Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Waiting to be Heard: A Memoir
    Waiting to be Heard: A Memoir
    Waiting to be Heard: A Memoir
    Audiobook12 hours

    Waiting to be Heard: A Memoir

    Written by Amanda Knox

    Narrated by Amanda Knox

    4/5

    ()

    Switch to ebook

    About this audiobook

    Amanda Knox spent four years in a foreign prison for a crime she did not commit, as seen in the Netflix documentary Amanda Knox.

    In the fall of 2007, the 20-year-old college coed left Seattle to study abroad in Italy, but her life was shattered when her roommate was murdered in their apartment.

    After a controversial trial, Amanda was convicted and imprisoned. But in 2011, an appeals court overturned the decision and vacated the murder charge. Free at last, she returned home to the U.S., where she has remained silent, until now.

    Filled with details first recorded in the journals Knox kept while in Italy, Waiting to Be Heard is a remarkable story of innocence, resilience, and courage, and of one young woman’s hard-fought battle to overcome injustice and win the freedom she deserved.

    With intelligence, grace, and candor, Amanda Knox tells the full story of her harrowing ordeal in Italy—a labyrinthine nightmare of crime and punishment, innocence and vindication—and of the unwavering support of family and friends who tirelessly worked to help her win her freedom.

    Waiting to Be Heard includes 24 pages of color photographs.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateApr 30, 2013
    ISBN9780062237620
    Author

    Amanda Knox

    Amanda Knox is an exoneree and a writer in Seattle, Washington. She was wrongfully convicted of murder in Perugia, Italy, in 2009. In 2011 the conviction was overturned, and she was affirmatively found innocent of the charge of murder. In March 2013, the Italian Court of Cassation annulled the acquittal and ordered a new review of the case. Then in March 2015 Italy’s high court overturned the previous convictions and ruled she was innocent. She now lives in Seattle, her hometown. She is committed to helping others who have been wrongfully convicted.

    Related to Waiting to be Heard

    Related audiobooks

    Personal Memoirs For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    Related categories

    Reviews for Waiting to be Heard

    4/5

    229 ratings80 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      I love when I find a book that I make time in my day to read. There are some I pick up because I'm bored, and of course I regularly read at certain points in each day, but "Domestic Violets" was a novel that I was desperate to read, and I budgeted huge gaps of time to make it possible.The main character, Tom Violet, is like many other men. Thirty-something, trapped in a soul-crushing job, distanced from his wife and wondering why, worried about erectile dysfunction, and wishing for so much more from his life. He's unique in that his father, a charismatic novelist and Lothario, has just won the Pulitzer, and has moved in with Tom and his family because his latest beautiful-but-crazy wife has kicked him out due to his infidelity.Tom's voice is excellent, and his dry observations on marriage, parents, corporate silliness, and genders carry this novel even when the plot becomes a bit predictable -- happily, not until the end is near. It's a light and easy read with great depth and humor (my favorite kind!), and I was sad to say good-bye to Tom and Curtis Violet.
    • 5/5
      Tom Violet is a thirty-something husband and father working at a thankless corporate job in Washington DC. He’s just finished writing a book and although he’s too unsure of himself to actually show it to anyone, he dreams of becoming a famous novelist. It just so happens that his father, Curtis, IS a famous novelist and has just won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.It’s getting harder for Tom to stomach his life in the corporate world and to make matters worse, he and his wife haven’t been communicating very well lately. Then his father shows up at his door in the middle of the night after having been kicked out by his wife. It’s almost more than Tom can take.I picked this book because I had been reading so many great things about in around the blogosphere. I was afraid that, as often happens, my expectations would be too high and it wouldn’t live up to the hype. I couldn’t have been more wrong! This was a fabulous book – it’s hard to believe it’s Matthew Norman’s debut novel. The writing is so descriptive and beautiful. It’s also filled with the dry, sarcastic humor that I love. It has shades of Jonathan Tropper and also of the movie Office Space. Tom is obviously flawed but instantly likeable. Actually most of the characters in this book could be described that way. Everyone must read this book – I insist!
    • 5/5
      Absolutely key book for those interested in how language evolved. Some of its central points are the subject of impassioned debate: Pinker is a Chomskyite, and argues that humans are born with an instinctual ability to learn the language spoken around them. Many others are less deterministic. Pinker's evidence -- the extraordinary speed with which children of two to four learn language -- is powerful, but underlying assumption of an innate "grammatical gene" is not accepted by many in the field. Despite the debate, those with an interest in how language developed and what it is should read this book. Not only is it thought provoking, it is very, very well written.
    • 4/5
      If you only ever read one book about the science of language, make it this one. Drawing on the imagery of the computer age, Steven Pinker makes a powerful case for the idea that we are born with language skills etched in the hard drive of our brains.
    • 3/5
      I don't much care for Pinker and find it daunting that he's somehow attained "celebrity" status in cognitive science. Was it with books like this that he did so? This basically reads like an extended defense of Chomsky's universal grammar (UG) and Fodor's language of thought (LOT) hypothesis (perhaps not surprising--Pinker's name often comes up when a discussion of "mentalese" is at hand). A great deal of it is vacuous and it affords criticisms of UG and LOT barely a nod. Overall, lazy and predictable. Oh, and the jokes aren't funny.
    • 5/5
      I finished reading this book last night before bed, and since then I have been looking forward to writing this review. Can I just say how much I adored reading this book? I said earlier that this was the best book I have read so far this year, and I meant it. I loved every little thing about it. As soon as this book hits the stores, I am going to go buy a copy for my personal library. Domestic Violets opens a little bit strangely, with its main character Tom having a little problem with erectile dysfunction. Therefore, I was a little bit worried about how the book would play out. It turns out though, that I shouldn't have worried. The story was strange, funny, quirky, pathetic, and absolutely a joy to read. As a reader and reviewer, when a book is great you just know it. This will be a story that just resonates with its readers like it did me. I am physically sad that it is over. Let's talk about the characters for a second, because they are what push the story over the edge into fabulous territory. There's Tom Violet, who is so likeable and flawed at the same time that it makes him feel like a real person and not just a character. Tom hates his job in corporate America, he loves his wife Anna, but the passion has gone out of their relationship. Tom develops a crush on the other copywriter at work. This makes his marriage even worse, because he keeps comparing his relationship with Anna to his relationship with Katie. Then there is the fact that his father is a famous, award winning writer. Tom idolizes his father, but is afraid his marriage will end up failed just like all of the relationships Curtis has had. Tom is also writing a book, but has been afraid to show it to anyone but Katie, because he is afraid that they will hate it. Aside from all those story elements, there is a quirky cast of characters who all feel like they could have existed in the world that I personally inhabit. This is a book for readers, writers, and lovers of books. It's a story about normal people in an insane everyday world, dealing with real life problems. The things that happen in this novel could easily happen to you and me. And that's what makes it so great. Full of dry humor and a whole lot of love, Domestic Violets is a book that everyone should pick up. I would stand out on a street corner in the pouring rain and promote this book for free. That's how much I loved it. Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy. Highly recommended by me.
    • 5/5
      Pinker is a wonderful writer, and I enjoyed this book almost as much for the writing as the content (which was extremely stimulating). He makes a very convincing case, especially so if you don't know much about linguistics (I didn't). After reading this I went on to read other books on "mentalese" (aka "the language of thought"), and found that Pinker's position is pretty controversial and probably on the decline. I don't know how much of the rest of the book is like this, but it's worth reading, regardless.
    • 4/5
      Another smart, witty comedy by a male author – I am on a roll this year and loving it. I fully admit to being one of those readers who is lured by pretty, magical covers and I dodged around this book numerous times in the bookstore because it just didn’t grab me – but then I started seeing reviews.. and those reviews spoke really, really well of this book.So … I gave it a shot.I am so glad I did. Once again, I am reminded never to judge a book by its cover. This story had me in tears, it had me groaning with pity, it had me just completely entertained for hours and hours. I savored the story, enjoying how well-crafted it was and I felt like I was reading a book that didn’t pull its punches. When I finally read the final page I felt as if I was saying goodbye to friends, and that, folks, is story-telling. I connected with these characters and I wanted more.I’ll definitely be looking for more stories from Mr. Norman – which I hope is soon, because I do not necessarily want to be reading his book on developing web applications!Check this one out if you enjoy smart contemporary stories.
    • 5/5
      This is the most delightful book written by the amazing and brilliant Steven Pinker. It covers the nature of human language from the most modern perspective. It is also a thoroughly delightful read for anyone with any interest in this area.
    • 4/5
      Tom has always lived in his father's shadow--he's a renowned author who has just won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction (and just as renowned a womanizer). So Tom is keeping the fact that he has just finished his own book an extreme secret. What he is not keeping so secret is the fact that his job as a public relations copy-writer for a huge company makes him crazy. His daily clash with one of his uptight, tie-wearing co-workers is laugh out loud funny. What's not so funny is the fact that Tom is experiencing erectile dysfunction and it's beginning to crush his marriage. Factor in his most recent crazy step-mother, his own mother leaving his big hearted stepfather, the enticing 23 year old copy-writer in his office and the possibility that his wife is having an affair, it wasonly a matter of time before Tom went berserk. And boy did he ever!Norman has a lyric writing style that made me frequently stop and re-read a sentence or two because it was so beautifully written. This book deals with some profoundly difficult issues with tremendous humor without ever degrading the pain and drama that were involved in them. This is his debut novel. I certainly will be eagerly watching for more from him in the future--he's got the making of a powerful voice in fiction.
    • 4/5
      Helped me to understand how language is learned and in this sense has been very helpful in my teaching of ESL students. A bit complex, but worth the time spent to read and understand it. The benefit is in understanding. You have to find your own way to apply it. But unlike many book on educational pedogogy, it's real and it's useful.
    • 4/5
      This is indeed quite an amazing book. The writing style is simple, and Stevenmanages to handle this considerably complex subject with a great deal of dexterity. Each chapter is complete in itself, and I would recommend that each chapter be read on a separate day. This allows you to think about what has been written, before proceeding further. It is not a book for the casual reader, nor for the dilettante.It is a book that you must return to after a while.
    • 5/5
      I found this book to be enjoyable and quite refreshing. I would have found a similar novel from the point of view of the wife to be tired and done to death. But from Tom's view, it had humor as well as poignancy. I didn't find the book as humorous as some because Tom seemed depressed to me, though hiding it behind his jokes.I think many will be able to relate to Tom's boring job at what he refers to as the "Death Star" and the highlights of his day include annoying his uptight colleague who takes work too seriously, and his snack runs with his cute and much younger underling, Katie. So far, Katie is the only one to read Tom's novel and she loves it.But now Tom is feeling overshadowed by his very successful and Pulitzer-Prize winning author father, Curtis Violet. Also, his wife wants to have another baby and his erectile dysfunction is not helping matters.This was a really good novel, with some great characters and great writing. I highly recommend it!my rating 4.5/5
    • 3/5
      In this highly praised book, the author covers a lot of ground on how language was created and constructed, how it is learnt and how it evolves. The author argues that language is a human instinct hard-wired in our brains. Frankly, I found this book tough to read for very scientific and sometimes dry. It is an interesting technical subject but I miss the sociolinguistic aspect of it – communities speaking languages over time, imagining a human context. The book is still on my shelf, perhaps I should read it again.
    • 1/5
      This would have been more interesting if miss priss explained how she got away with rape and murder.
    • 2/5
      Steven Pinker lost me as a buyer of his thesis with the very second sentence of his book: "For you and I belong to a species with a remarkable ability: we can shape events in other's brains with exquisite precision". It you take that for granted, Pinker's book will seem compelling and not especially controversial. Steven Pinker clearly takes it for granted, perhaps because he can't conceive of how we could possibly communicate effectively and coherently if it were not true. Consider the following, which I think perfectly encapsulates the world view Pinker can't conceive of, by Ogden Nash: Caught in a mesh of living veins, In cell of padded bone, He loneliest is when he pretends That he is not alone. We'd free the incarcerate race of man That such a doom endures Could only you unlock my skull, Or I creep into yours. To my way of thinking, it is the very fact that we *can't* "shape events in other's brains with exquisite precision" - or with any reliable certainty at all, that describes the human condition. The frisson created by precisely that ambiguity underpins all communication; it is the source of irony, tragedy, comedy, invention and imagination. Any theory of language which denies that fundamental contingency of human communication (as this one does) is going to have to prove it, and displacing that onus is a heavy task indeed. Pinker's psycho-linguistics makes precisely that denial, by holding that all human communication - every language - shares an inate, evolutionary programmed Universal Grammar, precisely because Pinker can't conceive how else human communication could be possible. I'm no academic, and certainly I have no background in linguistics. Given that this theory - which is from the same tradition as Noam Chomsky's - has been the ascendancy amongst academic linguistics for the best part of the last thirty years, Steven Pinker being one of the leading "normal scientists" within the paradigm (if I should be so bold as to use that word), and that The Language Instinct is considered fairly widely to be his magnum opus, I was expecting to have my naive relativistic assumptions carefully and systematically dissected, then annihilated, one by one. So imagine my surprise to find that in the place of carefully drawn arguments and compelling statistical data, one finds a tissue of anecdotal arguments carefully selected to fit the theory, arguments from authority ("Chomsky is one of the ten most cited writers in all of the humanities"), dubious suppositions in place of statistical data (the "it is difficult to imagine the following grammatical construction being used" sort of thing), begged questions, non sequiturs, and Roger Penrose-style irrelevant scientific waffle - especially as regards evolution - and a decided absence of any consideration of competing theories of linguistics - and straw men versions of those which do rate a mentioned. In short, Steven Pinker employs just about every illegitimate arguing technique in the book. His theory completely fails to account for metaphor (metaphor is barely mentioned in the book), nor the incremental development of language, the evolution of different languages with different grammars and vocabularies. At times Pinker is forced to argue that the grammar of our language is sometimes different from the words we actually speak and write, containing unspoken "inaudible symbols" representing a word or phrase which has been moved elsewhere in the sentence, so the sentence "The car was put in the garage", according to Pinker's Universal Grammar should technically be rendered as: "was put the car in the garage", and the construction we use can only be explained by movement of "The car" and the insertion in its place of an inaudible "trace": "[The car] was put [trace] in the garage". Now, again I am no technical linguist, but this has all the hallmarks of pure bull manure to me. Finally, Pinker is at pains to point out that Universal Grammar is only ever applicable to oral language: written language didn't arise for centuries after oral grammar "evolved" as a phenotype. But this hardly helps Pinker, since (as he himself points out, with reference to a transcript of the Watergate Tapes) when people talk in ordinary conversation they almost *never* use complete grammatical sentences: they interrupt themselves, they rely on physical gestures, they break off in mid stream and start a new thought, they don't punctuate (there's no unequivocal punctuation in spoken English), all the time. As is fashionable amongst the "reductivist" and "evolutionary" set these days (a set I would otherwise, in general terms, consider myself in agreement with), relativist arguments are scorned. But Pinker's paradigm implies that, provided we are competent in constructing our own sentences, we should all understand each other perfectly, all the time: there should be no ambiguity; no room for miscontrual; no possibility for evolution in ideas or language. It is difficult to see how anyone could believe such a thing. But neither the structure of language and grammar nor its practical use needs to be perfect for effective communication *at some level* to be possible, and surely that is all that is needed. The beauty of the contingent view of language, which Pinker seems unable to appreciate, is how it can account for the missed margin of communication which might explain the everyday cultural and interpretative problems we all face, and the figurative and metaphorical power we all find at our disposal. Ogden Nash's dilemma is our dilemma, however much Steven Pinker might wish it were otherwise. An earlier reviewer has mentioned Geoffrey Sampson's "the Language Instinct Debate" as a compelling antidote to Pinker's world view. Having recently read it (on the strength of that recommendation), I would firmly agree. In perhaps an ill-advisedly grumpy tone, Sampson - whose position at the University of Sussex inevitably means his academic profile is lower than Pinker's or Chomsky's - systematically and convincingly annihilates many of the arguments (such as they are) in Pinker's work.
    • 4/5
      Contemporary novels depicting the tribulations of women are often referred to as 'Chick Lit.' If there is an opposite, I believe Domestic Violets by Matthew Norman has introduced an authentic 'Dude Lit' novel into the fictional world. This self-depreciating tale explores life's pit falls with a humorous edge and provides relatable circumstances that are complicated, but not entirely isolated because many adults face similar situations at some point in the work place, marriage and in familiar relationships. The male perspective is refreshing and I image it will be well-received by both women and men giving Dude Lit an advantage over Chick lit (read primarily by females). The story-line is predictable. Often, it is obvious where things are going and will end just as expected or anticipated. No surprises here. Men get a freer pass, a bit self-righteous in places, and the female characters are left to burden fault mixed with guilt due to the omission of truth and full disclosure. A plot twist seems opportunistic and given the father's ego, which is addressed the entire novel, I can't reconcile that he'd accept the offer presented by Tommy Violet. I understand why the author took this route, but I personally didn't like it. It was a convenient tie up of a loose end and an easy revelation. It was the path of least resistant and will give readers the over-all impression of a happy ending. The everyone wins, sort of, approach.
    • 4/5
      One of the characters in Domestic Violets remarks that most first novels are autobiographical. Whether or not they’re autobiographical, it seems to me that a lot of first novels tend to be reminiscent of other people’s novels. That’s not meant to say that they can be derivative; it’s more likely due to the fact that a new author doesn’t have an established record yet, so he or she really can’t be easily evaluated against his own catalog. This can work either for or against them, depending on the connections a reader makes between the new author’s work and other fiction that seems similar--and with Domestic Violets, just about all of my associations were favorable.I think it’s an interesting comment on how quickly we process current events in the 21st century that Domestic Violets was published in the early autumn of 2011, and its events very specifically take place in the early autumn of 2008. The presidential election and the spread of the Great Recession both influence what’s happening to Tom Violet. Having said that, Domestic Violets isn’t about either of those events; as its rather punny title implies, this novel is firmly located in the domestic-fiction sphere. Its concerns--marital strains, friction between parents and adult children, career dissatisfaction--are everyday and entirely relatable, although in most everyday lives they’re not as funny.The humor runs high in Domestic Violets, as narrator/protagonist Tom Violet relies on it as a coping mechanism for the chaos of his life. He’s just worked up the nerve to show people the novel he’s been working on secretly for five years, while his world-famous novelist father has finally won the Pulitzer Prize--and moved into his spare bedroom, He and his wife Anna are in what’s best described as a “rough patch,” and his attraction to his young coworker isn’t helping smooth that out. The attractive coworker, and the amusement of an ongoing feud with a MUCH less attractive coworker, may be his primary reasons for going to the office each day, because the work holds almost no attraction at all. Things are pretty clearly on the verge of falling apart...and they do, quite entertainingly. Seeing how Tom picks up the pieces is quite entertaining as well.As I mentioned earlier, Domestic Violets reminded me of several other novels and novelists--all favorably. Matthew Norman’s style is his own, but his approach to some aspects of the novel reminded me of Jonathan Tropper and Greg Olear, while some of the work-oriented sections brought to mind Joshua Ferris’ Then We Came to the End. But Norman’s depictions of the domestic misadventures of literary people, particularly in the later portions of the novel, most made me think of Michael Chabon’s second novel, Wonder Boys. Chabon’s one of my very favorite authors, and Wonder Boys is my favorite of his books, so my connecting Domestic Violets with it is a very good thing for Matthew Norman and the future of our reading relationship.
    • 4/5
      Tom Violet’s life isn’t what he had hoped it would be. Working for a soul-crushing company where his only jollies come from tormenting his overbearing and obnoxious coworker Gregory, Tom feels stuck and unfulfilled. He also may or may not have a crush on his pretty young assistant Katie, a woman who is as intelligent as she is beautiful. His father is one of the foremost American authors and has just won the Pulitzer, a fact which makes Tom proud and envious all at the same time. Topping it all off, Tom’s penis seems to be malfunctioning, a problem exacerbated by the fact that his wife, Anna, is trying to become pregnant again. Though Tom has been languishing as a desk jockey for several years, he’s just completed his first novel, a fact he’s keeping secret from just about everybody, hoping he’ll one day become an author of the same caliber as his father. When the economic crisis hits, Tom’s job situation suddenly becomes dubiously strange, and while his feelings for Katie begin to mount, Tom’s relationship with his wife is becoming more and more complicated. Soon Tom finds himself at a sticking point at work, at home, and with his novel. Will his self-deprecating wit and verve be enough to save him from sinking, or will Tom go under, desperately trying to cling to all he could possibly lose? In this hilariously funny and inventive debut, Matthew Norman gives us Tom Violet in all his goofball glory and takes us on a journey filled with laughter, absurdity and surprising poignancy.This is another book I felt had a lot of appeal due to it’s effortless comedy. In Norman’s portrayal of sassy and witty Tom, there was hardly a page that didn’t have me snorting with laughter. It was obvious that Tom’s humor was an attempt to give himself a lot of the bravado that he felt had suddenly slipped away from his life, and that his hilarious asides were somewhat of a mask that he placed over his insecurities and self-doubt. It was a coping mechanism, and while it was intensely satisfying to read, smoothing out the narrative and giving the story its zest, it was also very humbling to witness the mental contortions that were basically keeping Tom afloat while his world began to slowly crash down around him.And believe me, Tom had a lot going on. While at first it only seemed like one area of his life needed improvement (his job), soon all the other areas began to fray in a rapid and destructive way. I think that while the sections that focused on Tom’s job provided a lot of levity, there was a realness to what he was going through that many people will recognize. I particularly loved Tom’s interactions with Gregory because I think his unusual form of getting Gregory’s goat was something that office denizens all over would applaud. These scenes were comic gold in my eyes, and for me, the most exciting parts of the book. Tom is also conflicted by the feelings that he has for his coworker, Katie, and though he tries to be as altruistic as possible about the trajectory of their relationship, the reality is much more unmanageable. I believe that Katie represented to Tom his fleeting youth and his desire to once again be carefree and desired. I also believe that these scenes were intensely realistic and at times emotionally tense. Every flicker of attraction that passed between them felt illicit and dangerous, though it was thinly veiled with the ever-present humor and lightheartedness that was a constant fixture of this book.Tom’s familial relationships were also areas that were filled with potential landmines. While his desire for his wife, Anna, is palpable, there was definitely something awry with their relationship, and Norman does a great job of making his readers really think about what’s going on (or not going on, as it were) with them. Tom loves Anna and she loves him, but there’s something just blow the surface that’s causing disrepair between them, and it’s not so easy for him to wish it away. Like Tom’s relationship with Anna, things between Tom and his father, Curtis, aren’t always easy to put the proverbial finger on either. Curtis is a arrogant and loud philanderer, and though father and son are very different, Curtis and Tom may share more traits than one might think. Add to this Curtis’ new and random presence in his son’s life, and Tom isn’t the only one asking questions. Curtis is who Tom wishes to be, his success and magnetism both a lure and a tool for deflection, and though there are things about his father that Tom dislikes, his admiration and wonder for the man leaves him puzzling over his own life and the motives he has for writing his novel.This was a book that managed to be both surprisingly funny yet also very deep, and it was a read that I had no problem getting invested in. It was a lot of fun to get a chance to hang out with the ever effervescent and wacky Tom, and the plot was far from predictable. I think Matthew Norman has a great career ahead of him, and he’s an author whom I’ll be watching. As a side note, this book also contains an author interview in the postscript that had me tearing up with laughter, and it’s not to be missed. An all-star book, highly recommended!
    • 5/5
      Very well written and narrated. Outstanding. Would definitely recommend to others.
    • 4/5
      This is the first of Steven Pinker's book that I've read and I must say I like the way he writes. There were many instances in the book where he wrote about complex stuff in simple and effective language.I felt at some points the text was very verbose while stating the obvious.Well, not that I'm an expert on the subject, but I partially disagree him when he says:"The mind is organized into modules or mental organs, each with a specialized design that makes it an expert in one arena of interaction with the world."I have read a few articles and a couple of books that state that the brain is plastic and one 'section' of the brain can be used for multiple 'actions'.Reference: The Brain that Changes ItselfThe chapter Family Values was the most interesting and I kept re-reading a few paragraphs just because I liked them so much."Status is the public knowledge that you possess assets that would allow you to help others if you wished to."
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this book - well written, entertaining, funny. A book about authors and writing - what's not to like?
    • 4/5
      This guy is very clever. He is even cleverer at explaining the clever things he thinks about in such a clever way that you don't need to be nearly as clever as him to get to drips with them.I confess to getting completely lost in the grammar discussions and skipping forwards a little. But even then I found the rest of the book very rewarding indeed.The main reason I like this chaps books is because they are all about me.They are about you as well, so go and read them now.Beautifully written with a naughty sense of humour and one hell of a profound message.
    • 4/5
      Pinker's books are always easy to read and absorbing. I believe that this was his very first book for a popular audience and he certainly got off to a good start. However, he contradicts himself in the first chapter and in a later chapter seems unaware that "flitch" and "thole" not only sound like they might be English words, but actually are. I'm right there with him when he debunks some stupid usage rules, like the injunction not to split the infinitive. But, although I'm a computer scientist, and know my Chomsky hierarchy and context-free grammars very well, his more technical discussion of grammar seem not to make sense. Somehow, this book feels a little lightweight; probably I'm not quite his intended audience.
    • 5/5
      Steven Pinker's work is fifteen or so years old, but it feels fresh and vital and very, very necessary. Pinker makes a compelling case for there being a true, hereditable, evolved language centre in the brain, and he gives many, many examples of how this could work, and why it is probably true. 'The Language Instinct' is an excellent introduction to the science of biological linguistics; should I take my studies in this area no further, I will at least know now a lot more about this fascinating topic than I did before.
    • 4/5
      A highly readable account on how language is an inherent characteristic of the human species, which I found a bit unpleasant to read at times. Pinker is such a good writer that I feel a little inadequate in responding to his book, but that aside, I thought it was an erudite book on a complex topic, like all Pinker’s books. It is also a bit controversial, as Pinker skewers many a layman’s misguided ideas about language, its origins, and its uniqueness to humanity. And not only a layman’s ideas; Pinker takes everyone from the social scientists to what he calls the ‘language mavens’ (editors and other arbiters of prescriptive grammar) to task for promulgating false ideas about language. I found Pinker’s more polemical chapters a bit uncongenial, mostly because they attack some of my own subconscious ideas about language. I didn’t realise that I felt as strongly about prescriptive grammar until Pinker attacked it and its proponents. I don’t mind Pinker’s attacks on some of the more archaic rules of grammar (such as split infinitives and ending sentences on prepositions, and so forth) but I did find his fulminating a bit tiresome at times, especially when he sets up some straw men that he can easily knockdown. A quibble, really, but still.Pinker is on much firmer, and to me more interesting, ground when he explains the psychological and evolutionary origins of language. This is simply brilliant and lucid exposition, and I enjoyed it immeasurably. Pinker’s explanation of how language evolves in children, and how this seems to argue for a ‘language instinct’ in humans (Chomsky’s Universal Grammar) is masterful. I also enjoyed his withering refutations of the assertions of those primatologists who claim to have taught chimpanzees sign language, and the more absurd claims of some anthropologists (such as the infamous ‘100 different words for snow’ claimed for the Eskimos).My one problem with the book is that it came out in 1994, so how up to date it is, in an ever-changing field, is problematic. I wish Pinker would update the book, but maybe he’s too busy writing books about the decline in violence (The Better Angels of Our Nature, which I intend to read next year), and whatnot.Highly recommended, but not one to swallow hook, line, and sinker.
    • 4/5
      loved this book. read it in 2 days! very funny, but also sad and moving! the main character goes through a midlife crisis of sorts and decides he really wants to be a writer. I loved all the characters, even the dog, hank!!! :)
    • 5/5
      Based on the title and description for Domestic Violets I was expecting a light-hearted, comical, easy read. What a great surprise when I started reading and discovered it was so much more. Matthew Norman is one part Richard Russo and one part Michael Chabon with a dash of Nick Hornby. Domestic Violets is a sarcastic yet sentimental study of family, fathers and sons, and underachievement. Tom Violet is neglecting his marriage, plodding along in his dead in corporate job,more than a bit lost, but cautiously optimistic about the future. His gimlet-eyed view of himself and the world around him is refreshing and sometimes laugh out loud funny. Tom is smart, sarcastic, irreverent, and a bit immature, but he means well. I couldn't put the book down and wish I could have hung out with the Violets for much longer.
    • 4/5
      loved this book. read it in 2 days! very funny, but also sad and moving! the main character goes through a midlife crisis of sorts and decides he really wants to be a writer. I loved all the characters, even the dog, hank!!! :)
    • 4/5
      This is my first read from Pinker, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. A very accessible and insightful book that will profoundly affect the way you think about language.