Book Review: No Higher Honor by Condoleezza Rice

When I read about the launch of this book, it piqued my interest a bit. I'm not much of a biography or a memoir fan, but Condoleezza Rice's tenure as the American NSA and Secretary of State were one of the most tumultuous of my times. The Indo Pak Karil war, 9/11 , Israel Palestine War, Israel Syria war, Iraq war, Afghanistan war and 26/11 attacks,North Korean Nuclear tests, the worst recession ever and George.W.Bush!!!!!

The book reads like a compilation of world happenings in the first decade of 2000. You get some insight into the way American dealt with many issues that happened and how the discussions to resolve many a dispute played out.

It was an interesting book to read. However, it could have been a lot better if it had not been stuck in a loop about Israel and Iraq. 

These two entities make repeated appearances throughout the book that you almost start to believe that Condoleezza Rice did nothing else. This is partly due to the fact that she goes to great lengths to describe the logistics of each Israel - Palestine talks happen or her trips to Iraq. But when it comes to the incidents in the rest of the world, she rushes through the portions as though they were gossip news. I say this purely from observing how much space she devotes to the major incidents in the S.Asian region. Namely, the Lal Mosque siege in Pakistan, 26/11 and the Nuclear deal. These incidents were major ones and played out big time our news. Make no mistake, she has devoted chapters to two of the three items i have quoted here. But they are not described in the level of detail she describes for instance, her dinner with the Saudi King and her meeting with the Matriarch of the Royal family!

Despite all of this, this book is an interesting read in understanding how crucial the role of Secretary of State is. 

Book Review : Steve Job, A Biography by Walter Isaacson

Enough Has been written about Steve jobs and the biography. I'm going to just keep this short and brief.
The book is an awesome read for someone in the IT industry and especially if you are following the gadget world.
The book provides an insight into the working of the Jobsian mind.  What one discovers in the course of reading the book is that Steve Jobs, the man was a man obsessed with details even if its about something no one will notice. Here is a sample, how would you react if your CEO spends hours debating and deciding on the exact shade of gray, yes the shade of gray and not which color, to use on , hold your breath, the toilet sign in an Apple store. Yep, that was Steve Jobs and you won't be at fault to think that he was crazy, because he was!
His craziness is what made him obsessive and that obsession is what made him driven, his drive is what made him realize his obsessions and that's has made Apple what it is today.
He took on an approach where every product that had an Apple logo on his guard was his child. He had a say in the outcome of every piece of screw and glue that went into Apple products. He did not do so just to micro manage, he did so out of real passion in his beliefs that a true standard of a product is not just in how it is built on the outside, but on this inside as well.
As a human being, he probably will get ranked 0.5 on the scale of 10 with 10 being the best human being ever. He was a jerk and a good one at that. He made lives of his co-workers miserable, trash talked their work, claimed their ideas to be his, did board room wars(though I would not count this in the reasons) and drove people insane with his methods. The few who realized the positive of staying with him, survived the Jobsian ways and made their careers. The rest just left.
The mix of the  Jobs persona just tells you the don'ts of a human life and his obsession to delivering a quality products teaches the reader how driven one must be, if one must make a mark in the world.
The awesome mix of jobsian persona and his chequered career is finally what makes the book tick. This will definitely be one of the top ten of my fav books.
Addendum: My wife (a non techie) tried to read this and lost interest 10% into the book. She could not understand whats the big deal about Apple1 and LISA and yadda yadda. Thats a confirmation that this book is only for  gadget fans or for management students