Ed King by David Guterson, 2011, * * *

Guterson stormed the publishing industry with his 1994 debut novel Snow Falling on Cedars.  It was a poetic and intensely atmospheric drama that brimmed with issues of morality - simple right and wrong. In three subsequent novels, Guterson changed speeds and became less oriented around plot and community choosing instead to hone in one specific individuals, their inner demons replacing real-world adversaries.  Still, Guterson retained a recognizable style which included his reverence for nature, particularly the rugged, rain-drenched landscapes of the Pacific Northwest, along with his earnestness and dogged attention to detail which continued to define him as a writer. Those days are over. In Ed King, Guterson's unassuming traits have been supplanted by caustic cynicism and ironic humor.  Here Guterson uses key elements of Oedipus the King as scaffolding for a snarky novel skewering contemporary values. In 1962, a 34-year old actuary seduces an underage au pair producing a child who, abandoned, is adopted by the prosperous King family and named Edward.  But Ed is not a king in name only; he grows into the 'king of search,' a man in the mold of Steve Jobs or Bill Gates who runs a company akin to Google called Pythia.  The characters are superficially realized and relentlessly ridiculed; the cure for the guilt that Ed feels over causing a stranger's death is the right antidepressant. Ed has copious encounters with older girls, then older woman, a recurring theme Guterson employs to trumpet his point. Ed is not only Sophocles's Oedipus but also Freud's, thanks to an oversized and over simplified Oedipus complex.  Ed King is an interesting undertaking but the lack of basic storytelling catches up with Guterson as this master of subtle scenes and emotionally resonant moments has managed to write a book devoid of either.  As a result, the superficial characters and their unrelenting amorality eventually begin to grate, as does the preordained story line.

Steve Jobs by Water Isaacson, 2011, * * * *

Steve Jobs asked Walter Isaacson, a former Managing Editor at Time Magazine, former Chairman and CEO of CNN and a biographer of Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin to write his autobiography while he was still alive. Mr. Jobs, the brilliant and protean creator whose inventions so utterly transformed the allure of technology, turned lessons he learned from his father about "doing things right"" into an all-purpose theory of intelligent design. Mr. Jobs, who founded Apple with Stephen Wozniak in 1976, began his career as a seemingly contradictory blend of hippie truth seeker" and" tech-savvy hothead." Based on more than 40 interviews with Jobs as well as with friends, family, adversaries, competitors and colleagues, Isaacson has created a story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing and digital publishing.  The book takes us to a time when laptops, desktops and windows were metaphors, not everyday realities and describes how each of the Apple innovations that we now take for granted,  first occurred to Mr. Jobs or his creative team. At a time when America is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, and when societies around the world are trying to build digital-age economies, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. Skeptic after skeptic made the mistake of underrating Steve Jobs saying "Sorry, Steve, Here's Why Apple Stores Won't Work" which Business Week wrote in 2001 or "The iPod Will Likely Become a Niche Product" as stated by a Harvard Business School professor. Steve Jobs had the last laugh each and every time.  Driven by demons, Jobs could drive those around him to fury and despair but his personality and products were interrelated, just as Apple's hardware and software tended to be. His story is instructive and cautionary, filled with lessons about innovation, character, leadership and values. Throughout the book Jobs is called rude, insensitive, mean, petulant, obnoxious, vengeful and a bully.  Few dispute his genius and most agree with the nasty adjectives used to describe him but he was also charismatic. He was often quoted as having a "reality distortion field" -- in his presence reality was malleable and he was able to convince anyone of almost anything.  Isaacson tells the story from the making of the first Apple computer to the Mac, the boardroom intrigues, NeXT computer, Pixar and the rebirth of Apple and the products he created in the past 10 years.  The book raises the question of what it took to make the world's most iconic brand -- it is the stuff of legends!

Run by Ann Patchett, 2007, * * * *

Bernadette and Bernard Doyle were a Boston couple who wanted to have a big lively family. They had one boy, Sullivan, and then adopted two black boys, Teddy and Tip. Mr. Doyle is a former mayor of Boston and he continues his interest in politics, hoping his boys will shape up one day for elected office, though none of them seems especially keen. Bernadette dies when the adopted kids are just four, and much of the book offers a requiem to her memory in particular and to the force of motherhood in lives generally. One night, during a heavy snowfall, Teddy and Tip accompany their father to a lecture given by Jesse Jackson and after the lecture, Tip gets into an argument with his father and walks backwards into an oncoming car. The car appears out of nowhere and so does a woman called Tennessee, who pushes Tip out of the car's path and is herself struck in the process of saving Tip.  When Tennessee is taken to hospital, her daughter, Kenya, is left in the company of the Doyles. Relationships begin both to emerge and unravel, disclosing secrets, hopes, fears.  Run shows us how worlds of privilege and poverty can coexist only blocks apart from each other, and how family can include people you've never even met. As in her bestselling novel Bel Canto, Ann Patchett illustrates the humanity that connects disparate lives, weaving several stories into one surprising and endlessly moving narrative. Suspenseful and stunningly executed, Run is ultimately a novel about secrets, duty, responsibility, and the lengths we will go to protect our children.