Rating: 1 star
Headline: Nick Simoneschi’s guide lacks clarity, identity, and engaging writing
Review:
It only takes a minute, the right author and a dash of luck to make a story go viral. By mid morning, that seemingly biennial news article could not only have become the talk of the office, but the driving force behind behind an entire brand, a new cult or even a shifting force within History itself. Recent years has seen the rapid adoption and expansion of instant media, but can everything we read be trusted?
Written by Law graduate and financial strategic advisor Nick Simoneschi, Guide to Understanding the News and Understanding the World is a non-fiction guide which aims to educate and warn against the perils of believing news coverage at face value. The book is split into seven chapters, covering topics such as “global news”, “environmental news” and “fact-checking”. It is formatted in an essay-type construct, with no additional imagery. Simoneschi refers to the reader as “students” throughout.
While on the cover it seems apparent what Simoneschi is trying to achieve, in reality this is a book that lacks identity. In doing so, more often than not it turns into a soap box for the author to express his views on how news content should be presented. Chapter three, “news literacy for children”, becomes bogged down in arguments for changing the school curriculum, yet it is not clear who Simoneschi is directing this argument to. Parents? Students? Teachers? The intended readership of this title is not apparent enough to know for sure.
The writing itself makes for a very clunky read, with over repetition of key essay buzz words (in the duration of the book’s 81 pages, the word “furthermore” is used 33 times, “conclusion”, 30, and “student” an eye-watering 249 times). The lack of author credentials and general introduction on why the world needs this book right now is also an area which needed presenting in the opening pages of the book. Otherwise it looks like just another opinionated piece anyone could have written.
In a market saturated with other books claiming to be the “definitive guide”, Guide to Understanding the News and Understanding the World does little to shake up the establishment, or offer new insight to a fresh readership base. An experienced book editor would have identified the mistakes immediately and worked with the author to improve the writing quality, to make it a more engaging and inclusive read for its intended audience. Instead, the content repeats over itself, to the point where Simoneschi’s guidance unfortunately becomes too bland to consume in a meaningful way. This book could have been better disseminated as a series of short online blog posts.
AEB Reviews
Links:
Reedsy Discovery Review: AEB Reviews – “Guide to Understanding the News and Understanding the World” by Nick Simoneschi
Purchase Link: “Guide to Understanding the News and Understanding the World” by Nick Simoneschi (Amazon)
**
My Housemate's a Mermaid 