One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia

This was the perfect book to read on my flight last night from DC to Minneapolis. A two-hour read that was pure joy! For some reason I seem to be connecting with a lot of novels that have eleven-year-old girls as the narrator! This one is black, and her story unfolds in 1968 when she travels to Oakland with her two younger sisters to meet her mother. She also connects with the Black Panthers. It's a moving story, a fun story, a tragic story, and a thought-provoking story. Melissa lent it to me and told me it was good--she was right! I especially enjoyed it because of my own connections to the Bay Area and the Black Panthers and 1968. (We hosted Eldridge Cleaver in our home years later in Napa...) It was a flashback into a familiar time, but the culture was very foreign and enlightening to read about. It's considered a "youth" book, and is one of those rare ones that is just as enjoyable and uplifiting for adults as it is for youths... There could be fruitful discussions about identity related to this book and the way that Delphine's identity develops and changes in the course of the story. Parts of the story poetic and poignant. An amazing accomplishment to hit all these themes and still be mostly light and engaging too.

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

Melissa gave me this biography for Christmas. It's a treat because it's new, it's hardbound (and heavy!) and has some fascinating photos. It was a good read, despite Isaacson's occasionally confusing syntax. He did a masterful job of getting into Jobs's professional life and associations. There is less about his personal life, but we do get glimpses of Jobs's wife and children. It's often a story of our time and the development of iconic technology tools. It was fascinating to read about how these tools and ideas developed under Jobs's passionate attention. The book also reveals quite a bit about Bill Gates and other key players of this era.

Points to remember...

• Steve Jobs was passionate about DESIGN. This includes how products look, feel, and function. He lived at the intersection of the humanities and technology.
• He designed the new Apple campus building in a way to encourage people in different departments to intersect.
• He was diametrically opposed to Gates's open archetecture and instead controlled the user's experience from end to end.
• He launched a series of products over three decades that transformed whole industries: (pp. 565-566)
• Apple II - took Wozniak's first circuit board and turned it into the first personal computer that was not just for hobbyists.
• The Macintosh, which begat the home computer revolution and popularized graphical user interfaces.
• Toy Story and other Pixar blockbusters, which opened up the miracle of digital imagination.
• The iPod, which changed the way we consume music.
• The iTunes Store, which saved the music industry.
• The iPhone, which turned mobile phones into music, photography, video, email, and web devices.
• The App Store, which spawned a new content-creation industry.
• The iPad, which launched tablet computing and offered a platform for digital newspapers, magazines, books, and videos.
• iCloud, which demoted the computer from its central role in managing our content and let all of our devices sync seamlessly.
• And Apple itself, which Jobs considered his greatest creation, a place where imagination was nurtured, applied, and executed in ways so creative that it became the most valuable company on earth.
• He was very difficult to work with...and the author traces Jobs's personality development over time. It's an interesting story which Isaacson offers with compassion.

My favorite part of the book is the final word which Isaacson gives to Jobs. It's what he hoped his legacy would be, and revealed what he cared about. Page 567 onwards...worth reading again...

Winter Solstice by Rosamunde Pilcher

My friend Jann reads this book every winter...(kind of like my ritual reading of Prodigal Summer!) so I was anxious to see what she enjoys. She warned me that it was a restful place she likes to go...and indeed it was. I thoroughly enjoyed this book over the holiday break. It was the perfect "cruise read" around the pool and in the sunshine. It's light yet full of interesting characters who are unpredictable and very likeable. The setting is Scotland, and I know that's part of the attraction for Jann. This sweet story of love gave me a lot of insights into Scottish landscape and personalities and values. I enjoyed that, because the people are an unknown quantity to me. Coincidentally while on the cruise, I met a Scottish woman, and I told her what I was reading. Her face relaxed into a big smile when I mentioned the author; apparently she is revered in Scotland. It's basically a story about family and love and loss, and how people who are positive and loving can create joy no matter what the circumstances. Very enjoyable...very restful...