Review by New York Times Review
THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. COUNEY By Dawn Raffel. (Blue Rider Press, $27.) The use of incubators to save the lives of premature infants has its origins among the sideshows of Coney Island and Atlantic City. As Raffel recounts in this bit of forgotten but fascinating history, at the turn of the 20 th century Dr. Martin Couney discovered a novel way to help sickly newborns while also making a few bucks displaying the little wonders alongside bearded ladies and strongmen, how schools work By Arne Duncan. (Simon & Schuster, $26.99.) Obama's education secretary unpacks his thoughts about what is working and what isn't in our nation's school system. He is looking to offer some straight talk, beginning with this opening line: "Education runs on lies." a future of faith By Pope Francis with Dominique Wolton. (St. Martin's, $29.99.) The pope sat down for a series of interviews with a French reporter and this book collects the transcripts, revealing Francis' thoughts on a wide range of contemporary issues, from immigration to globalization, making even clearer the revolutionary quality of his papacy. valley of genius By Adam Fisher. (Twelve, $30.) The juggernaut of Silicon Valley now seems like a part of the economy that was always meant to be, but it's worth remembering how young it is and how haphazard was its start. Fisher has interviewed over 200 people in this expansive oral history of the industry, which stretches from Atari to Facebook. maeve in america By Maeve Higgins. (Penguin, paper, $16.) The Irish comedian and memoirist writes of her misadventures in the United States after moving here in her 30 s and discovering the joys and pains of independence. "I went into the story of the El Faro-the American container ship that sank in a hurricane near the Bahamas in 2015 - knowing that all 33 crew members had died. So I was surprised at how tense I felt reading into the raging sea, Rachel Slade's gripping nonfiction account of the disaster. Part of the reason is the sheer amount of firsthand material she has to work with. Thanks to a black box recording from the bridge of the El Faro containing 26 hours of conversation, Slade was able to put together a sea disaster tale unlike any other. (The $3 million effort to retrieve that black box from the bottom of the ocean comprises its own twisty mini-tale.) All of the small errors of judgment, all of the overconfidence and complacency that led to the disaster are on full display, straight from the doomed mariners' mouths. It makes for an exciting, terrifying and deeply sad story." - GILBERT CRUZ, CULTURE EDITOR, ON WHAT HE'S READING.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [July 16, 2018]
Review by Booklist Review
Sometimes a book sneaks up on readers, prompting us to realize that its topic is a lot more interesting than we might have thought. For many, this will be one of those books: an oral history of Silicon Valley, told by the people who were there from the beginning, from Steve Jobs to Marissa Mayer to Steve Wozniak to many, many more. The names of a lot of these men and women might not mean much to readers who haven't followed the modern history of computing, but they are rock-star legends in the industry. Based mostly on firsthand interviews (quotes from people who died before the book was conceived, like Steve Jobs, are culled from previously published sources), the book is lively, fascinating, and educational. To hear these people tell their stories and the story of Silicon Valley in their own words, unfiltered, gives wonderful context to those interested in knowing how our digital world came to be. An essential addition to the history and, yes, mythology of Silicon Valley.--Pitt, David Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Former Wired contributor Fisher's lively oral history of Silicon Valley focuses on behind-the-scene tales of major innovations that emerged from the tech hub, including the interactive video game, the personal computer, and the first computer-animated film. Through these stories emerges "the quintessential Silicon Valley script": "Young kid with radical idea hacks together something cool, [and] builds a wild free-wheeling company around it." The conversational tone allows the reader to connect with the Valley's eccentric and diverse cast of characters, including Napster founder Sean Parker, who helped launch Facebook; film director Ridley Scott, who created the television commercial for the first Macintosh computer; and programmer Jaron Lanier, who coined the term "virtual reality." Touching on the personal habits of the industry's titans-such as Steve Jobs's quirky diets and Twitter cofounder Noah Glass's propensity for giving colleagues "often painful" bear hugs-as well as the grueling process of turning ideas into viable products, Fisher captures the cultural lore of Silicon Valley in the voices of its more prominent players. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Journalist Fisher has crafted this history of Silicon Valley by carefully splicing together quotes from various people involved. Unfortunately, in the audio format the frequent need to give attribution of the source for a quote is jarring and makes for a choppy presentation. Something that is sorely missing and that would have helped to bring clarity to this material is an objective analysis or perspective. Also missing is a discussion of ethical issues, from the selling of blue boxes to circumvent the telephone company to the massive gathering of personal information and monetizing it, thereby creating immense wealth for the tech barons. The story of Silicon Valley deserves a better and more balanced telling. Narrator Pete Larkin provides a workmanlike effort to the material, which doesn't easily lend itself to audio. -Verdict An optional purchase. Most suitable for people with a deep interest in technology. ["This behind-the-scenes account of modern start-up culture will interest technology geeks and business historians alike": LJ 5/15/18 review of the Grand Central hc.]-Cynthia Jensen, Gladys Harrington Lib., Plano, TX © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
An oral history of Silicon Valley.Wired contributor Fisher, who grew up in the valley, debuts with an exhaustive gathering of the voices of the nerds, hippies, engineers, hackers, scientists, weirdos, and tech billionaires who invented the American futurefrom personal computers and video games to Google and Facebookover several generations in the northern San Francisco Bay area. Based on more than 200 interviews and bristling with facts, personalities, and gossip, his inside account brings to life the "future obsessed and forward thinking" culture that gave life to our current digitized world. "Ready or not, computers are coming to the people," Stewart Brand told Rolling Stone in 1972. Already, Atari's Nolan Bushnell was creating video games, and the blending of hacker- and counter-culture was fostering a new popular culture among bright 20-somethings. Providing just enough context, Fisher wisely allows interviewees to tell their stories: of the pioneering Xerox PARC and Apple's Macintosh; of the virtual community the WELL and the short-lived General Magic (with its early iPhone); of Pixar Netscape and the eBay experiment. In the mid-1990s, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin "looked like a bunch of kidsscrewing around," says Deadhead Charlie Ayers, their chef. Throughout the narrative, we meet shoeless programmers and watch water-gun fights; attend wild parties and hacker conferences; witness the inception of innumerable startups; and hear debates on everything from power to the people to IPOs as a stream of entrepreneurs, including Twitter's "nose-ring-wearing, tattooed, neck-bearded, long-haired punk hippie misfits," recall the beginnings of the cyberculture. There is much nostalgia: "We were younger then, and we thought it would go on forever," says Buck's Restaurant owner Jamis MacNiven, of the pre-dot-com crash days. While focusing on the valley's cultural influence, this colorful history also describes emblematic moments from the lives of ambitious movers and shakers, including long walks with Apple's Steve Jobs and young Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's famous party exclamation: "Domination!"An immensely readable account of America's wild cauldron of innovation. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
