I also respect people more when they succeed at their full time job and then talk about how they did it, rather than full-time hucksters. My problem with Cal,

I also respect people more when they succeed at their full time job and then talk about how they did it, rather than full-time hucksters. My problem with Cal, I guess, is how he writes. He's not an author, but a 'blog writer', and comes across as such in his books. Also, his insipid academic style is painfully dry, lacks flair, and contains no grander story beyond the literal. Matthew Walker's Why We Sleep is another example of a book offering good advice, but written by an untrained author. For me, when I pick up a 'book', as opposed to reading a blog article, I want the author to have spent a while meditating on a point, and to have uncovered some small portion of the universe. That magic is lacking in Cal Newport's writing.