Way outdated

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

The first lecture talks about the latest advancements in Astro-observation coming down the pike....in 2002!

What could The Great Courses have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Have more material from this decade.

Have you listened to any of the narrators’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from 36 Big Ideas?

The first one for beginners

Any additional comments?

I feel like I wasted a credit - living in a time of unprecedented change, ideas get outdated by the year, so having a book that says it is from 2014, but containing lectures looking forward to 2002 is a bit silly.

44 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Collection of random lectures

What disappointed you about 36 Big Ideas?

This series has random set of lectures from other Great Course series. Most of the time professors/narrators make reference to other lecture in their original course. Description of the this Great Course series does not tell that this is set of lectures picked from different courses. To me, this is cheating.

31 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

36 Random Ideas

These lectures are good. They are not the 36 most important ideas ever- but they are great ideas. I would compare the lectures, each chapter, to randomly opening an encyclopedia to a page, & then getting a pretty good overview of the topic found. If you're into knowledge for the sake of just knowing things and how they work, this is a good listen.

18 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Should have been titled "36 Not So Big Ideas"

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

The book would have been better if its contents had agreed with its title.

What could The Great Courses have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

This book was actually an advertising avenue to expose people to 'The Great Courses' product line. It would have been enjoyable if it had actually been a book about 36 great ideas that had significant impact on the lives of all people. Instead it was a book mostly about a variety of things that are of great interest to a very small select audience.

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

This was a reproduction of a single lecture from 36 different individuals, all of whom did a credible job of speaking before an academic audience.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

The contents of this book included very little that corresponding to the grand title or of interest to me at all but even then the subject matter was dumbed down to the point where it was useless and uninformative.

Any additional comments?

I regret having purchased the book and expended my time on it.

17 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Inconsistent, awkward

This collection provides a series of lectures picked out from several great courses series, with no clear connection between one and the others. They might be interesting in the context of their own courses, but here they just feel jumbled and unnecessary.

13 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Disgusting and shameful

I did not get past chapter 27. It had referred to animal cruelty such as sewing kittens eyes shut and slicing monkey fingers off as scientific experiments.

I am furious this book did not come with a disclaimer as I would never spend money on anything that espouse animal cruelty.

Some may find my attitude pompous but honestly all this could have been avoided with a simple disclaimer.

The other chapters were interesting. But this chapter 27 made it a complete no go for me.

Dear Audible, please put disclaimers in future on books like this. It really upset and freaked me out.

6 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

A wide range of topics

I think I enjoyed this series of lectures so much because it was so varied. I found a few topics that were especially interesting to me and now I know I can buy those courses knowing they will be superb. Great job.

4 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Great for a Survey of Topics

This was more of a very long commercial for "The Great Courses" online offering than anything else. What you get is 36 30 minute lectures on a fantastic breadth of topics. From the Big Bang to Renaissance food and cuisine and on to gene therapy, this list of lectures is a convenient way to become conversant in a number of topics that, kept at the ready, would give one great ammo at a cocktail party.

Great appetizer - not satisfying.

2 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Decent, but not exactly spot on

Where does 36 Big Ideas rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

In the middle.

What did you like best about this story?

Its not a story, clearly Audible does not pay much attention to these questions. lol

Did the narrators do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?

WTF? this question is not even remotely relevant. lol

If you could give 36 Big Ideas a new subtitle, what would it be?

I would not.

Any additional comments?

This is a collection of PARTIAL courses from various Professor's, so its a good "cheese sampler" but its missing the "main course" if you catch my drift. Still quite good indeed, but in no way is it an intellectual "four course meal". Good though, quite good indeed.

2 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Another great course from Great Courses

Assembling a variety of topics like this exposed me to subjects I might otherwise have missed. really good material presented by remarkable people. Faaabulous!

1 personne a trouvé cela utile