PositiveThe Wall Street JournalLudicrous will have tremendous appeal to car buffs but requires the reader’s faith that its assertions are reliable. Its sources have refused to be quoted out of fear of Mr. Musk ... Perhaps this information is solid. But people who aren’t identified can’t complain about being misquoted. It’s also ironic that, after not disclosing his sources, Mr. Niedermeyer goes on to slam Mr. Musk for not being open with the public ... Entertaining anecdotes abound in the book ... The book hits its stride when the author details Mr. Musk’s attempts to revolutionize the way cars are built ... The portrait of Elon Musk that emerges from this book is one of a social-media obsessive who is constantly overpromising, playing the role of the self-sufficient business person while relying on government favors ... But his is an achievement, nonetheless.
John Feinstein
MixedThe Wall Street JournalIn Quarterback, the author says surprisingly little about the titular position. Mainly he offers up rambling interviews with five quarterbacks who discuss whatever pops into their minds. By the end of the book, readers may feel they know less about the modern quarterback position than when they started ... Mr. Feinstein has shown himself a versatile writer about sports, but at times his knowledge of football seems stuck in the 1980s ... \'Anyone who thinks that there is no racial prejudice involved in judging quarterbacks even today is naive,\' Mr. Feinstein writes ... Racial prejudice against minority quarterbacks has faded at every level of the sport. A book titled Quarterback ought to be aware of this.
Edward Tenner
PositiveThe Wall Street JournalMr. Tenner, a distinguished scholar at the Smithsonian Institution, writes in an erudite manner and cites dozens of studies, monographs and books, so many that at times the text veers toward the sort of survey of the literature that graduate students compose. There are bright spots, though. Learning via Mr. Tenner that there exists, in this era of flash drives and PDFs, a publication called Stationery News—devoted to fountain pens and letterhead—made my day. Since everyone understands that inventions and discoveries have unintended consequences, this aspect of The Efficiency Paradox can feel like the padding necessary to enlarge a magazine article into a book. But many findings in Mr. Tenner’s book put contemporary tech-anchored dilemmas into sharp focus.
