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The Coming Storm
- Narrated by: Michael Lewis
- Length: 2 hrs and 27 mins
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The Premonition
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For those who could read between the lines, the censored news out of China was terrifying. But the president insisted there was nothing to worry about. Fortunately, we are still a nation of skeptics. Fortunately, there are those among us who study pandemics and are willing to look unflinchingly at worst-case scenarios. Michael Lewis’ taut and brilliant nonfiction thriller pits a band of medical visionaries against the wall of ignorance that was the official response of the Trump administration to the outbreak of COVID-19.
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Poor narration
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Girl softball? Yes please!
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informative, entertaining & almost addictive
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Overall
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For those who could read between the lines, the censored news out of China was terrifying. But the president insisted there was nothing to worry about. Fortunately, we are still a nation of skeptics. Fortunately, there are those among us who study pandemics and are willing to look unflinchingly at worst-case scenarios. Michael Lewis’ taut and brilliant nonfiction thriller pits a band of medical visionaries against the wall of ignorance that was the official response of the Trump administration to the outbreak of COVID-19.
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Poor narration
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All over America, families are investing blood, sweat, tears, and retirement savings in their children’s sports careers, all with the ultimate goal of…what exactly? A college scholarship? A professional contract? Simply the taste of victory? Through the lens of the highly competitive world of girls’ softball, Lewis reveals the youth sports industrial complex that has arisen to aggressively monetize after-school pastimes.
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Girl softball? Yes please!
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Excellent listen
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informative, entertaining & almost addictive
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An Unexpected Finding
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Publisher's Summary
Tornadoes, cyclones, tsunamis…Weather can be deadly—especially when it strikes without warning. Millions of Americans could soon find themselves at the mercy of violent weather if the public data behind lifesaving storm alerts gets privatized for personal gain. In his first Audible Original, New York Times best-selling author and journalist Michael Lewis delivers hard-hitting research on not-so-random weather data—and how Washington plans to release it. He also digs deep into the lives of two scientists who revolutionized climate predictions, bringing warning systems to previously unimaginable levels of accuracy. One is Kathy Sullivan, a gifted scientist among the first women in space; the other, D.J. Patil, is a trickster-turned-mathematician and a political adviser. Most urgently, Lewis’s narrative reveals the potential cost of putting a price tag on information that could save lives. Please note The Fifth Risk includes the entirety of The Coming Storm.
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What listeners say about The Coming Storm
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- CKH Vancouver
- 2022-02-11
Environment mets Trumpian Politics
Fascinating weaving together of personal stories that are pulled together in the tale of the US weather division, and how it is messed over by (SPOILER ALERT) happenstance and then the Trump administration.
& Don't be suprised if you end up deleting Accuweather app from your phone afterwards...
1 person found this helpful
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- Helga Sorensen
- 2022-01-13
don't bother reading
rambling, pointless, unfocused, I'm glad I didn't pay for it. the author is clearly self-important, full of his own writing skills, but has lost sight of where he was going with this idea.
1 person found this helpful
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- Roger Perrault
- 2018-12-06
Insightful
Fascinating inside story about the gutting of public services to benefit the few. Public service in the age of Trump is how he, his family and friends is how best to line their pockets at the expense of the general public.
1 person found this helpful
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- Joseph Parsons
- 2022-12-12
Pleasant Surprise
Selected because I admire the author and without reading information on the topic of the book. It was an interesting pleasant surprise.
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- Adrian Rossel
- 2022-11-10
Short and Sweet
The information presented in this book is disturbing with the almost privatizing the publicly available information about weather in the US. Like many of his other books, Michael is very powerful at intertwining stories with the content.
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- Rose Mary
- 2022-07-27
Odd inflections
The book is good if you can manage the readers bad performance. The flow of the text was off because the way the reader spoke was not in tune with what was happening in the moments of the book
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- Andrew
- 2022-03-27
Informative Listen. Was a pleasure to listen to.
Slightly infuriating to listen to the corruption of politics governing such things like weather reporting but what can you expect. Good information for the public to hear and be aware about.
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- Langer
- 2022-03-23
Surprisingly Fair
This short offering from Journalist/Author Michael Lewis is excised from a straight-up anti-Trump book ('The Fifth Risk'). The author's fairly obvious political agenda doubtless colors his presentation, but 'The Coming Storm' actually concentrates on personalities working at NOAA and the National Weather Service and the incredible leaps in technical proficiency in predicting weather (and thereby theoretically saving lives).
Lewis makes the point early on that citizen behavior in response to warnings is at least as important as accuracy - and lays out a case for political/corporate forces limiting potentially helpful data and capitalizing on deficiencies in warning systems - but largely documents historical events/decisions and lets the reader/listener draw conclusions.
Another nice feature of this recording: Michael Lewis does a very good job reading. Often hiring a professional reader is a much better option, but Lewis reads with creditable diction, comfortable timbre/cadence/tone, and great pacing. Additionally, he knows his material intimately, allowing him to emphasize certain sentences appropriately. The narration (with exceptional technical support) is very good.
Altogether, this 8/10 star excerpt is obviously biased.. but it's easy to pick out the wheat from the chaff. If you're interested after reading the Publisher's Summary and listening to the Sample Audio, don't hesitate to give this one a download (Bonus if you can get it as part of the 'Plus' initiative).
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- TK
- 2021-11-30
Well worth your time!
I gave up 2 hours and got a story that will stay with me for years.
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- Sharron padden
- 2021-09-28
The coming Storm
A very interesting story about tornadoes, the destruction and why people ignore tornado warnings. I am grateful that there are no tornadoes i my country.
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- GE Guest
- 2018-08-07
Badly Mixed Message
Mr. Lewis is a good storyteller. I very much enjoyed The Undoing Project but this one is not of the same quality. Perhaps that's why it's free. It seems to be an underhanded way of equating middle America's short-sighted attitude about tornados with their attitude about current politics. Is this about climate change? Not exactly. Is it a metaphor about Trump? Hard to tell. Is it interesting? Yes, but as Max Tegmark says in Our Mathematical Universe, "I find that when it comes to telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, it's the second part that accounts for most of the differences in how they portray reality: what they omit."
I had friends whose house was wiped out in Joplin and I went the next day to help clean up. A good part of everyone's days was spent wandering around in slack-jawed disbelief. It was simply beyond words, but Lewis makes a good attempt. He also does eventually assess the problem correctly - it's not that there isn't enough warning, it's that no one can imagine the monster will come for them. Far too many people in tornado alley have not even the most rudimentary form of storm shelter. That story could have been what this book was about. But it's not.
It's not even about any specific "storm" at all. It's not a clear case for anything in the future. It IS a place where lots of shots are lobbed at the Trump administration. That would be alright if the story was told in a complete fashion, but it's not.
He seems to disapprove of government collected data of all sorts recently being removed from public access, but he also seems to disapprove of the private sector actually DOING anything with that data. He conflates the collection of data with data analysis, as if because the Department of Commerce has the data it is also the ultimate expert on what that data means or how it can best be used. And nowhere does he even give a hint that any of that data might be inaccurate. For instance, crime data is reported to the FBI by local police. No one seems to be aware that because of personnel shortages on municipal departments, often only one-tenth of crime reports can be processed. Federal crime statistics are way off. And he wonders why they are no longer available? Are people the solution or the problem? Is government the solution or the problem? He can't lay any solid argument, but he sure can complain and blame Trump for the sky that soon will fall.
It's not a bad listen for free but there is a deep undercurrent of intellectual dishonesty that ultimately makes it a disappointment.
195 people found this helpful
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- Kingsley
- 2018-08-01
Talking about the weather was never so interesting
'The Coming Storm' tells a brief history of NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and the prediction of weather - how it has improved over time, and how we can get people to actually pay attention to the extreme weather warnings.
It is rather political in it's content - discussing changes in NOAA (and Dept of Commerce) since the Trump Administration has begun. It also discussed laws and attempted laws that were trying to dismantle or cripple NOAA, in favour of private companies like AccuWeather (of which one of the founders is appointed to Dept of Commerce by Trump), despite the fact that AccuWeather gets it's data from NOAA and then just processes it differently.
It goes into details on how people react to storm warnings - often ignoring them due to a 'it wont happen to me' attitude, or thinking 'home' means safe. And it looks at how NOAA is changing how it present information based on social science.
Michael Lewis narrates his own work, and it is fine narration. Nothing outstanding, but clear and well produced. I would be more than happy to listen to him narrate more of his own books.
Overall a very interesting piece of work that is likely to get a lot of strong opinions from the two sides of politics - something that can already be seen in the handful of reviews on Audible already.
88 people found this helpful
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- Janice
- 2018-08-06
Not about the weather
This was interesting for about an hour and then it quickly became an anti-Trump book.
80 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 2018-08-06
More like a Podcast
This felt less like a narrated story and more like a podcast, but I still very much enjoyed it. Those that listen to NPR and podcasts would enjoy this.
70 people found this helpful
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- discerning_buyer
- 2018-08-18
Political leanings aside, it was interesting
I think it's pretty clear there is an agenda here that is left leaning. That is unfortunate, I prefer neutral material. Interesting story, but I was turned off by the liberal bias.
65 people found this helpful
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- Elisabeth Carey
- 2018-09-10
Why you shouldn't ignore the weather forecast
The age of Big Data is upon us, and mostly what we hear are the troubling and potentially terrifying consequences of business and government having easy access to all of our data. That's a real problem that we have to devote time and attention to dealing with.
Yet Big Data can do many other things, many of them very beneficial. The misnamed Department of Commerce collects enormous amounts of data about, among other things, the weather. Before the growth of the internet into its modern form, that data mostly sat on paper, and later on tape, and eventually some of it on servers, in the bowels of NOAA--the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, inside the Commerce Dept. Then a grad student with the foresight to see how useful vast stores of data could be went looking for weather data to test out a theory for his research, and stumbled upon a hole in the Commerce Dept. systems that let him download that data and work with it.
He didn't even know that it was the Commerce Dept. he'd gotten into. He had no idea NOAA was part of Commerce.
This book is a discussion of how much weather forecasting has improved because of NOAA's research and data collection, and what they and other clever people have been able to do with it.
It's about why people still discount National Weather Service warnings that could save their lives.
And it's about the private corporations that are trying to lock up that data so that, after you the taxpayer have paid for that research and data collection, you would then be required to pay again, to for-profit companies, for any use of that weather, including getting weather forecasts.
You may think you get your weather news from your local tv station or Accuweather or the Weather Channel, or your favorite weather app (I have several, for different purposes), but all that data comes from the National Weather Service, which is to say NOAA.
I happen to like how the Weather Channel repackages that information, but you and I and everyone with internet access can get the same information directly from NOAA's websites.
Also, Accuweather is lying to you when they say they're more accurate than NOAA. They're cherry-picking particular dates and locations when their meteorologists did a better job of interpreting NOAA's data than the National Weather Service did. That will happen sometimes; someone who knows nothing about horse racing will sometimes bet on the right horse when the expert picks the wrong one. It happens.
With weather forecasting, it doesn't happen often. And that data? Accuweather wouldn't have it if your tax dollars hadn't paid for NOAA to gather it.
Michael Lewis gives us a clear, lucid discussion of what's going on and what it all potentially means.
And also why you should not roll your eyes at the weather forecast, no matter whether you get it from the National Weather Service, or from one of the for-profit companies repackaging it for you.
Highly recommended.
I received this audiobook at no cost from Audible as part of their Audible Originals program, and am reviewing it voluntarily.
61 people found this helpful
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- Alex
- 2018-08-06
Skeptical
The author obviously put a lot of research into this book and was able to convey the seriousness and destructive power of tornados and thus the importance of having accurate weather forecasts.
He also offered a fair deal of insight into where weather data comes from and eluded to many political as well as human issues inhibiting the progress of weather forecasting to minimize catastrophes.
What made me skeptical, however, was the rather obvious black and white painting of politicians and scientists — there were very obvious heroes and just as obvious antagonists.
While not entirely uninteresting, I found the tangents describing the backgrounds and (exceptional) commitment of various scientist/key contributors too long and many details at least borderline irrelevant.
In contrast and yet similarly, the politicians were presented as clearly inappropriate/incompetent for the roles they were appointed to, and solely focused on their own profit without eluding to any saving grace — are these individuals truly as selfish and one-sided as presented? In my opinion, the details given in this context seemed insufficiently convincing and strongly biased by the author’s personal opinion — again, making me wonder, to some extent, about their relevance.
The narration was just fine, properly read but not particularly remarkable (albeit, I particularly enjoyed the occasional moments during which the author appeared to suppress a giggle or onset of euphoria).
In summary, it was a decent listen revealing some interesting insights and highlighting a tax-payed service that is probably widely underestimated.
54 people found this helpful
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- lawrence mclernon
- 2018-08-18
What is this editorial really about?
A lovely double entendres. I took it thinking it was about the weather. I’ve read many of Michael’s books. He handles the explanation of complex transactions very well. This treatiest was a negative piece on Trump. It’s not only about his insane concept to use the Commerce Dept for commerce but he also worsened things by putting 79 year old Wilbur Ross as the head.But the climax of the book is Trump is allowing tornadoes and by the end of the piece Trump is a tornado and all of you who voted for him you will get what you voted for; chaos?
46 people found this helpful
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- Clifford Reynolds
- 2018-09-02
political dishonesty disguised as weather data.
don't waste your time. full of contempt for everyone BUT the "in group." performance was good though.
43 people found this helpful
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- Richard Rainford
- 2018-07-31
My odd review
This is how democracy is destroyed, from within. This is a must read just from the several nuggets of information given. Form your own opinion but dig like hell for the information, because it’s out there.
43 people found this helpful