Another great take on the extent to which Walter Isaacson biography misses the mark is John Siracusa's criticisms on the "Hypercritical" podcast. Skip to about 17 minutes and 45 seconds in, which is when they start discussing it. It looks to be part 1 of an epic two-fer.
I think Siracusa's critique goes off the rails when he's complaining about things like the book missing the details in the PA Semi acquisition -- yes, that would have been interesting and ironic, I would have enjoyed reading it, but I bet my wife wouldn't. That's more appropriate for a book about Apple in general, not a personal bio of Jobs.
But I agree completely with Siracusa about the book's general laziness. Many early chapters are poorly-written (and poorly-understood) summaries of previous books and interviews.
I noticed that too, but I stuck with him and didn't consider it "going off the rails" so much as just being the typical Siracusa obsessively-detailed critique. Have you ever read one of his reviews of new MacOS X releases? They're agonizingly nitpicky, and the presence of any particular criticism doesn't really imply that this particular detail has as much weight as any other criticism he has. He was clearly reading off of long, detailed notes that he had organized into sections. Still, he does also obsess about how he writes and edits his work, and had he written a review of the biography rather than stepping up to a microphone for a podcast, the thing about PA Semi may not have made the cut. Who knows.
I disagree. Siracusa didn't take the time to sell it but there could have been personal drama in the acquisition. His main point was why mention it without getting into the interesting parts.
http://5by5.tv/hypercritical/42
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