Taking place during the wee hours of one night when most people are sleeping, we are told from the very beginning that we are mere observers into the story – a bird flying above or a solitary camera.  The narration begins objectively to find nineteen year old Mari Asai reading alone in a Tokyo Denny’s.  She is approached by college student Takehashi, a  part time jazz trombonist who reminds her that he has met her and her model sister Eri before.  This chance meeting drags Mari into a virtual foreign world far from her suburban life.  Fluent in Chinese, Mari soon finds herself in a “love hotel” helping a Chinese prostitute who had just been beaten.  As the night continues, she becomes familiar with the hotel’s staff and not only learns their secrets, but confesses her own.  Many of Mari’s secrets relate to her insecurities surrounding her beautiful sister.

During Mari’s story, Mr. Murakami reminds us that we are just observers as we frequently visit Mari’s sleeping sister Eri.  We learn later that Eri has been sleeping for two months and no one knows why.  And frankly, neither do I.  Mr. Murakami takes the reader on a bizarre journey from Eri’s sleeping room, into a television set with a man with no face. Uh, ok.

The camera also jumps into the life of the man who beat the Chinese prostitute.  Not a very interesting man, he works a lot of hours at a company while his wife dutifully waits for him at home.

I found After Dark very odd.  The individual stories were compelling enough to hear through to their respective conclusions, and the third party observer perspective was unique. Although not giving any obvious insight into the actual thoughts of the characters, I was able to form my own judgments based on their dialogue and actions.

After traveling through the book as a simple observer, my take away is the story of the two sisters, one who deeply cares for the other.  I also enjoyed the Tokyo setting and little American references – the Denny’s where the story begins and the mention of Hall & Oates on the sound system.

Once in a while I am interested in broadening my horizons to challenge myself.  I’m not giving up on Mr. Murakami, he has received accolades for his work.  Maybe after experiencing a couple more books, I will come back to After Dark and say “A-ha, of course!”

If you’ve read anything at all about Cline’s book, you probably know that it takes place in the year 2044, in times where our society is a disaster.  We don’t get enough information from Cline to necessarily call it dystopian (a la Brave New World), but suffice it to say that despite advances in technology, times are tough and some significant sector of society is slumming it.

Our protagonist, Wade Watts, is one of those people who is slumming it.  He is an overweight social outcast who lives with some extended family and countless guests in the “stacks” — vertically stacked trailer homes — outside Oklahoma City.  But Wade’s escape from the horrors of day-to-day life, like many others, is to log in to the OASIS, a virtual world that allows users to create a virtual identity and live in a virtual world with virtual friends, virtual toys, and virtual joy and excitement.  Even though Watts is poor, he at least has a computer and the necessary equipment to log in to the OASIS (where he also attends high school virtually), which he does in his secret hideout inside a van at a nearby junkyard.

So far, so good, right?  Standard futuristic blah, blah, blah, right?  Well, this is where Cline takes his novel into a direction that, while not completely original or unexpected, is flawlessly executed.  The man who founded the company that created the OASIS, James Halliday, has passed away and in his will has disclosed that he’s hidden an “easter egg” somewhere in the Oasis, and that the user who can find the three virtual keys to pass through three virtual gates to access this easter egg will inherit his fortune (including the OASIS).  This sends the entire world into a tizzy as companies, teams of individuals, and independent “gunters” like Wade Watts, a/k/a “Parzival”, put aside their lives to embark on a quest for the easter egg.

To this reader there were two elements of Cline’s story that struck a chord.  The first, which might only resonate with me and others from my generation, was that Halliday was a child of the 1980′s, and so his clues and the tasks that users must accomplish to advance in their quest are all tied to the 1980′s.  Movies, tv, music, video games, etc.  So it was unavoidable for me to try to test my own skills as we went along.  I didn’t fare as well as I would have thought.

The second really cool thing about Cline’s book, and this would be equally valid for any reader regardless of how much you know or care about the 1980′s, was how Cline blurred the line between the real and virtual worlds.  As players’ avatars interact with other avatars, and as greed and hostility manifest themselves in the OASIS, it becomes clear that certain participants aren’t playing fair and are using their money and power in the real world to gain an advantage.  This includes monitoring real people’s behaviors, and eventually murder.  Alliances that are formed in the virtual world extend into the real world, and mystery and adventure ensue.

No spoilers here, other than to say that once the story got going, it was literally (meaning I mean it) a virtual (meaning I read it on my Nook) literary virtual-reality page turner.

Ruth, a divorced mother of two girls, is a Sex Education teacher at the local high school.  She is serious about her subject and wants her students to be armed with all of the facts.  Seemingly overnight, complaints about the curriculum are grabbing the attention of the school and local school board.  Coincidentally, the congregation of The Tabernacle, the local Evangelical Church, is becoming a louder presence in the community and suddenly Ruth is instructed that “abstinence only” will be taught, no questions asked.   The order doesn’t end Ruth’s continued conflict with the school officials and the new beauty-queenesque “Abstinence Consultant.”

Added to Ruth’s career angst, her personal life is boring.  A re-connect with her pudgy teenage-sexual-partner-turned-hard-body is a complete bust.  Then one day, Jesus-loving Tim enters her life and she is shocked and embarrassed at the feelings he stirs within her.  To add insult to injury, not being a fan of the Tabernacle doctrine, her daughters come home and tell her they want to go to church to “get to know” Jesus.

Tim, divorced father of one daughter and former drug addict/alcoholic/rocker, is a new member of the Tabernacle.  He is trying very hard to live a successful Christian life with his new Christian wife, but constantly struggles with his former self.  He can’t stop thinking of bedding his former wife as she greets him at the door in lingerie.  And the thrill of having played the guitar in a rock band must be currently fulfilled by jamming during church services.  Tim enters Ruth’s life when, as soccer coach to Ruth’s daughter, his faith overcomes him after a game and he prays with the team.  When Ruth hears about this, she and he have a heart to heart meeting which temporarily halts Ruth’s continued actions against him.

Contrary to what the title may suggest, The Abstinence Teacher isn’t only about Ruth.  Every character in Mr. Perrotta’s book abstains from something –whether by choice or not.  Ruth’s students are denied the facts, Ruth’s gay friends are denied the right to get married, her previous pudgy teenage sex partner must be denied the food that he used to enjoy, Tim’s ‘Christian’ wife denies herself in order to please her husband, and the list continues.  By bringing all of these characters together, Mr. Perrotta creates a story about this suburban town and what happens when the Christian Right invades and imposes their beliefs on everyone.   If I think about this subject too much, I become aggravated as The Abstinence Teacher poses more questions than answers about what should/could be done in this situation which seems to be currently happening all over America.  Thus, I choose to enjoy the story simply as entertainment.  Becoming upset is not the goal of listening to audio books during a long commute.

I have concluded that I have enjoyed all of Mr. Perrotta’s books thus far (Little Children, The Leftovers, The Abstinence Teacher) because I can put myself into any one of his stories.  Some readers don’t want stories so true to life – too depressing.  However, I find Mr. Perrotta’s sarcasm and humor extremely entertaining as I sit in traffic.  The Abstinence Teacher allows you to go deeper if you want to, but you can also enjoy it as is.

Bolaño’s next super critically acclaimed novel released in English was the mammoth 2666.   At almost a 1000 pages, it didn’t seem to be the novel that I should try again with.  I’ll freely admit that I was intimidated.  Bolaño’s latest work in translation, The Third Reich, weighs in at a svelte 277 pages.   If I was going to give Bolaño, this appeared to be the ticket.  So with some trepidation, I dove in.

The Third Reich, I should quickly point out,  is not a World War II novel and has little to do with historical Nazis.  The title refers to a World War II themed board game.  Udo Berger, a young German, is the national champion of a federation of war game enthusiasts.  He begins the narrative as a journal entry of his first day of vacation in Spain with his girlfriend Ingeborg.  This will be, in part, a working vacation.  Udo is excited to set up a few tables in the hotel room and test various strategies that he’ll write up for war game newsletters and journals.   His actual job job is of little consequence.  Udo is upbeat as he reflects on the weeks ahead:

I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that my life has never been better.  Most of the credit goes to Ingeborg.  Meeting her was the best thing that ever happened to me.  Her sweetness, her charm, her soft gaze, put everything else–my own daily struggles and the back-stabbing of those who envy me–into perspective, allowing me to face facts and rise above them.

Despite Udo’s sunny self-assessment, he reveals through his actions that he is petulant, full of himself, and a bit of a bore.

Udo and Ingebord soon make the acquaintance of another vacationing German couple, Charly and Hannah.  Charly is a good-time windsurfer who immediately tests Udo’s patience.  Through Charly, Udo also comes to know some seedy local beach characters, known as the Wolf and the Lamb.  The most indelible new acquaintance of the summer will be El Quemado, which translates to “the burn victim” in Spanish.  True to his name, El Quemado’s body is covered with horrible burn scars.  The source of the disfigurement is not immediately revealed.

El Quemado is essentially homeless, choosing to live on the beach in a depression dug under the stack of paddle boats that he rents during the day.  In time, El Quemado and Udo begin playing a game of Third Reich.  Udo is very condescending in engaging  Udo in the game.  The self-evident distastefulness of playing a game in which one tries to relive World War II and emerge with the German army victorious seems completely lost on Udo.  For Udo, the game is entertainment.  El Quemado, however, may view warfare in an entirely different light that becomes more apparent as the game plays out over weeks.

The game, coupled with Charly’s mysterious disappearance, casts a pall over the beach vacation.  Udo remains in Spain as the sunlight begins to disappear into fall, waiting for news on Charly and the conclusion of the game.  Over the course of these events, Udo’s early “perspective” on life is shown to be inaccurate and completely shallow.   At its heart, The Third Reich is a coming of age story – wait, he’s German – let’s call it a bildungsroman.  Udo’s experiences force to come to grip with an immature view of the world and his place in it.

I enjoyed this novel.  It appears that Bolaño and I can get along after all.   I’m not sure that I am ready to tackle 2666, which everyone seems to agree is his masterwork.  At least now I can see myself considering the possibly of tackling that tome, which was not the case prior to reading The Third Reich.   

Book Pitch: I can readily imagine an upated US version of this book where an American video game blogger takes his X-Box on vacation with him to work on mastering Modern Warfare 3 and meets someone who doesn’t view playing warfare as “fun”.

Also: I received copies of the hardcover and the audiobook at roughly the same time.  In an unusual move for me, I went back and forth from the novel to the audiobook as time allowed.  The chapters are mostly named for dates, so it was relatively easy to listen in where I had left off in the book and vice-versa.  The audiobook is read by Simon Vance who does an excellent job.  Through the audiobook I was better able to get a handle on pronunciations of names, places, and words in languages that I don’t speak than I would have otherwise had. Vance’s world-weary approach seemed to capture Udo perfectly.  Check out an audio clip from the first chapter:
[See post to listen to audio]

And Waite’s book isn’t bad.  It isn’t particularly special, but it’s not bad.  It’s a suspenseful crime thriller that takes place around Seattle and the Canadian border.  Phil Hunt is a man with a past who has been making his living smuggling drugs.  Bobby Drake is a smalltown deputy sheriff whose father was also a deputy sheriff who fell to the dark side.  Drake messes up a deal that Phil works on, and then a slew of rather stereotypical characters come into play:  “the lawyer” who faciliated the drug deal; Hunt’s friend and drug-smuggling boss Eddie; Driscoll, the experienced DEA agent; two nameless Vietnamese men trying to recover the drugs; Roy, one of Hunt’s friends from their stay in prison together; Hunt’s and Drake’s innocent wives; and Grady, the ruthless serial killer sent to find and kill Hunt.

Waite is a straight-shooter as a writer, not getting caught up in tricky prose or overworked language, and he is very good at one of my favorite things:  writing short chapters.  The book jumps from chapter to chapter, checking in on what’s happening with different characters, pretty much in real time relative to one another.  So there are lots of breaks, each of which represents a good stopping point to put the book down and know that when you pick it up again you won’t be in the middle of a specific scene.

This is a quick and easy read, and it’s not not good.  It’s just not a standout; there’s nothing here that is wholly original, and perhaps because I’ve never been to the Pacific Northwest, the storylines and backstories didn’t sink in with me in a way that moved me.  But if you like the thrill of the chase without being bogged down by deep symbolism, this might be right up your alley.

However, not too long into the book, I realized a significant difference between Earley and Johnson — namely, that Earley’s storytelling grips you and brings you into the protagonist’s world in a way that creates a meaningful connection that moves you and leaves you desperately rooting for his success.  However, Johnson’s approach with his main character, Robert Grainier, is so distant and unemotional that I was dragged along wondering where I was going and why I was going there.  As Grainier returns home to find that his entire town had been burned to ash and his wife and daughter were nowhere to be found, the only tug at my heartstrings that I felt was due solely to my role as a husband and father, and can’t be attributed to Johnson’s description of the scene.  Grainier is a loner, and it’s almost like Johnson makes a conscious decision to distance him from the reader.

Johnson’s prose is truly beautiful, but the lack of any connection to his character left me disappointed; this is exacerbated by the lack of any real arc to the story of Grainier’s life.  It’s a sad, lonely tale, and the inability to feel any empathy for Granier or to believe that Granier sees any meaning in his life makes it a cold read.  This book is a quick read, and perhaps a second read (or another set of eyes) might surface more than I could get out of it.

I left Cleveland in 1990, but I’ve carried my loyalty and passion for Cleveland sports with me ever since, including the self-loathing and “Why me?” attitude that accompanied watching my beloved Indians take a lead into the bottom of the ninth inning of the 1997 World Series against the Florida Marlins only to see one of the best closers in the game blow it and then witness the Tribe lose it in extra innings.  Cleveland has not won a sports title since 1964.  We’ve come oh so close, but haven’t sealed the deal.  And it’s been a painful journey.

Raab now lives in New Jersey, but he grew up in Cleveland and was actually at the NFL Championship Game that the Browns won in 1964.  In this book, he addresses the cult of Cleveland sports through the city’s experience with LeBron James.  And he does not pull any punches.  As a journalist who’s fortunate enough (or not) to be able to get media credentials to sporting events, and as a lifelong Cleveland fan, he got to come along for the seven-year ride LeBron had through Cleveland, starting with the Cavs winning the lottery and selecting the local superstar from Akron with the #1 overall pick in the 2003 NBA draft and then “culminating” (for lack of a better word) with “The Decision”, LeBron’s primetime special in the summer of 2010 in which he ended months of suspense by announcing that he was “taking his talents to South Beach”, gathering the world together to witness him driving the proverbial dagger through the collective hearts of Cleveland fans.

Excuse me — I started talking like Scott Raab for a second there.  But that’s what this book can do to you, particularly if you’re from Cleveland, or if you’re the type of sports fan who can empathize and appreciate the struggles the city has gone through.  Raab engages in a look back, re-examining some of the things LeBron did during his tenure in Cleveland and casting doubts upon LeBron’s motives all along the way, portraying him as a selfish, greedy, unsympathetic villain who never cared for or wanted to be in Cleveland in the first place.  And Raab uses the events that unfolded around and after The Decision, including LeBron’s first season with the Miami Heat, to corroborate the suspicions he raises.

This book is clearly an indictment of LeBron James, and no one should go into it expecting any sort of objectivity.  But if you’re in the mood for some scathing, claws-out, vilification, this is your book.

Reitman’s book starts with a biography of Hubbard, the science fiction writer who invented Dianetics in the early 1950′s as an alternative to psychotherapy and then lost Dianetics through bankruptcy but re-emerged by repackaging his theories as Scientology.  Based on how his life is described by Reitman, how anyone believed anything Hubbard said or wrote is absolutely beyond me.

While he may have been a charismatic and engaging guy, he is portrayed as a pathological liar who never even came close to doing one tenth of the things he claimed to have done.  He told people he was a former explorer, researcher, war hero, sea captain, and a multitude of other glamorous titles, none of which were true.  But that didn’t stop people from buying into his theories of self-exploration and self-help.  After his health began to deteriorate, he secluded himself in a secret compound in California.  When he passed away in 1986, the organization was taken over by David Miscavige, by all accounts a less “crazy” but seemingly more ruthless leader, who seems to have focused far less on thinking of Scientology as a religion, but instead as a business.  And he appears to use and abuse his power to exercise unrelenting control over the Church and its members.

While this book is heralded as the first full journalistic history of Scientology and as an evenhanded account, even the most objective, evenhanded reading of it can’t mask the fact that Scientology seems to fit every stereotypical characteristic of a cult.  It is absolutely terrifying to read what people who’ve been indoctrinated into Scientology have gone through, and even more terrifying to think that sane people can be held captive the way that they are.

The Church of Scientology has got money coming out its eyeballs.  It was able to get itself classified by the IRS as a religious organization and thereby achieve tax exempt status (and the ability to maintain its books as confidential).  If you think you’ve felt pressured to tithe beyond your means by your church, you have no idea.  Individuals pay freakish amounts of money to be “audited”, something they must do to reach “Clear” status and advance along “The Bridge to Total Freedom”.

As members advance, more and more secrets of Scientology are revealed to them, and they apparently become even more eager to learn what’s behind the next level of advancement.  I would say that you can’t make this stuff up, but apparently you can, and apparently people will buy into it.  And all along the way, the Church of Scientology is just collecting that money and supposedly using it to further its mission to “clear the planet”.  But as you read this book, you see how that money is used for selfish, crazy purposes to satisfy the whims of Church leaders, and how the hierarchy of the Church fosters corruption and abuse of power.

There’s an entire chapter in the book dedicated to Tom Cruise, the most outspoken of the celebrities who’ve joined the Church of Scientology.  Celebrities have long been an avenue the Church has used to grow its appeal, and the things it does to court celebrities would blow your mind — complete with spending millions of dollars to renovate one of its compounds before Cruise’s first visit there.  The leaders who meet with Cruise fake their way through a bunch of stuff specifically to make it look like Scientology is perfect for Cruise, and they continue to cater to him outside of the normal protocols until he’s hooked.  Of course, when he reaches OT3 level and learns that the stuff about the aliens is actually for real, he freaks out and backs away.  But they get their hooks back into him and allegedly mastermind his divorce from Nicole Kidman.  It’s just bizarre — even more bizarre than you can imagine.

Scientology has reportedly used spies and secret operatives (including the largest domestic espionage case in history), fraud, frivolous litigation, and all sorts of other unscrupulous means to continue its growth, gain more power, and build more wealth.  This book explains it all through anecdotal evidence and data collected from current and past members.  Absolutely fascinating stuff.  A must read for anyone with any interest in American culture.  If you’d like a taste of what the book has to offer, check out Reitman’s original article for Rolling Stone that lead to this book.

The novel takes place largely over a single school year at Westish College, a small liberal arts college in Wisconsin.  The main character is Henry a once-in-a-lifetime shortstop of almost limitless potential.  Henry was “discovered” by Schwartz, the captain of Westish’s baseball team.  Schwartz drives Henry to achieve the dream that they both share, to play major league baseball, but only Henry has the talent to realize.  Woven into Henry’s story are the lives of Owen, Henry’s roommate and openly gay teammate, Guert Affenlight, the school’s president, and his daughter Pella.  Their stories intertwine, sometimes in completely unexpected ways.   You know what — that’s all I’m going to tell you about the plot.  You’re better off diving in and letting the story surprise you.

The Art of Fielding is also the title of  a book within the book.  Written by a famed (fictional) St Louis Cardinal’s shortstop, it is Henry’s bible.  The Art of Fielding is a collection of Zen-like koans that serve as meditations and Henry’s guide to playing his position.  An example:

3.  There are three stages: Thoughtless being.  Thought. Return to thoughtless being.
33.  Do not confuse the first and third stages.  Thougtless being is attained by everyone, the return to thoughtless being by a very few.

The idea that those two items would appear non-consecutively is part of the beauty.  The Art of Fielding (the fake one) needs to be written, too.

The novel also weaves literary references throughout – most notably Melville’s Moby-Dick.  The college features a statue of Melville in the main quad, because the author once gave a lecture at the college.  As a result, the school’s athletic teams are called the harpooners.  One of Henry’s teammates is named Starblind, surely a reference to the Pequod’s mate Starbuck.  The college bar is named Stubb’s, another of Ahab’s mates.  President Affenlight frequently references Melville, American poets, and literature.  Affenlight’s favorite chapter of Moby-Dick  features prominently in the book’s conclusion.  Henry, the least well read,  imagines himself as a sort of Ulysses in a moment of despair.

The effect of the references is to frame the novel as a Hormeric tale, an American epic, a modern-day Moby-Dick, where the chief (but not only) obsession is baseball.  The five main characters struggle to learn how to be their own true selves. No mean feat.  This is a fantastic novel.  As a result of reading The Art of Fielding, I’ve picked up my half-read copy of Moby-Dick and have begun to press on.  Next up, Nathaniel Philbrick’s Why Read Moby Dick to help fill in my own cognitive gaps.  Any book that is not only a cracking read in its own right but sets the reader off on a journey of additional reading is about as good as it gets.  The Art of Fielding will be on my year-end top 10 list (coming soon!) for certain.

Bonus:

Check out this interview with Harbach @ Baseball Nation ”The greatest baseball books aren’t really about baseball per se, they are simply great books that are set it in the baseball world.”  Indeed.

For an example of Harbach’s writing style, check out this brilliant essay for Grantland.

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson (Benjamin Franklin: An American Life and Albert Einstein: His Life and Universe) is everything a reader could want and more. It appeals to those interested in the formative years of Silicon Valley and personal computing.  It also appeals to those who like to read success stories of groundbreaking corporate founders and even has something special for readers who just like a well-crafted biography.  But the most rewarding thing to take away from the experience of reading this book is the feeling that we have a front row tour of the history of our beloved Apple products.  We learn how the iPod’s continuous scrolling functionality came to be.  We read about who’s idea it was to make the earbuds pure white on the iPod (hint: it’s not Jobs).  Credit where credit is due is another reason this book should be required reading for anyone who uses Apple products.

Do not be fooled by the author’s seemingly breathless and gossipy tone.  While off putting at first, we realize that this is necessary to tell the tale from multiple viewpoints after many exhaustive personal interviews with major players.  The only way to tell the story is to tell what others say and how they feel and that cannot help but read like “he-said/she-said” gossip.  However, since most all the players are living, the device works.

The ultimate triumph of the book is that Isaacson was able to speak to Jobs himself while there was still time.  Over the course of two years, Isaacson conducts over forty in-depth interviews with Jobs.  During the process it’s clear the two develop a friendship of sorts. Jobs implored his biographer to tell the whole story, even if it made him look bad, which it often did.  The perspective gained from these sessions is infinitely rewarding.  Add hundreds of interviews with others and the resulting prose is dramatic and compelling.

And yet, and yet.  The same reader could feel that something was missing in the story.  The book leaves us wanting to know a little bit more about how Mr. Jobs became so brash and narcissistic in the first place, as these traits are usually visible at a very young age.  We never really learn where in his formative years this behavior was allowed to take root and take over.

We get a glimpse of his earlyish years and the fascination with electronics (remember Heathkits?).  We see the willfull youth pushing back on hapless adults (and maybe not so hapless as in the case of Bill Hewlett who ended up offering the 13-year old Jobs a summer job after the kid looked him up in the phone book and called him to inquire about an electronic part).  We see a friendship of youths forged of mutual interests from different perspectives between Mr. Jobs and Wozniak (“Woz”).  The symbiotic (maybe opportunistic?) nature of this coupling is apparent when we read about Woz’s interests (tinkering, hacking, open systems, freeware) and Jobs’ (closed systems, marketing, aesthetics, revenue streams).  These opposing worldviews remain firmly in place throughout the book and professional careers of these gentlemen.  They never really meet in the middle even though they created something significant together.

The best part of this book is the wild ride and we are in the front seat with Jobs (or at least Isaacson).  The adventure that is creating the epic masterpiece that is Apple, which is the world’s most valuable corporation on some days, next to Chevron.  This is no small feat, and the story is transfixing.  Mr. Jobs outsize personality dwarfs most other players, making reading this book exhausting.  But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.  Creating something this successful IS exhausting, so the reader really gets a sense of the drama and hard work and human interplay that gets inserted to each corporate situation and strategy.

Jobs’ lack of interest in the trappings of vast personal wealth is fascinating.  He and his family seem grounded and as normal as they could be under the circumstances.  Opulence was not something to which he aspired.  He aspired to seeing Apple’s ideas manifest in physical reality of useful and pleasurable objects that serve and entertain.  Mr. Jobs is the Chief Architect of this unprecedented bout of forward motion in manufacturing excellence. As stated elsewhere, he deserves a seat in the pantheon of America’s best business leaders.

After all this, we really want to see the protagonist (is Jobs the protagonist?) personally redeemed.  Sadly, this is not the case. That is one of the great disappointments about the book, and perhaps his life story.  We see the fractured relationship he has with his children which the author describes in painful detail.  The heartbreak of the youngest daughter when a long-promised trip to Kyoto is cancelled by Dad  was especially hard to read.  Also hard to read was Jobs’ clear favoritism toward  his son Reed.

Jobs has been identified as having a narcissistic personality disorder.  Author Wendy T. Behary  in an Oct 06, 2008 article offers the best definition of a narcissist I have seen:

A quick definition of a narcissist: someone who has an exaggerated sense of self-worth, is highly self-absorbed, entitled, condescending, superior, show-off-ish, competitive, and approval-craving. They do not appreciate the impact of their often obnoxious behaviors on others. They have a lot of trouble with empathy and with the notion of give and take.

In the end, we are left with Mr. Jobs’ outsize personality and its effect on those in his family, friends and colleagues.  Much of it is gut wrenching.  How much was necessary?  Given what was created in its wake, maybe all of it.  The reader is left not with a feeling of disgust toward Mr. Jobs’ obvious personality handicaps, but a feeling of gratitude for all that was created under the sheer will of Mr. Jobs.  He has made millions upon millions of lives better, and reading a book about this remarkable evolution is a reward in itself.

Thank you. Jobs and Isaacson.  I am going to read Steve Jobs a second time.