Matt Woolery
Highly recommend this book. An account of an organization bringing literacy to some of the most remote places on Earth.
Great background sources, really paints a picture of the inner workings of the administration. The book was written mostly in chronological order, and I feel like that made it a bit choppy to read. Would recommend the book overall.
Parts of the book are clearly outdated, but many of the examples are still relevant and quite interesting.
Of all the Presidential biographies in the series (so far) , this one stands out to me as the most political and negative. Obviously Johnson is universally desparaged, but the author seems to take a much more personal take than others in the series. Overall, the book is informative and accessible.
There are some good points made in the book, but overall I cannot recommend. The author spends entirely too many pages on things he doesn't like (which is just about everything). A short list: doctors, businessmen, politicians, economists, psychologists, scientists, lawyers, ebooks, anything invented since the dark ages, and so on. He very much comes across as both a Luddite and a curmudgeon.
To summarize the book: The author has found that there is no word for the opposite of ‘fragile', so he cleverly coins the word ‘anti-fragile'. He then mocks everyone past and present who has not thought of this themselves or or applied to their lives and work. Einstein.. what an idiot- he didn't even know what anti-fragile was! He is quick to label others as charlatans, hacks,etc. He does not live up to his own impossible standards.
Most of his argument is semantics. A line repeated throughout the book: ‘Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence'. I do not believe he was successful in describing what anti-fragile was. No attempt is made to apply his theory to current events or the future, only to the all to convenient past.
He recalls with glee telling a student who asks what books he should be reading (none written in the last 100 years certainly!). I will end this by saying that while i don't believe his premise that there are no modern worthy books, his is one you can afford to skip.
This book follows the Grisham formula, though there are still some unexpected twists. Whats different about this book is the comedic tone - there is a humorous side to the story that sets it apart from other Grisham novels. Entertaining read.
