Rating: 
Summary: Excellent book
Review: An excellent book about a fascinating topic. Thorough scholarly discussion.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Good Places if You're Our Kind of People
Review: Another reactionary bewailing the loss of "community," by which he means places where white heterosexual male Republicans can pretend no one else exists. No celebration of diversity here! There is an insulting prediction that a proliferation of "great, good places" would eliminate the horrible problem of the existence of gay people. People of color are not mentioned at all, so one presumes they have already ceased to exist. No religious, ethnic, or linguistic minorities, no immigrants, no poor people, just smiling happy faces greeting cronies over coffee. It is astounding that such insensitivity exists in this day and age.
Rating:
Summary: Give me a break . . .
Review: Another reviewer here says, "No celebration of diversity here!" People of different backgrounds getting together on an equal footing and talking is essential to Oldenburg's idea of the G.G.P. It just couldn't be plainer. Another reviewer says that Starbucks is their G.G.P., and while Starbucks is okay for something mass-produced, it's not quite the local, inclusive hubbub of a place that Oldenburg is talking about.Four stars because the arguments are (as a third reviewer says) anectdotal and not so tight. (But then, how do you document a phenomenon as elusive as "place where diverse people get together and exchange information and ideas," especially if the phenomenon has all but dried up?)
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book
Review: Didn't read it... won't read it. It is psychobabble bull by someone who does not live in a small town or at least any I have ever lived in. People develop their third places by themselves. I have lived in small towns most of my life and we make out own third places. Be it the local supermarket, the small community mall or the aisles of the local hardware store of (cna I say it) the coffee shop at Wal-Mart, we meet, talk and communicate. We have two bookstores as well, where you can meet and talk as well, plus local lunch conters. Like, I said, I don't know where he lives, but we have our places, just have to go there!
Rating:
Summary: A lot of bull
Review: Didn't read it... won't read it. It is psychobabble bull by someone who does not live in a small town or at least any I have ever lived in. People develop their third places by themselves. I have lived in small towns most of my life and we make out own third places. Be it the local supermarket, the small community mall or the aisles of the local hardware store of (cna I say it) the coffee shop at Wal-Mart, we meet, talk and communicate. We have two bookstores as well, where you can meet and talk as well, plus local lunch conters. Like, I said, I don't know where he lives, but we have our places, just have to go there!
Rating: 
Summary: Finding The Third Place
Review: I found out about this book from the movie, "You've Got Mail." The director, Nora Ephron, mentions in the commentary of this movie Ray Oldenburg's theory of the third place. This book has helped me greatly in finding my third place, Starbucks. Nora Ephron refers to Starbucks as being a great third place and it certainly is. To sit and read, or to relax and have a cup of coffee, Starbucks is the place. My third place. This is a great book.
Rating:
Summary: Rebuttal to Lance Mertz's Review
Review: I'm fascinated by your review of Ray Oldenburg's book _The Great Good Place_ without have read it. That's rather like a child saying he doesn't like spinach without having tried it.
I first had the pleasure of meeting Ray when I was editor of _The World of Beer_ out of Milan, Italy, when Alan Eames ("The Beer King"), who damned well lived in a small town - 300 - in New Hampshire, recommend the book to me. After reading a copy I made a point to meet Ray upon my next trip back to the United States.
Ray is indeed from small town America. He began his teaching career in Round Rock, Texas, back when the population was about 2,500. Today he makes his home near Pensacola, Florida. And has lived in a succession of small towns.
Ray's premise is that CITIES in America have lost their third places and we're the worse off for it.
Fabulous book, interesting man.....
Joel Jacobs
Commerce, Texas
US Navy, retired
Rating:
Summary: Interesting, if unfocused
Review: Oldenburg's scholarship here is a little fuzzy -- while I found myself agreeing with many of his points, much of his evidence seemed anecdotal. His cross-cultural comparisons were interesting: the French cafe and the Austrian coffeehouse are institutions that seem, well, very foreign to Americans. There are no substantive mentions of hair salons or bookstores in this work. I'm not sure how they slipped into the title. On the whole, this work raises interesting questions about the decline of public life and public space in American culture. Oldenburg throws a number of darts at the suburbs and poor urban planning, but seems to spend more time lamenting the lost innocence of small-town America than thinking about the future and how things could be turned around. There's a lot of thought-provoking material here, and I think this work represents a good jumping-off point for further consideration and research.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book!!!
Review: This book is an excellent resource just like his first book. I took his classes in college. He is a great professor and very knowledgeable in the subject. The CEO of Starbucks gave Dr. Oldenburg props in his book as well as Nora Ephron in her movie "You've Got Mail". He does live in a small town and has visited small towns all over the world. Not exactly sure why the other reader give it 1 star when he never read the book.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book!!!
Review: This book is an excellent resource just like his first book. I took his classes in college. He is a great professor and very knowledgeable in the subject. The CEO of Starbucks gave Dr. Oldenburg props in his book as well as Nora Ephron in her movie "You've Got Mail". He does live in a small town and has visited small towns all over the world. Not exactly sure why the other reader give it 1 star when he never read the book.
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