Pluses and Minuses

Pluses and Minuses

Given the popularity of Stoicism, I've read and listened to a surprising number of books on the topic. This particular audiobook has its pluses and minuses. First, it is relatively short, under 2 hours long. For a quote book with only 100 quotes, that's actually pretty long. But this isn't just a quote book. Instead, it offers a brief introduction to stoicism, including its contemporary context and relevance (even what some of its current detractors say), before launching into not just the quotes from several ancient Roman stoics, but a brief discussion about how that quote can inspire us in modern times in our current lives. I actually like it when a quote book isn't just the quotes but provides insight and application of them.

So, what didn't I like? I was not wild about the narrator. He has a perfectly pleasant voice; that's not the problem. He's actually narrated another stoicism book, possibly by this publisher, though I don't remember. The problem is he doesn't know how to pronounce stoicism! The topic of the book! He leaves out one of the syllables that is clearly in the word. (He manages to say “stoic” correctly.) He pronounces it as “STOW-ism,” not “STOW-ih-sism”! You really should know how to pronounce the main topic of the book you're narrating. I find it hard to imagine how the author neglected to pick this up or the people at Audible, as I’ve heard all audiobooks are listened to before they are uploaded to the platform. At least the word isn't said as often in this book as it was in the other one. The other issue is I don't get a sense of the author's voice and ideas about the stoic quotes; I don't get a sense of Stan Edwards. I read a lot of public domain works, which means they were written 95+ years ago; in those books, even the ones on what you may consider the driest subjects, you always get a sense of the author's voice and opinion. Sometimes, it adds quite the spark and amusement. My gut instinct is that AI or ChatGPT had a hand in the writing of this book, and the publisher did not inject enough of his own voice. Good books can be written with the assistance of AI, but the publisher/author needs to be the one at the helm, massaging the words and being sure it doesn't sound like a robot wrote it! Of course, I cannot say that this happened with this book; it is just the way that it comes across. The insights are decent but have a generic feel to them. If you absolutely adore stoicism, you will still probably enjoy this book despite these flaws—so long as the constant mispronunciation of the book's topic doesn't drive you a bit batty, as it did me.

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