Silicon Valley – DaneCobain.com

Title: Steve Jobs

Author: Karen Blumenthal

Type: Non-Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 312

Rating: 9/10

Karen Blumenthal – Steve Jobs

This biography of Steve Jobs is a lively account of the life of one of the most famous visionaries in the history of Silicon Valley. Jobs co-founded Apple with Steve Wozniak, one of his close friends who was also into assembling computers.

You probably know at least some of the story of Apple, because they’re one of those rare brands that has an awesome story behind them, as well as a history of awesome products. I’m not going to go into that here, because if you want to find out about that then you should read the book – what I can tell you, though, is that there’s a lot of fun to be had finding out all about it.

The cool thing about this is that there are lots of photographs and quotes from key figures along the way. Blumenthal has done her homework, and whilst this isn’t an officially authorised Apple biography, it is still very good. I certainly learned a lot about Jobs, including plenty of stuff that I didn’t know – his lineage, for example. Jobs was adopted, but he was able to discover who his real parents were – his dad was a Syrian refugee.

Jobs was a genius, and if you’re interested in business in any shape or form then you ought to read this, because his revolutionary ideas and strategies can often be modified and adapted to serve your own purposes. Sure, he was well-known for being a bit of a dick, but he was also the only person in history who revolutionised the personal computing, mobile phone and the music industries.

And he was quite a character, too – some of the stories that his family and friends share are priceless, typical Steve Jobs moments. He will be missed.

Karen Blumenthal

Click here to buy Steve Jobs.

Aaron Peckham – Mo’ Urban Dictionary | Review

Title: Mo’ Urban Dictionary

Author: Aaron Peckham

Type: Non-Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 232

Rating: 7/10

Aaron Peckham – Mo’ Urban Dictionary

This is the second of the Urban Dictionary books, and they’re both pretty much what you’d expect them to be – dictionaries of street slang, compiled from all of the entries on the website by the creator of it, who now works as a programmer in silicon valley.

To be honest, you probably don’t need to own both of them – the concept remains the same and so in this book, you’re just getting some new definitions. It’s still kind of outdated at times as well, even though it was published a little later than the first book. That said, it’s a novelty read and not too bad if you’re a fan of the website.

It’s also just about possible that you’ll pick up some of the words and start using them in everyday conversation, with the end result of freaking out your friends and family and making your coworkers think you’re far more street than you actually are.

It’s interesting to note that some of these definitions, whilst reasonably fresh at the time of writing, are now actually ingrained in our mainstream consciousness, and you wouldn’t need a dictionary to look them up. After all, this was published way before people started using YOLO, and everyone knows what that means now, right?