Reviews of products by George Parker Bidder

On Mental Calculation

reviewed by Anonymous
Rating: ★★★★★ (Date Added: Monday 12 May, 2008)

This is a transcript of a speech given by the author about the methods he used to rapidly perform arithmetic without the aid of pencil and paper, or calculator. Note that I call it a 'speech' NOT a 'lecture'. The author rambles on and on about the subject, while imparting very little useful information per page. The book is not annotated in any way, save for writing out the arithmetic the author mentions. Finding a particular topic is a good way to waste your time. There is no outline, no table of contents, and the text seems almost designed to prevent easy navigation. I am positive that you could learn the authors methods from this work, but the effort of extracting the information from this text then learning it could be better spent on a book meant specifically to teach these principles, rather than merely talk about them at length.