Sugary excerpt form Ian Leslie's review of Dan Pink's Drive which made my day sunnier:
Daniel Pink’s Drive is one of 2010’s most high-profile non-fiction books. It has a timely thesis: that people are primarily motivated to work hard and achieve great things not by money, but by their own passion for what they do. It’s a good point, worth making. But I found Drive infuriating. This had nothing to do with its argument, or with Pink’s writing, which is fluent and lucid. Actually, it’s Drive that has the problem with itself, not me.
The author takes 146 pages to make his case. The remaining 80 or so pages, named “The Toolkit,” consist of what you might call meta-content or, in plain language, padding. Much of this padding seems to exist on the assumption that the reader won’t have time to read the first part–you know, the actual book.
I have to admit that I have a hard time reading self-help, self-motivating or whatever else they are call. More often than not, they are, yes, infuriating, because the author assumes that he is talking to someone who Isn't smarter than a fifth grader.
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