Book reviews so far: one week update

A quick update on what readers think

Hi folks. Quick reminder to tune in tomorrow for my first live talk about the ideas from the book, Tuesday Oct 1st., 12pm PST: register here.

The book launched one week ago and most reviews are very positive. This is no surprise since most of the first people who bought this book are on this substack :) So thanks to all of you who have helped out so far.

It is true that reviews are a good indicator for interest in a book. It means someone had to take the time to a) read the thing and b) write a thing, which then creates c) social proof for people considering the book (trust a thing).

On Amazon, which is the most visible place for reviews, there are 15 ratings with a 4.6 average. Thanks to all of you who have taken the time to post.

This review from Bhuvana is one of my favorites. She shared that “I devoured this book… what sets this book apart is it’s conversational and relatable style.” I did most of the writing on this project and a major goal was to set the right tone and have the style feel like talking with friendly mentors that respected you and that you wanted advice from.

I also loved this very thoughtful review from Andrew Maier. He mentions Monteiro’s work (which, like Papanek, was a reference for me), as well as two books I know very well, Hill’s Dark Matter, which was very influential years ago and Dan Brown’s excellent Designing Together (which I wrote the forward for).

Of course, with the good there is also the bad. I honestly don’t mind critical reviews as long as they give me something to work with: A better book recommendation? A specific thing in the book that frustrated them that someone else has done better? A reason why they expected more than what they got? Then I can understand and learn.

Why Design Is Hard calls out the likelihood of this sort of “not a designer” criticism (in Part 2) and I might write another post about it since I expect more of these. But this one is just hard to take seriously since they clearly didn’t even read the excerpt or do some web searches about my experience.

Over at goodreads, there are 6 ratings and 3 reviews, all 5 stars. Some are repostings (thanks!) from people who posted on Amazon.

Thanks for following along. Hope you have a good week.