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Title: Not a book, but an essay
Review: This is one of the most overrated books in recent history. His premise is sensible enough, but he takes nearly 500 pages to repeat himself endlessly and tirelessly when he could have made the same points just as effectively in 8-10 pages. To me, the sign of a good writer is the ability to clearly, precisely and honestly express him- or herself with brevity and poetic rhythm. Despite his New York Times pedigree, Friedman is anything but a good writer. Instead, he takes to absurd form the student fulfilling the assignment from a middle school teacher to "write a ten-page paper" when that student only has enough material for a two-page paper. Eight pages of repetitive, redundant fluff would be bad enough. Unfortunately, in this case, Friedman provides more like 480 pages of it.
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