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I picked this book primarily to learn about the real story behind the film (which, not surprisingly, is very heavily fictionalized). In that aspect, the book did the job: it was comprehensive enough and gave enough background and details to satisfy my interest.

On the flipside... The writing style is quite unbearable. The Author piles dozens upon dozens of people into the story, most of them having little to no relation to the narrative. There are endless multi-paragraph quotes from various friends and relatives of the main characters (my "favorite" one was the sister of Geri McGee - her lengthy musings on Geri and Frank's family life were featured no less than 5 times throughout the book). There are so many of "asides" (especially for characters of no importance to the main narrative) that sometimes one forgets what the book is really about. I strongly believe that the book could be paired down to 30% of the original volume without losing any informational value.

Overall, this read was informational but not at all enjoyable. Pick it only if you want to learn more about the story behind Mafia-controlled Vegas.

This is not your first choice if you are looking to learn about the Wannsee conference and its role in the Holocaust. Rather, this is an extremely valuable resource if you want to move beyond the basics. The Author conducted a monumental amount of research, which resulted in a book somewhat dry and pedantic but brimming with information and analysis.

What this book excels at is letting you look "behind the curtain" and see the mechanics that brought the wheels in motion, the driving factors and the dynamics of the process. There is a page-by-page commentary to the meeting notes. The Author shows [rather convincingly] that the aforementioned Conference (which lasted no longer than 1.5 hours) was hardly a pivotal point but resulted due to a complex political and bureaucratic play between different organizations and individuals vying for a more prominent role. It discusses the power play between Himmler and Heydrich, each one promoting their own plan. By analyzing further developments, it shows how the means (war) and the end (annihilation of European Jews) have gradually exchanged their roles. Most importantly, it shows the terrifyingly pragmatic, business-like attitude of all involved toward the task of murdering millions of men, women, and children alike.

This will not be your most satisfying reading (in every sense), but if you are interested in learning more about WWII and Holocaust, this book is highly recommended.

(This review is more about the book rather than about the system, which is a completely different topic).

Writing a successful book about productivity system, you are allowed to wax philosophical, musing about things like mindfulness, purpose, and The Zone. But you also must be precise in describing the how and the why - especially with a system that is idiosyncratic - something it took you years to tailor to your specific needs. And this is where I think this book falls short.

The Author's writing style is uplifting and engaging but it constantly veers into long philosophical asides about human nature, life and everything in between. The principles of the BuJo system are presented in a pretty free-form if not haphazard fashion, without much system (no pun intended), very few examples and, honestly, not very convincingly. At the end of the day, I found myself simply not very engaged. Where many other productivity system canons make you want to drop the book and jump into implementing it (and then of course to follow it religiously for 3 days, then less rigorously, then declare it a failure in 2 weeks and finally to move on), this book made me yawn and question what the fuss was all about - after all, this is just an idiosyncratic marriage of a to-do list and a journal.

Maybe it's old silly me or maybe the author just doesn't do justice to an otherwise great personal organization system, but I failed to see the light. If I might offer an advice to the Author: provide more worked examples and more emphasis on benefits derived from following those examples. Provide a quick reference on the process and the techniques. It might make your system more compelling for the uninitiated.