PanThe Times (UK)A misnomer ... Only for those who are willing to struggle through 400 pages with no structure, no driving narrative, writing so bad it would shame ChatGPT, huge omissions and such naive optimism that by the end you want your money back ... Berners-Lee has an important message, though ... This should have been the core of his book ... But the worst sin of all is blind optimism ... Berners-Lee does have one good idea: social linked data (Solid), which is a digital wallet in which our private data is stored and over which we have control ... I hope he spends more time developing that and less time writing books.
PositiveThe Sunday Times (UK)If you enjoyed the gaudy \'let them eat wedding cake\' drama that was Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez’s wedding in Venice, this is the book for you. It is a field guide to the super-rich. You already knew they were different from you and me—but you had no idea quite how different ... It’s not the toughest beat but a hoot to chronicle—and even more fun to read ... There is plenty of serious analysis amid the tales of the rich behaving badly ... Those who want Osnos to go beyond chronicling the super rich’s proclivities and write a manifesto on how to run them off the road for good will have to look elsewhere. This is a field guide, not a how to manual ... The writing is better than the usual field guide, as you’d expect from a New Yorker chap ... The only irritation is the number of stories and interviews that are anonymous—but that goes with the gilded territory.
Peter Robison
PositiveThe Times (UK)Peter Robison...argues in minute detail that the 737 Max 8 crashed twice because it was a botch job of a botch job ... There’s far too much Boeing history in the book for even the most dedicated aviation geek, but what saves the more corporate chapters are the aviation \'fun facts\' ... Robison’s clipped prose and eye for the small, everyday details can be dry at times but it accentuates the horror of both accidents.
Brad Stone
MixedThe Sunday Times (UK)The details are stunning and the writing so good you feel you are in the room ... In chapter after chapter you get the most detailed account you’ll ever need ... The details of the National Enquirer story are astonishing. Stone reveals in thriller movie style how Sanchez’s brother, Michael, a Hollywood agent, sells text messages and photographs that expose the affair ... It’s great stuff, but as you read you get a nagging feeling that all the juicy detail is part of an unspoken \'deal\' between Bezos and Stone. Stone will get fantastic source material, provided he does not criticise the firm too much. Many readers will feel he skates too quickly over Amazon’s failings ... Bezos’s sprawling interests and empire can leave the book feeling disjointed. The chapters could be arranged in a different order and you wouldn’t really notice because each is about something very different ... My advice? Read the ones that interest you and skip the rest.
Brian Dumaine
PositiveThe Sunday Times (UK)You’d think it would be easy to write a page-turner about the firm and its founder, but what makes them so successful is complicated, contradictory and controversial ... If you are an Amazon hater or even a sceptic, this is not the book for you. Critics will be enraged by what they will see as Dumaine’s efforts to forgive Amazon its sins ... What makes this book a great read, however, is the way Dumaine shines a light on the man who has made Amazon such a success ... like it or not, tenacious Jeff and his data-driven instant-gratification machine are only just getting started. Only the paranoid — and those who copy Bezos’s use of artificial intelligence to learn what customers want and recommend it before they even know they need it —will survive.
Nicholas Shaxson
PositiveThe Sunday Times (UK)...Shaxson is back, with something bigger to say ... With forensic accounting analysis, sharp reporting and interviews, he demonstrates how individual company leaders, private equity advisers and the big banks, aided and abetted by government and the large audit firms, structure their businesses to increase their and their investors’ share of the economic spoils in good times, while offloading risk and the costs of failure in bad times on staff, customers and the public at large ... Some readers will find the level of financial detail, especially regarding private-equity deals, tough going. Others will feel that the tone is a little ranty and negative. But Shaxson leavens the mix with some great writing ... I wish he had set out detailed proposals for how Britain could take an independent stand against the forces of big capital. The freedom (and the chaos) that Brexit provides is a great opportunity. Better yet, it is an agenda around which the left and the right could unite, the right wishing to preserve the purity and efficiency of free markets and the left to drive social change. Perhaps that will be the subject of his next book.
