Walter Isaacson's hefty biography of Steve Jobs. Totally fascinating in so many ways, not only Steve Jobs's unique and often difficult personality. The early days of personal computers and the driven characters that invented it. The fertile ground of Silicon Valley - I used to travel there once or twice a year with work, so I'm familiar with Palo Alto, Stanford University, Mountain View etc - the geography of the area and all the tech developments that came out of that atmosphere (if I could choose to live anywhere in the world it would be there). The politics of a young, rapidly expanding company, personality clashes that decided which products were developed and sold. Last but not least, the detailed history of Apple computers - although I was aware of them from the days of the Commodore Pet and Sinclair ZX81, I only bought one for myself shortly after Jobs returned in the late 90s, so the detailed history of the Lisa, the first Macintosh, the folly that was NeXT is engrossing.
