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Walter Isaacson – Steve JobsMy Review: I have conflicting opinions about this book. On one hand, it was great to come to know more about the life of such a prominent figure in the technology world as Steve Jobs, his personality, his goals, his quirks and what drove him. And the first part of the book is great for that. You get an interesting insight of the person he was, what led him to be such a driven person with a difficult personality but with an astute sense of taste and fashion towards the technology world. On the other hand, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Isaacson disliked Jobs and that is subtly shown throughout the book (especially, the second part) where he makes no effort to avoid describing Jobs as a petty man that most of the times acted as if he was a child with a tantrum. Sure, that may be true and I definitely believe that Steve Jobs was an extremely difficult person to work with. But isn’t it also true that everything Jobs touched, turned to gold? He led a garage-founded company into the company that fought the giant IBM. He bought a division of Lucasfilms special effects company and turned it into the leading company in the world for computer animation. He picked up Apple when it was near bankruptcy and led it to be the highest-valued company in the world. So he must have been doing something right. He deserves some credit for that, doesn’t he? At least to say that he had merit in choosing the people he worked with. My Rating: 4/5 |
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Jeff Lindsay – Dexter is Delicious (Dexter #5)My Review: Having read the previous 4 books about the character that inspired the TV Show Dexter, I decided to pick up the series and read the remaining two books (so far). But this one was a total disappointment. The story was quite boring and cliché, plus Lindsay decided to use the very trending topic of vampires (not real ones, of course) that also happened to be cannibals and didn’t really help improve the story. Also, I still couldn’t decide if the constant witty remarks of the Dexter character are simple traits of his social-ineptitude and naiveness or just excessive sarcasm. Either way, I didn’t like it. Also, this was the first book after Debra (his sister) had discovered his “hobby” and so I was really looking forward to know how that would pan out (considering that is how [SPOILER] the tv show ended the last season). But it really wasn’t a big part of the story. And in the end, you can’t shake the feeling that Dexter got away clean from the huge mess he got himself into without really doing anything and just by being a huge lucky bastard. My Rating: 3/5 |
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Jeff Lindsay – Double Dexter: A Novel (Dexter #6)My Review: Now this one was a pleasant surprise, at least compared to the previous book. Much darker and mysterious. The story delivers a different take on the Dexter series, one in which Dexter is now the one being hunted by a prey not that different from him. It still suffers from some of the aspects I pointed out in the previous book (the Dexter character is too naive sometimes, to the point of being dumb) but at least this one has a richer story with interesting developments. My Rating: 4/5 |
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Arthur C. Clarke – Rendezvous With RamaMy Review: This was one of those science fiction classics that I never had the opportunity to read. And since this year I decided to (try to) read all the classics that I never actually read before, this one was probably as good as any to start with. What a great choice I made. This book has everything you’d expect from a great science fiction novel: mysterious settings, unknown elements, stuff that stirs your imagination and a lot of food for thought. The end can be bitter-sweet, but it is only a reflection of the arrogance of humankind and the self-centric idea that we are alone in the universe. Fully recommended. My Rating: 5/5 |
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Suzanne Collins – The Hunger Games #1My Review: This book was a mere curiosity. I had seen the trailer for the new movie a few weeks back when I went to the cinema and when I noticed it was based on a novel, I decided to have a look. The formula used is not new, but it mostly works: taking place at a post-apocalyptic America, a Big Brother-like fight-to-the-death game where the contestants are lottery-drawn teenagers from the districts that lost the war against the “Capitol”, the story develops through the eyes of one contestant in particular, Katniss Everdeen. And the choice of the author to use the first person approach works quite well because it creates a stronger connection between the reader and the girl and you’ll end up feeling as lost as her by not knowing what’s happening with the rest of the characters on the book. Unfortunately, as I said, the formula is not new and the story ends up being a bit too easy to predict. Sure, there are some twists but you’ll spot them miles away. My Rating: 4/5 |
Related: What I’ve been reading, Vol. I, II, III and IV
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[…] In my opinion, this is the best of the 3 books. It still suffers from the same problem as in the first book where some of the twists can be easily predicted but less so. But in any case I like the main idea […]