Steve Jobs - The Exclusive Biography
Rating: 4.5/5
Author: Walter Isaacson
Publisher: Simon & Schuster (Original), Little, Brown (Exclusive Edition)
Publishing Date: October 24, 2011(Old Edition of Exclusive Biography)
Language: English
Genre: Biography
ISBN-10: 1451648537(Original), 9781408703748 (Exclusive Edition)
ISBN-13: 9781451648539(Original), 978-1408703748 (Exclusive Edition)
Pages: 627
Cost: $17 (Original), 425 INR (Hardcover), 342 INR (Paperback), 499 INR (Audio CD)
Description:
"Your time is limited.... Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition." - Steve Jobs
An extraordinary book which gives us a unique insight into the life and thinking of a man who single-handedly transformed the way we live today. A man who thought differently and brought a great revolutionary vision to connect people with the world.
Creativity and vision were brought along so well by Steve Jobs, which was quite enough to make the world want every product that he touched; from Macintosh to MacBook, to iPhone, iPods, iTunes, and iPads. He was a genius, a perfectionist in terms of his level of taste and style. His counterculture approach pushed all the boundaries.
Jobs' life had been a rollercoaster from the beginning, which had many ups and downs. His life starts with putting him on adoption by his biological parents because of their hesitation in raising a child at a very young age. Then, he dropped out of college after one semester, at the age of 20, he made his first computer in his dad's garage with his childhood friend Steve Wozniak. Nevertheless, he was kicked out of his own company once because of his aggressive approach to everything.
Meanwhile, he went to India in mid-74 to meet Neem Karoli Baba to learn how to get inner peace and stayed there for a few years. Finally, when he came back home and started working with Apple again along with his creation of Pixar. He founded NeXT and Gap Inc. too.
The book is written by Walter Isaacson after having forty one-on-one sessions with Steve Jobs and more than a hundred interviews with his immediate family, relatives, friends, colleagues, adversaries, and his competitors.
Isaacson says, “Even though Steve cooperated with the book so much, he never asked for control over it, not even he asked for the right to read the book before it got published. He did not put anything off the limit.”
“He encouraged people around him to speak honestly. He used to speak candidly, sometimes very blunt that could put sourness between two. His friends, foes, and competitors provided the unvarnished view about Steve’s passion, perfection, obsession, artistry, and compulsion for control that shaped his approach to business and innovative products that resulted.” Isaacson added.
Review:
Isaacson tells the life story of a perfectionist who is blunt but with a good sense of humor, witty though full of creativity. An entrepreneur whose passion and ferocious drive brought a revolution in six industries: personal computer, music, phones, animated movies, tablet computing and digital publishing.
This book, which was published in October 24, 2011 - 19 days after Jobs' death, is an encyclopedia of the life of a unique personality right up to his battle with cancer and death. Simultaneously, explore the revolution of computers. The details of each fact are astounding and allow us to peek into Jobs live through some astonishing black and white photos of his family, friends, his days of hard work and initial fame. The fame of his life was growing with years passing by through his innovations.
Based on forty interviews with Steve Jobs and a hundred interviews with his family and mates, this book is one of the greatest biographies of the century. It is acclaimed that internationally it is the bestselling biography of the ultimate icon of inventiveness.
"This is a riveting book, with as much to say about the transformation of modern life in the information age as about its supernaturally gifted and driven subject" - Telegraph.
"Isaacson has done an outstanding job. He keeps a sturdily detached perspective about Jobs' many eccentricities. His biographer has written a captivation account of this digital visionary whose products have enthralled millions of people" - Spectator
Milestones of Book:
- 2011 The New York Times bestseller
- 2011 Christian Science Monitor Best Book, nonfiction
- 2011 Time Magazine's Best Books of the Year
- 2012 Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award, shortlist
- ‘Gerald Loeb Award’ in 2012 awarded to author Walter Isaacson
Adaptation:
- A film adaptation written by Aaron Sorkin, produced by Scott Rudin and directed by Danny Boyle, with Michael Fassbender starring in the title role, was released on October 9, 2015.
About the Author:
Walter Isaacson is an American historian, journalist, and writer. He is a Professor of History at Tulane University. He has been President and CEO of Aspen Institute based in Washington, D.C., Chairman and CEO at CNN and Managing Editor of Times.
He is a gem writer of biographies such as Leonardo da Vinci, Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, and Henry Kissinger. He is the co-author of 'The Wise Men: Six Friends and The World They Made' with Evan Thomas.
