Matthew Carlton, Words, Art, Photography

Steve Jobs was a jerk.

Steve Jobs was passionate.

Steve Jobs was a pioneer.

This book was extremely well written; Walter Isaacson did a wonderful job. He dove into Jobs’ life by interviewing Steve and many others. Jobs wasn’t the nicest guy, he was temperamental and moody. He felt so deeply about the products he helped deliver that he didn’t have time or compassion for anything other than perfection in his eyes.

He was a controlling and quirky man, thanks to that we now have some great technology.

He didn’t have a perfect personality, but who does?

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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My wife, some friends, and me went to see <em>The Women In Black</em> last night.  It was ok, it probably could have been better; a lot of the “scary” parts were too predictable.  The most enjoyable part of the evening was going to Divvy afterwards.  It’s a newer “sharing plates” restaurant in Carmel, sort of like a tapas bar but with American cuisine.

This was the last in a stack of John Irving books I had in my book case to read, I know I’m still missing a few from his collection I’ll pick up if I see them.

The book was good, I liked the first three quarters of the book a lot, and however the last quarter of a book was sort of awkward. To say the least a lot of awkward relationship happenings between characters come to fruition. Not the strangest set of characters he’s written, but definitely memorable.

Time to read about Steve Jobs.

The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

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My wife and I bought Nike+ fobs to track our running indoors.  They’re pretty cost effective at twenty bucks and since we have iPhones (Nike+ technology is built in to the iOS) it made sense to do that instead of buying a pedometers or highly overpowered stopwatch.

I’ll let you know how it works out.

I was quite happy with this book; it did have fair bit of ridiculousness but what novel doesn’t? The biggest reason I liked this story, is that it kept my attention the entire time. Some of Irving’s stories I’ve read I felt like I had to force myself to finish them, this wasn’t one of them.

Onward to The Hotel New Hampshire

A Widow for One Year by John Irving

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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I’m making my way through the remaining books I own by John Irving that I’ve not read. After A Son of the Circus I needed to read something of his that didn’t seem so dense. So I picked up the smallest novel I had of his: The 158-Pound Marriage.

It was compact and well written, there wasn’t a lot of fluff and it really hit on the points that could really destroy your ménage à quatre. The two husband and wife pairs that entered and fell out, no, crashed and burned out of the relationship explore themselves and their own relationships and discover what lead them into bed together.

The 158-Pound Marriage by John Irving

My rating: 4 of 5 stars 

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