“Steven Levy, the author of ‘The Perfect Thing,’ is madly in love. So what if the object of his affections is inanimate and very, very petite? It makes great company and is fun to fondle. It makes him feel good and bolsters his self-confidence. And size is no problem: the more it shrinks, the more ‘adorable’ it becomes,” Janet Maslin writes for The New York Times.
Maslin writes, “His position as chief technology correspondent for Newsweek ought to underscore his authority on this subject. But he is overly fond of emphasizing his backstage access to Steve Jobs, and of locutions like ‘I once found myself in a heated discussion with Bill Gates about…’ At least he can claim to have been the first person to hand Mr. Gates a Microsoft-unfriendly iPod and asked ‘Have you seen this yet?’ As Mr. Gates absorbed every detail about the rival product, Mr. Levy says, ‘I could almost hear the giant sucking sound.'”
Maslin writes, “‘The Perfect Thing’ raises one big question: is it possible to spin a whole book out of such literally lightweight subject matter? Answer: yes, if you don’t mind repetition and don’t expect to learn anything new. ‘The Perfect Thing’ is more entertaining than informative, but it makes a very satisfactory mash note. Gushing aside (‘this is its universally celebrated, endlessly pleasing, devilishly functional, drop-dead gorgeous design’), it does a handy job of crystallizing and commemorating the dawn of the iPod age.”
Full book review here.
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