I've read the Steve Jobs biography up to his founding of NEXT; I think I wanted to put it aside, a little bit, because on a certain level I felt a need to digest the notion of his having succeeded, and failed, and been fired from his own company, all by the age of 30.
As Isaacson points out, starting NEXT is just the second act of a great three act drama. He mentions that Arthur Rock, an investor and Apple board member, said that getting fired was the greatest thing that ever happened to Jobs. Isaacson goes on to say that that's not exactly true. Instead, he says, starting NEXT was the learning experience that helped Jobs the most: he had in NEXT, Isaacson writes, a kind of laboratory in which he could indulge all his whims and obsessions without restraint and when his ideas flopped, spectacularly, he had a chance to learn. I read the beginning of this chapter twice, and as I read it the second time, I realized that it echoed something Daniel Pink said in his Johnny Bunko book: dare to make spectacular mistakes. I find myself feeling that as readable as Isaacson's book is, it tells the story of very eventful years at a great clip and this is why, I think, I need to put it aside for a while so that I can digest it.
Meanwhile, I'm reading Ebert's book. He's a journalist, and writes in a straightforward style that is not as stylish, perhaps, or as passionate, or even as interesting, as that of some other memoirists I've read in the past twelve months. But he tells stories, and the stories he tells are interesting. I enjoyed reading his chapters on alcoholism, Robert Mitchum, Martin Scorsese, and Zonka (Zonka is no one you've ever heard of before - not a celebrity - and that's part of the charm of this tale: it's just a guy, telling a story about his friend, Zonka; it's like when you're at a bar and someone tells you a story so fine, or so surprising, that you're tempted to say, "You should write a book" but you don't, because you'd better have a pretty good reason to write a book).
As Isaacson points out, starting NEXT is just the second act of a great three act drama. He mentions that Arthur Rock, an investor and Apple board member, said that getting fired was the greatest thing that ever happened to Jobs. Isaacson goes on to say that that's not exactly true. Instead, he says, starting NEXT was the learning experience that helped Jobs the most: he had in NEXT, Isaacson writes, a kind of laboratory in which he could indulge all his whims and obsessions without restraint and when his ideas flopped, spectacularly, he had a chance to learn. I read the beginning of this chapter twice, and as I read it the second time, I realized that it echoed something Daniel Pink said in his Johnny Bunko book: dare to make spectacular mistakes. I find myself feeling that as readable as Isaacson's book is, it tells the story of very eventful years at a great clip and this is why, I think, I need to put it aside for a while so that I can digest it.
Meanwhile, I'm reading Ebert's book. He's a journalist, and writes in a straightforward style that is not as stylish, perhaps, or as passionate, or even as interesting, as that of some other memoirists I've read in the past twelve months. But he tells stories, and the stories he tells are interesting. I enjoyed reading his chapters on alcoholism, Robert Mitchum, Martin Scorsese, and Zonka (Zonka is no one you've ever heard of before - not a celebrity - and that's part of the charm of this tale: it's just a guy, telling a story about his friend, Zonka; it's like when you're at a bar and someone tells you a story so fine, or so surprising, that you're tempted to say, "You should write a book" but you don't, because you'd better have a pretty good reason to write a book).
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