An innovative view of personal empowerment seen through the lens of a technology pioneer’s life.
A motivational business book focuses on the career of computer industry icon Steve Jobs.
“What does it take to make it to the top?” Toguchi (co-author: Land Warfare in the Information Age, 2004) asks in this work, centering his narrative on “one remarkable individual who relied upon his skills, habits, and behaviors to achieve success.” Of that list, the item to which the author devotes the bulk of his attention is habits, which he views as the keystone of both life and success. “Habits prepare entrepreneurs for the storm,” he writes, mapping his study of the intricacies of habits onto the biography of Jobs and his lifetime of innovation. Toguchi takes readers through the well-known stages of Jobs’ career at Apple, outside of Apple, and then back at Apple, and he touches on the setbacks the visionary encountered, including the cancer that eventually claimed his life. Toguchi deftly draws on these biographical details in order to draw morals that are unfailingly upbeat: “You can overcome the difficulties of life with the right attitude and perseverance,” he writes, pointing out that Jobs had a remarkable ability to identify significant features and see a clear path to achieving his design concepts—whether or not that road aligned with the advice of the professionals around him. “In solving his problems, Steve Jobs did not rely on marketing surveys to steer his choices for consumers,” Toguchi writes. Instead, the entrepreneur trusted in his “own intuition and gut instincts.” Readers will find the author a lively, engaging counselor, although the more familiar they are with the history and nature of Jobs, the less they might believe some of Toguchi’s assessments, including that the magnate epitomized the kind of individual who “exuded a positive attitude” and that he “developed the habit of making a great first impression.” Jobs’ many enemies would laugh at such comments, but even skeptics should appreciate the optimistic spirit of the author’s conclusions.
An innovative view of personal empowerment seen through the lens of a technology pioneer’s life.Pub Date: May 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5320-2205-0
Page Count: 166
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and...
A dense, absorbing investigation into the medical community's exploitation of a dying woman and her family's struggle to salvage truth and dignity decades later.
In a well-paced, vibrant narrative, Popular Science contributor and Culture Dish blogger Skloot (Creative Writing/Univ. of Memphis) demonstrates that for every human cell put under a microscope, a complex life story is inexorably attached, to which doctors, researchers and laboratories have often been woefully insensitive and unaccountable. In 1951, Henrietta Lacks, an African-American mother of five, was diagnosed with what proved to be a fatal form of cervical cancer. At Johns Hopkins, the doctors harvested cells from her cervix without her permission and distributed them to labs around the globe, where they were multiplied and used for a diverse array of treatments. Known as HeLa cells, they became one of the world's most ubiquitous sources for medical research of everything from hormones, steroids and vitamins to gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, even the polio vaccine—all without the knowledge, must less consent, of the Lacks family. Skloot spent a decade interviewing every relative of Lacks she could find, excavating difficult memories and long-simmering outrage that had lay dormant since their loved one's sorrowful demise. Equal parts intimate biography and brutal clinical reportage, Skloot's graceful narrative adeptly navigates the wrenching Lack family recollections and the sobering, overarching realities of poverty and pre–civil-rights racism. The author's style is matched by a methodical scientific rigor and manifest expertise in the field.
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and Petri dish politics.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4000-5217-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
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