One Book Done

On average I've been managing to read one book per month. This month, of would likely be two if not three. Do I read them? Nope. I just don't have the time to. Instead I listen to them.

I have been an Audible member for the last 5 years. I listen to books when I drive to and back from work, in between listening to podcast. I also listen to them in twice the normal speed to save time.

Today, on the way to KB, I managed to finish one book which I have been listening to for the past week. Inferno by Dan Brown.

Not exactly of Da Vinci Code's cadence and quality. It was still following on the lead character, Professor Robert Langdon as he go about deciphering visual codes. But the story and plot was not as intriguing. There was a real twist in the penultimate chapters but it wasn't enough to hide the lightweight feeling of the whole book.

But I was sure it was good enough - with the usual Hollywood sensationalism and Tom Hanks' charm - to be made into another movie.

I have another book to listen to on my journey home on Wednesday. It would be another book from the recently departed Tom Clancy. A longer book this time, which would take the rest of the month to finish. But I have plenty of driving to do though .....

More links on the trip here.

Steve Jobs Done

After a weekend where I only managed a couple of chapters, I decided to cheat. I bought the audio version of the book from Audible and listen to it commuting to work. I then managed to finish the book within a couple of weeks. The whole audiobook was about 24 hours long from start to finish, over three chapters.

How did I find the book? To say that it was a real biography would be premature as Jobs is a private man and his life story were only told in tidbits. There was nothing to compare this book to and that made it difficult to just take all been written as fact. It was difficult to ascertain if the stories were narratives or told in the author's perspective. maybe in the next five or so years, we would learn a bit more. And this book would be a great reference to a more definitive read.

This was more a collection of anecdotes of the great man's life. There were many interesting stories in there, giving an interesting perspective to the enigma that was Steve Jobs. He was clearly not an easy man to cope with. A very difficult father and husband, but no doubt he is a legend. He transformed Apple into a tech leader. Twice.

There were also accusation in the online community about why Isaacson was picked as the writer in the first place? Was it because he is from the outside? Was it so that he would be able to see past the technical aspects of Apple creations and understood the flaws? Was he just merely a conduit to more Jobs propaganda? This just all add up to an interesting chemistry.

I would definitely recommend the book not just to all Apple fanboys or girls, but to anybody interested in tech. There were many to be learned about the tech industry here. How everybody were interconnected. And how much Jobs was an inspiration to the current crop of tech greats, as well as the old familiar faces like Bill Gates. They had a mutual respect to each other and it was great to read about how close they become towards the end.

Next read, Gary Neville autobiography. Unfortunately, there was no audiobook for that particular story.