On Nov 14, 2025, I moved this essay to Medium. It's a 5-minute read.
But you can still read the background here...
I listened to the 1-hour audiocassette lecture in 2011. Since it had the same title as the 650-page book, I treated the abridged audio as an alternate version of the book, and I posted my comments about it to Goodreads under this book title. I didn't leave the book a starred rating, so as not to affect its collective starred rating, and I did specify I was responding to the abridged audio and not to the full print version. This generated a few negative comments from people who were mad at me for — in their view — reviewing a book that I admitted to not having read.
I disagree with this characterization of the book and of my activity. Audiobooks are books; abridged books are books; abridged audiobooks are books. If a one-hour recorded lecture is not meant to be considered a valid version of the longer print book, then the author or publisher should not give them the same title, as that causes confusion, the responsibility for which falls on them. Finally, I don't believe there is a One True Answer for how people ought to use the Goodreads website; it's social media, and we make it up as we go along. Goodreads may have hoped people would use their website in a particular way, but people who use the site may come up with creative interpretations and we are not necessarily wrong when we do so.
Nonetheless, I no longer wish to receive sporadic comments questioning the validity of why I posted comments about an abridged audio on the product webpage of the longer book ten years ago. I mean, the planet is burning, can we worry about bigger things please. But also, to the extent that I allow myself to be trolled, I admit to being peeved that I have logged over 1750 full-length books that I've read and yet internet strangers are repeatedly needling me about my intellectual capacities because of the single instance of an abridged audiobook among them. (Never mind that I, not they, am the one who bothered to engage the author's argument.) From their perspective, it makes sense that they comment on this post, since it is the post that they saw; but from my perspective, I wonder why this post is high-engagement and rarely does anyone interact with my other 1750 posts. It is a headscratcher. Thus, I have moved the old essay from Goodreads to this webpage. I have rephrased and reformatted the essay for clarity.
May I also add that it is common for people to complain that an online comment is not the correct length — it needs to be shorter to hold their attention, or it needs to be longer for me to prove my intellectual capacity to them upon their demand. That's in the same bucket with people who claim I should not have posted the essay in an internet field labeled "review" because my essay is, for one reason or another, not a proper "review." Or, if the field is labeled "comment," I shouldn't write a full-fledged review, but rather a shorter "comment," because that would be the proper use of the field. People have assumptions about the "proper" use of fields on the internet. (It's almost as if the proper use of the internet were ordained by God.) When they cannot or will not engage with the substance of what I wrote, they sometimes pick an argument with my choice of website, or my choice of labeled field on that website, or the length of what I wrote. But actually, that's not their concern. The reason they criticize the way I wrote what I wrote (be it essay, review, comment, or what have you) is that they don't agree with my point at all and they would like me to stop making it. Until they provide a counterargument, of course, I'm left with my own argument. Thus, my argument here has not changed since 2011, as no one has yet bothered to rebut it.
If you'd like to learn more about my work, I've published books. Also, I write for Medium. There, readers with a paid membership don't have to worry about the paywall.
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