I am not fond of audio books. I cannot sit still, while listening, when I start doing other things, I cannot concentrate, and will "not hear" any more, and while listening, I feel I cannot grasp what's being said. Even this audio book, consisting of seven lectures about the history of the United States, I was not entirely comfortable. Apparently, listening in my arm chair on Saturday morning is different from listening in a lecture hall.

While the content of the lectures was interesting, and the author, Maarten van Rossem is clearly an experienced lecturer, I was very much aware of the irritation I would have felt if I had bought this CD. First of all, the content seems very little. There are seven half-hour lectures, but the speaker / author makes all kinds of irrelevant jokes and asides, which take up many minutes each time. He even jocularly comments on the recording, which was apparently done in vivo. Van Rossem is known as a very humourous, somewhat distraught man, who easily loses himself in long-winded meandering arguments, but for the purpose of recording, one would expect a little more discipline. In addition to that, he seems to be addressing a rather youthful audience, so jokes and metaphors are geared to that age group, of college students in their late teens early twenties, which does not always appeal to listeners in a different age group.

I believe, the lectures contained some interesting information, but as I tell my own students so often: if you do not take notes, you will forget 70% within two weeks. How likely is it the arm chair listener takes notes? ( )