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Thursday, 5 June 2014

The Book of (Even More) Awesome by Neil Pasricha

Prepare for some classic damning-with-faint-praise.

This book is okay. There are mild smiles of recognition, occasional vague warm fuzzies, some confused "huh?s" Why I bothered to pick it up after the first one, I'll never know, because it is much of the same.

On the other hand, this book didn't irritate me the same way the first one did. Maybe I was in a better mood, maybe I'd gotten used to the style, I don't know. It's certainly not because it's substantially different.

But what is up with the random bolding of two or three words at a time? I could never make out a rhyme or reason for them, and they were incredibly distracting.

This and the book before it go on my list of things that should have stayed websites. It strikes me that this is exactly the sort of thing that might be fun to read once a day as you surf on by - but as a compilation, there's not enough there to make it worthwhile to read in a huge gulp. Some things should be just what they are - small blog posts. (I know, I know, where's the money in that? And far be it from me to tell that blog author to turn down a chance at publication.)

The author tries too hard to be universal most of the time. The times when he related actual stories or actual occurrences I enjoyed much more than the generic "putting on warm socks out of the dryer." If there was more of the author in the stories, there might be more there to read. More context, more content. Something. Embrace your particular situation!

So this is fine. It's probably a classic gift book for someone you don't know very well. And while I fully believe in appreciating the small things in life, of actively looking for moments of wonder, this book didn't really bring me inside why these were the things that made the author's day.

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