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Gaining Insights From Others' Lives

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By RICHARD PACHTER McClatchy Newspapers

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 22, 2008

I loved reading biographies and autobiographies when I was younger, but maybe I'm a little jaded now. Everyone seems to have an ax to grind, an angle to play, a story to spin and a point to make.

Understand, though, that I still find it instructive to read of others' lives and gain insight from their tales, and reading with a slightly jaundiced eye may actually be a bit of an advantage, like having a built-in bovine excrement detector.

Here are two new books that recently met my skeptical gaze:

"How to Get Rich: One of the World's Greatest Entrepreneurs Shares His Secrets," by Felix Dennis (Portfolio, $25.95)
Felix Dennis cut a single with John Lennon back in the late 1960s, when Oz, the magazine he co-edited, was shut down and censored by the British government. He went on to publish a successful guide to kung fu (during the early 1970s craze) and a bunch of computer publications, then started Maxim and several other "lad books," featuring gadgets, lifestyle tips and nearly nude photo layouts of young women. He has since sold most of the magazines but publishes The Week, a terrific compendium of newspaper and magazine stories.

This book, not surprisingly, was a big hit when it came out in Britain, and it was just released in the United States. Dennis, as you might expect, is quite full of it. But he's very self-aware, and pokes fun at himself throughout the winding narrative. However, he freely offers advice on nearly every page, sharing things that worked for him and should certainly work for you, too. Perhaps, but Dennis's entertaining grape-fueled bloviation wears a bit thin on the page, though his poetry is charming in a Hallmark kind of way. A long and large dinner, however, with Dennis holding court and pouring a varied selection of wines, is probably the best medium for this distendedexercise.

"Inside Steve's Brain," by Leander Kahney (Portfolio, $23.95)

As a veteran Mac user, I'll concede that many of my partisans display cultlike symptoms, and Leander Kahney's Cult of Mac blog ( www.cultofmac.com) is one of the better resources for all things Apple. The company's CEO, Steve Jobs, is a ready subject for journalists and has even attracted a gifted impersonator, "Fake Steve Jobs," whose irreverent blog was revealed to be the work of a Forbes editor.

Kahney, though, manages a deft virtual mind-meld with Jobs, and the resulting book is the best approximation of "How to Do Business the Steve Jobs Way" until the real thing comes along. (Don't hold your breath waiting for that one, though.)

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