Entertainment

Last Minute Stocking Stuffer: I, Steve

If you’re looking for a light, accessible Steve Jobs stocking stuffer item, look no further. I, Steve is everything the Walter Isaacson book is not. In a good way.

If you know a true die hard Apple enthusiast, get him or her the Issacson book. This guy is a legit historian who has produced some great books on Einstein, Ben Frankiln, and Henry Kissinger. But if you’re purchasing a book for an Apple fan with a short attention span, go for I, Steve, a book that serves as an easily digestible collection of the innovative tech pioneer’s ideas and opinions in his own words.

Consider some of these quotes:

On Microsoft’s Microview:
I told [Bill Gates] I believed every word of what I said but that I should never have said it in public. I wish him the best, I really do. I just think he and Microsoft are a bit narrow. He’d be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger.
- New York Times Magazine, January 12, 1997

On Simplicity:
There’s a very strong DNA within Apple, and that’s about taking state-of-the-art technology and making it easy for people…people who don’t want to read manuals, people who live very busy lives.
- Guardian, September 22, 2005

On Forward Thinking:
If you want to live your life in a creative way, as an artist, you have to not look back too much. You have to be willing to take whatever you’ve done and whoever you were and throw them away.
- Playboy, February 1985

So you get the idea. This book is something you can power through quickly, like on a short flight or a lazy Saturday. It’s a quick, fascinating read that’ll serve as a good companion piece to Isaacson’s more in-depth character sketch.