Steve Jobs (Walter Isaacson)

This is the biography of a man who was brilliant, arrogant, sensitive, brutal, charismatic, delusional...a man of contradictions. There is little doubt that Apple is successful because of Steve Jobs. It is also true that he hurt the people around him, mostly deliberately, often with no real reason. He saw the world, including people, in absolute black and white terms: everything, and everyone, was either intolerably awful or amazingly wonderful, often alternately within hours. He had an overarching vision of technology, believing throughout his career in the importance of controlling the user's experience from end to end. He also meddled in every tiny detail of his products, from the precise shade of blue for the shell of the iMac to the finish on the screws inside the unit. Love him or hate him (or both), it is hard to read this story without sheer fascination.

Just My Type (Simon Garfield)

A whole book just about fonts - their history, their politics, their design, and their psychology. Why does everybody hate Comic Sans? Will Helvetica take over the universe? Why is Steve Jobs almost as important in the history of type as Guttenberg? Which font should I choose for my course materials? I loved it, and learned a vast amount of quirky, fun information. I'm never going to be a font geek, the kind of person who, when watching a movie set in the 1940s, is thrown off by a store sign in a font that was invented in 1972. Still, I loved the whole thing. And yes, after reading this, I was moved to do some research and change my standard font from Century Gothic to Verdana. Read the book if design is something you are interested in.

Zero History (William Gibson)

This book shares a universe and several characters with Pattern Recognition, which I loved, but this one didn't work quite as well for me. It seemed more scattered. Pattern Recognition had one central character; this had two or three, and they didn't seem quite as well realized. Milgram, for instance, has "zero history," meaning that he has no credit, employment, or other records, but this doesn't seem to figure in the story much, and no explanation is given as to why Bigend chose this particular drug addict out of the millions in the world to rehabilitate and use as a tool. The plot seems equally scattered, with themes of military contracting, flying robot penguins, rock bands, secret fashion designers, odd hotel rooms, and stock market manipulation. The solution involved a real deus ex machina, for though the character who pulled it off had been mentioned throughout, no justification for his skill set was forthcoming. I probably shouldn't have expected it to live up to its predecessor, but I was disappointed nonetheless.

The Learners (Chip Kidd)

Kidd is a famous graphic designer, and the book is a festival of graphic design, much of which I found irritating. What's the point of splitting the disclaimer in half down the middle and separating the two halves by a page? You've just made it a chore to read, and if you think nobody reads it then it's just an exercise with no purpose. I also found the characters a little overblown, as though trying too hard to be dramatic and special. But as a psychologist I was very interested in the inside details of the Milgram study (NOT an experiment!). Still, though most participants were stressed, my recollection was that severe psychological reactions didn't occur - certainly, nobody committed suicide as a result. All in all I'm glad I read it, but I didn't love it.

The Cheese Monkeys (Chip Kidd)

This is an odd little book, but interesting, about a young man who decided to major in art, though he's not sure why. His first semester he falls for a wild, dangerous, challenging young woman who enjoys pushing boundaries and everyone's buttons. His second semester focuses on a graphic design course they both take, taught by a man who is even more wild and challenging. The author has a lot to say about Art, Design, and the differences between them, but the book is mostly about their relationship, which is frustrating and baffling. I can't say I enjoyed it, really, but I was fascinated in an appalled sort of way, and the writing itself was fine.