Companies – DaneCobain.com

Title: Roadwork

Author: Stephen King

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 264

Rating: 4/5

This is one of those stories that took a while to grow on, but which once I was invested, I really enjoyed. My only real criticism that I’d have for it is that I think it might have worked better if it had been called “Demolition”, but that’s just a matter of personal taste.

I think what King does well here is that he manages to create a sort of antihero that we’re all secretly rooting for because he symbolises the fight between us as individuals and the big companies that dominate our modern lives. It’s arguably more relevant now than it was when it was first published in the 1970s.

I did read this one a little slower than the other stories in the bound up edition of The Bachman Books that I have, and I think this one and Rage are slightly weaker than The Long Walk and The Running Man, the other two. Either way, though, I’d definitely say that it’s worth checking out.

It’s also interesting because Bachman and King have two different writing styles, despite the fact that the two of them are the same person. It’s interesting how King used his alter ego to explore a different style of writing and I think that the Bachman books as a whole are definitely worth reading whether you’re a King fan or not. Roadwork isn’t the best of them, but it is still a damn good entry into King’s epic bibliography.

Click here to buy Roadwork.

Seth Godin – Unleashing the Ideavirus | Review

Title: Unleashing the Ideavirus

Author: Seth Godin

Type: Non-Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 240

Rating: 3*/5

Seth Godin – Unleashing the Ideavirus

I was a little disappointed by this one. I’ve been a pretty big Seth Godin fan for a while now, but this particular book feels a lot more dated than others, thanks partly due to its references to Napster, AOL and Yahoo! being revolutionary. Still, at least it does show that Godin was ahead of the times and on trend even way back when, and some of the ideas here are still applicable in terms of working with “sneezers” – which we now call “influencers“.

I can’t give this one anything lower than a three out of five because I’m pretty sure I would have found this useful if I’d read it five years ago. Unfortunately, I didn’t, and while I would recommend reading some of Godin’s books, this isn’t where I’d start.

In terms of the central concept, it’s basically about how sometimes, as a species, something catches on like a cold and is “sneezed” from one person to another. It’s certainly a believable theory, especially because Godin backs it up with some fairly solid examples. The companies that he mentions might not be relevant anymore, but they certainly were back in their heyday.

And hey, come on. If nothing else, you’ll get a pretty good idea of how far we’ve really come along in the last ten years.