The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson

Title: The Innovators:  How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution
Author: Walter Isaacson

Read by: Dennis Boutsikaris
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Length: Approximately 17.5 hours (15 CDs)
Source: Simon & Schuster Audio Review Copy – Thank-you!

The Innovators really only needs one word to describe such an intriguing book:  fascinating.   I loved listening to this audiobook as I traveled to work and back.  I couldn’t wait to hear what I would discover next.  Author Walter Isaacson has spun a wonderful tale of the invention of the computer and the internet.  His main thesis is that it was not just one person working alone in a garage that invented the computer or the internet, but collaborative teams that built off the ideas of others coming up with new and ingenuous ways to get the job done.  The book starts off with Ada Lovelace, the grandmother of computing and Lord Byron’s daughter.  He describes many fascinating individuals and teams including Vannevar Bush, Alan Turing, John von Neumann, J.C.R. Licklider, Doug Engelbart, Robert Noyce, Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, Tim Berners-Lee, and Larry Page, AT & T’s Bell Labs, Xerox Corporation, amongst others.

I loved learning about the individuals, the teams, and the ideas.  I am an engineer, not a computer scientist so a lot of this information was new and very interesting to me.  In truth, I want to learn more.  I really want to read Water Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs.  I loved the discussion of math behind some of the ideas, especially in Ada Lovelace’s story. It brought back a lot of college to me, but it also made me sad that I didn’t learn more about computer programming in college.  I had a terrible teacher that only taught those that knew how to write programs, and not those that were just starting.  I really wish I could program.

I also loved the discussion of women in the world of computing. Ada Lovelace’s story is fascinating in itself, but I also loved the story of how in the WWII era, women were the people programming computers.  Although after the first functioning computer was built and shown to run, these same women were not invited to the party celebrating that fact after spending sleepless nights making sure it didn’t work.  I think the ramifications of this are still seen today in the lack of women in computer science.

I also loved Isaacson’s conclusion that humanities and math/science cannot exist without one another.  Most mathematical and computer geniuses also had a strong love of art and/or music.  Isaacson stated that both humanities and science/math should be considered important.  I’m paraphrasing here, but he stated that the same professor of humanities who would think someone was an idiot for not understanding Hamlet would shrug off not understanding a differential equation.  Both are difficult to understand and both are beautiful, but it someone acceptable in our society to laugh off math as “too hard” while expecting everyone to understand the equally hard concepts behind Hamlet.  I very much agree and thought this was an excellent point.

I listened to the audiobook version of The Innovators and it kept me fascinated on my drive.. I loved listening to each story of an individual or team, but also liked that it moved on to a new story to keep things interesting.  Dennis Boutsikaris was a great narrator.

Overall, The Innovators is an excellent book and audiobook.  I highly recommend it to anyone that is looking for a fascinating read about the technology that we take for granted today and the people behind its invention.

The Greatest Gift by Philip Van Doren Stern (The Heartwarming Story that became the Christmas Classic It’s a Wonderful Life)

Title: The Greatest Gift
Author: Philip Van Doren Stern

Read by: Edward Herrmann
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Length: Approximately 45 minutes (1 CD)
Source: Simon & Schuster Audio Review Copy – Thank-you!

I LOVE It’s a Wonderful Life.  It is not only my favorite Christmas movie, but also one of my favorite movies of all time.  Or according to my son Kile’s review, it is “Good.”  I love the theme behind It’s a Wonderful Life that each one of our lives have value and affects so many others, even if we don’t know it.  I jumped at the chance to review The Greatest Gift, which is the short story that It’s a Wonderful Life is based upon.

I’ll admit that I loved The Greatest Gift so much that I listened to it not once, not twice, but three times.  The first half of the audiobook is the story of George Bailey.  A mysterious stranger shows up on Christmas Eve to help George to see what life would be like if he had never been born.  George realizes that each person has worth and that he does indeed have a wonderful life.  The second half of the audiobook is the amazing story of how Philip Van Doren Stern got the idea for the story, wrote it, and was unable to get it published.  He sent it as a Christmas card one year, and then received a phone call from Hollywood asking for the rights of the story to make a movie.  It also talks about the making of the movie and how it impacted Van Doren Stern’s family and the world.   I loved it.  

Edward Herrmann did a good job narrating the story.  I believe Van Doren Stern’s daughter narrated the afterward. I enjoyed how the story had many of the same elements as the movie It’s a Wonderful Life, but also had some different elements that were intriguing to me.   I really loved learning the background of the story and the movie.  I thought this was such a great CD that I went out and purchased it for a couple of Christmas gifts.  Although it’s such a great inspiring story, it doesn’t only need to be a gift for Christmas!  

Overall, this is a wonderful audiobook that I am going to love to listen to each year at the holidays.

The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet by Bernie Su and Kate Rorick

Title: The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet

Author: Bernie Su and Kate Rorick
Read by: Ashley Clements
Publisher: Simon and Shuster Audio
Length: Approximately 10 hours
Source: Simon and Shuster Audio Digital Review Copy – Thanks!

I’ll admit that I watched the first few episodes of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries on YouTube and enjoyed them, but have not have the time to watch the entire series.  Therefore I am reviewing this audiobook as stand-alone book.  

I loved this audiobook.  I thought The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet was a great reimagining of Pride and Prejudice for modern times. It kept the main story of Pride and Prejudice in tack with a few new twists to update it for our times.  Lizzie Bennet is making a video diary project as part of her grad student thesis.  In her video diary, she explores her quirky family and the events of their lives as they unfold over a year.  Her mother has southern charm and an obsession for marrying off her daughters.  Her older sister Jane is beautiful, mellow, and hard working in the fashion world.  Jane falls in love with rich and handsome Bing Lee much to her mother’s happiness, but Bing Lee’s friend William Darcy drives Lizzie insane.  Lizzie is also annoyed by her flighty sister Lydia.  Her best friend Charlotte Lu helps her with the video diaries and keeps her grounded.  

Ashley Clements was a wonderful narrator and was the voice of Lizzie Bennet to me.  I highly recommend this audiobook to both lovers of Pride and Prejudice and those who have not read it before and are looking for a good light read.  I just wish this book didn’t have to end!

Ruth’s Journey by Donald McCaig

Title: Ruth’s Journey
Author: Donald McCaig
Read by:  Cherise Boothe
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Length: 14 hours (12 CDs)
Source:  Review Copy from Simon & Schuster – Thanks!

Ruth’s Journey is subtitled “the authorized novel of Mammy from Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind.”  I am a huge Gone with the Wind fan.  I obsessively watched the move as a kid and then read the book first when I was around 13 and a few times since then.  It is a sprawling masterpiece of historical fiction with a great cast of characters, especially Scarlett, who is a heroine that you often find a hard time liking.  One great character in the book and movie is Mammy, who is one of the only people that truly understands Scarlett and isn’t afraid to tell her what she thinks about her actions.  Ruth’s Journey finally gives a name to Mammy, Ruth, and tells her story from childhood through the picnic at Twelve Oaks where Rhett and Scarlett meet and the very start of the Civil War.

Ruth’s Journey starts in Saint-Domingue which is undergoing a revolution.  Scarlett’s grandmother, Solange Fornier lives on the island with her husband Captain Augustin Fornier.  Captain Fornier finds a young child amongst carnage and the only one left living amongst her family.  He takes her home to his wife Solange and she names her Ruth.  Ruth stays with them as they flee the island for a new life in Savannah.  Ruth has some adventures of her own and eventually becomes Mammy to Solange’s daughter Ellen and then moves up country to Tara when Ellen marries Gerald O’Hara and becomes a mother herself.

As a fan of Gone with the Wind I enjoyed the story and getting more background about different characters, in particular I loved learning about all of the neighbors of Tara and their life before the war.  What I didn’t like is that this didn’t really seem like Ruth’s Journey at all.  It was Solange’s journey with Ruth as a bit side character until CD five when the story abruptly shifts to Ruth as the main character.  At that point I missed Solange as I felt it was her story. The story of Ruth as a wife and a mother was the strongest part of the novel for me.  There was one heart breaking scene that had me in tears.  It’s hard to believe that human beings treated others that way.  When Ruth is no longer a wife and mother and becomes Mammy again the story is once again really about everyone around Ruth and not about Ruth herself.  I wish we could have gotten a more in depth look at Ruth as Mammy and the doings downstairs versus upstairs like the novel Netherfield (Pride and Prejudice told from the servants’ point of view).  I also wondered how this book could have gone if it had been written by Alice Walker or Maya Angelou.

Cherise Booth was a fine narrator and was the voice of Mammy to me.  The audio story kept me interested on my long drives to work. 

Overall, I would recommend this to fans of Gone with the Wind with the caveat that you will find out a lot more about Scarlett’s grandmother, childhood, and other side characters, but not as much about Mammy as you would like.