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thereadingchip's review against another edition
Couldn’t gel with the audio version of this, sadly. Might give the print book a go in the future.
atrixareads's review against another edition
1.0
Audio copy via NetGalley for review.
I was drawn to this book as it blurbed: "In an increasingly divided society, Iain examines why we’ve all become so disrespectful and intolerant. Using experiences from his career in politics and the media, he says it doesn’t have to be this way, and suggests how we can all emerge from tribalism and division and become more respectful to each other and those who govern us. It is a book that ... uses deeply personal anecdotes to explain why we can look forward in a positive way to a better life both in personal and material terms."
Unfortunately, this is completely mismarketed and it's actually more accurately described as a memoir or a collection of Dale's personal viewpoints with a loose framing device of the state of public discourse. The acknowledgements explain how this book ended up mashed together. For me, it didn't work and resulted in a messy and unsatisfying listening experience.
Firstly, a few notes on the audiobook itself. Dale, having his own radio show is a decent reader, if slightly robotic. The bit of emotion when he was talking about his relationship with his father was genuinely touching. One thing that did irritate me was his impression of working class accents when reading quotes from northern public figures. Since he also did a passable impression of Boris Johnson he probably didn't mean anything by it, but it's always rubbed me the wrong way.
Now, I didn't know who Iain Dale was before I started this audiobook. If I'd known I was picking up a book by a centre-right, ex-tory brexiteer I probably wouldn't have bothered considering I'm a left wing remainer, but there's something to be said for opening up to opinions different to your own. Dale is, like most of us, a mass of contradictions (I'll get to those later). He has a Thatcherite economic stance and more liberal social values. I would have loved a deep-dive into why he rejected party politics and left the Conservative Party, but that's absent from this work. I would also have been interested in what he made of the Conservatives' more controversial policies e.g. Section 28, considering he's gay. Instead, we get seemingly endless pontification on a wide variety of topics, such as the NHS, climate change, Brexit, Mental Health and so on, usually not backed up by any evidence (there are no citations in this book at all).
There are parts of this book that feel like he's in the middle of a job interview or promoting his radio show. I had to laugh when he said "All they need to do is listen to my LBC show" while he was talking about attitudes to Islam in the UK.
My views do align with his relatively well on some topics, but on others he wildly misses the point on some left wing stances, but with this being a book, there's no space for discourse - it felt like he was talking at me and I was held hostage to his opinons with no opportunity for rebuttal for the duration of the audiobook. Ironic considering the subject matter. Probably best to keep that stuff for the radio show.
I still can't quite figure out what his stance is on use of language in discourse and causing offence. At the beginning he seems very sensitive to people swearing on twitter and shows like Naked Attraction on Channel 4. It's all a bit 'pearl clutching'. He says early on that people are too easy to offend nowadays, but later talks about how we should use language sensitively as it can cause harm if we don't? It's all very contradictory. He's offended by the term 'climate change denier', so make of that what you will.
I think there's several different books in here all fighting amongst each other. Based on the blurb, I think an interesting take could have been examples of truly disastrous public discourse (he could have drawn on examples from his own life) and then examined why they had gone wrong and looked at how they could be improved. Being someone who does some coaching at work, I know that there's plenty of sources on effective listening and conversations in the business sphere that could be applicable here.
I'd probably recommend this for Dale's biggest fans only.
I was drawn to this book as it blurbed: "In an increasingly divided society, Iain examines why we’ve all become so disrespectful and intolerant. Using experiences from his career in politics and the media, he says it doesn’t have to be this way, and suggests how we can all emerge from tribalism and division and become more respectful to each other and those who govern us. It is a book that ... uses deeply personal anecdotes to explain why we can look forward in a positive way to a better life both in personal and material terms."
Unfortunately, this is completely mismarketed and it's actually more accurately described as a memoir or a collection of Dale's personal viewpoints with a loose framing device of the state of public discourse. The acknowledgements explain how this book ended up mashed together. For me, it didn't work and resulted in a messy and unsatisfying listening experience.
Firstly, a few notes on the audiobook itself. Dale, having his own radio show is a decent reader, if slightly robotic. The bit of emotion when he was talking about his relationship with his father was genuinely touching. One thing that did irritate me was his impression of working class accents when reading quotes from northern public figures. Since he also did a passable impression of Boris Johnson he probably didn't mean anything by it, but it's always rubbed me the wrong way.
Now, I didn't know who Iain Dale was before I started this audiobook. If I'd known I was picking up a book by a centre-right, ex-tory brexiteer I probably wouldn't have bothered considering I'm a left wing remainer, but there's something to be said for opening up to opinions different to your own. Dale is, like most of us, a mass of contradictions (I'll get to those later). He has a Thatcherite economic stance and more liberal social values. I would have loved a deep-dive into why he rejected party politics and left the Conservative Party, but that's absent from this work. I would also have been interested in what he made of the Conservatives' more controversial policies e.g. Section 28, considering he's gay. Instead, we get seemingly endless pontification on a wide variety of topics, such as the NHS, climate change, Brexit, Mental Health and so on, usually not backed up by any evidence (there are no citations in this book at all).
There are parts of this book that feel like he's in the middle of a job interview or promoting his radio show. I had to laugh when he said "All they need to do is listen to my LBC show" while he was talking about attitudes to Islam in the UK.
My views do align with his relatively well on some topics, but on others he wildly misses the point on some left wing stances, but with this being a book, there's no space for discourse - it felt like he was talking at me and I was held hostage to his opinons with no opportunity for rebuttal for the duration of the audiobook. Ironic considering the subject matter. Probably best to keep that stuff for the radio show.
I still can't quite figure out what his stance is on use of language in discourse and causing offence. At the beginning he seems very sensitive to people swearing on twitter and shows like Naked Attraction on Channel 4. It's all a bit 'pearl clutching'. He says early on that people are too easy to offend nowadays, but later talks about how we should use language sensitively as it can cause harm if we don't? It's all very contradictory. He's offended by the term 'climate change denier', so make of that what you will.
I think there's several different books in here all fighting amongst each other. Based on the blurb, I think an interesting take could have been examples of truly disastrous public discourse (he could have drawn on examples from his own life) and then examined why they had gone wrong and looked at how they could be improved. Being someone who does some coaching at work, I know that there's plenty of sources on effective listening and conversations in the business sphere that could be applicable here.
I'd probably recommend this for Dale's biggest fans only.
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