change: The Looming Crisis in Drug Development

A Prescription for Change: The Looming Crisis in Drug Development by Michael S. Kinch
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The book begins with a history of drug development. I was surprised that this history took up more than half of the book. I found it interesting, but it wasn't necessary for the topic of the "looming crisis" in the title. When the book gets around to the crisis, the author provides a reasoned argument, mostly, unsurprisingly, dealing with money. Glad I read it. I'm maintaining my worriedness.

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Review: Happy Go Money: Spend Smart, Save Right and Enjoy Life

Happy Go Money: Spend Smart, Save Right and Enjoy Life by Melissa Leong
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

One of many books teaching the uninitiated personal finance. The author covers the expected gamut of topics, and does a good job covering the finance basics and the indirectly related, such as selling stuff to raise cash, bond investing, and how exercise fights depression. Given the breadth of topics, when you finish you feel like you've covered a lot, and you have. The voice of the author is what I call Millenial/Attitude, which veers from pithy and funny to sometimes harsh. I found reading a bit at a time worked. The author was Canadian. This means that she was nicer than some authors, and more friendly, but also talked about the Canadian way of personal finance, which can be different than the US or anywhere else in some of the details and terms. Overall, not bad for beginners at personal finance, a light read and simple reminder for the pros.

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Review: Heaven Lake

Heaven Lake by John Dalton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I agree with a few of the reviewers I read, by paraphrasing - well written sentences, but the story wasn't quite up to snuff. A naive small-town Illinoisan becomes a missionary in Taiwan, fails as a missionary, and takes on a strange task without much thought, involving travel to rural mainland China. The travel and the culture clash stories were interesting, but did't all seem believable in the way they were written. I kept reading, though, to find out more about how the rural Chinese dealt with their own culture clash going to the big city. Interesting.

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Review: 21 Days to Resilience: How to Transcend the Daily Grind, Deal with the Tough Stuff, and Discover Your Strongest Self

21 Days to Resilience: How to Transcend the Daily Grind, Deal with the Tough Stuff, and Discover Your Strongest Self by Zelana Montminy
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I've read quite a few of these self-help books covering the same topics as this one, and this is....well, another one. The author took the tact of creating a kind of "greatest hits" version of a variety of self-help concepts. To pull these ideas together in one book, the concepts are described in short chapters. While I didn't find anything new here, I did appreciated the attempt to organize these concepts. I also appreciated the way the author put effort into creating short descriptions of the concepts and short methods to implement them. You don't always get that in these kinds of books. The anecdotes used were also better than average. Okay for review.

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Review: The Savage Detectives

The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Very long and difficult to follow when listening to the audiobook as the many characters come in and out of chapters, and time goes back and forth. The worst part of the audio was that different chapters were narrated by different characters, many (most?) female, but the audiobook narrators were men and used the same voices as their male characters. This greatly confused things.
The writing was interesting, but what was written was not as interesting, if that makes sense. On finishing, I felt I had finished something by a good writer, but couldn't put my finger on what that was... I have "2666" on audio read to go, but I think I'll put it on the back burner for now.

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Review: The Answer Is…: Reflections on My Life

The Answer Is…: Reflections on My Life by Alex Trebek
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I expected a kind of "Last Lecture" feel to Trebek's book, and there was a little of that, providing some guidance for the future. But it was much more a quickly written autobiography with a number of anecdotes from Alex about his life. I enjoyed this. The book is short, and the topics are varied, so my interest never flagged. I listened to the audiobook, with Jeopardy superstar Ken Jennings narrating much of the book, when Alex wasn't talking. Alex did narrate the beginning and end, and the chapters about Jennings and those about his wife. I appreciated this. Well done. Strangely, Jennings and Trebek reminded me in one aspect of the story of Mark Twain working with US Grant to write and publish his autobiography when cancer flared up for Grant. For a Jeopardy fan, you get a lot about Trebek's background. You don't get much on Jeopardy's past - Art Fleming is mentioned twice. I expected more there. But given the focus of the book and the feeling that time is precious for Trebek, the lack is understandable. As a casual reflection on a life well lived, this worked for me. Trebek comes across as the kind of guy you wish was your neighbor.

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Review: Affiliate Marketing NICHE SITE NINJA: How to Start A Niche Website & Make Money Online With Clickbank, Linkshare, AdSense, & More

Affiliate Marketing NICHE SITE NINJA: How to Start A Niche Website & Make Money Online With Clickbank, Linkshare, AdSense, & More by Alex Nelson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I listened to the audiobook version of this at high speed, so investment of time was about 15 minutes. This is the equivalent of an introductory magazine article that covers two topics - starting a website focused on a niche, and adding affiliate links in order to make money from said website. This was mostly listing pros and cons of different services. Not a bad introduction to the affiliate link services out there, but it does include what sounds distinctly like an MLM. I would expect to be able to find dozens of articles on the internet at the same depth, or even with more information, and more current.

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