STEVE JOBS by WALTER ISAACSON

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Approaching Steve Jobs's biography was a leap of faith in a scary, unknown territory.
First of all, I'm not an expert nor a fan of the tech world.
Second, biographies are not part of my reading routine.
Last and mostly, for the first time in my life I listened to an audio book instead of reading it on paper or on my beloved Kindle.

If it's true that we should always find ways to abandon our comfort zone, I could never agree more than I do after this experience. I feel reinvigorated and excited about my discoveries: I learnt so much about the technology world and how things came to be as they are today, of who made it possible for me to be typing away and instantly share my ideas with you.
I also discovered that I love biographies and audio books.
Last, I met an author that I highly admire, Walter Isaacson.

The simple and exact writing style of Isaacson has allowed me to explore a complicated matter such as CEOs wars and futuristic engineering, understand the bulk meaning of it, without getting lost in technicalities. The otherworldly genius meets the humanity of an abandoned kid and far-from-perfect father. The simple truth of Steve Jobs bad character and down-to-earth personality has inspired me and held me captive like the best of novels, with an unfortunate happy ending.
Next on the to-read list is the biography on "Einstein: his life and Universe" by the same amazing author, Walter Isaacson.

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YOU ARE NOT HEMINGWAY. AND YOU KNOW IT.

This is the story of a "young" girl who loved to travel lots, party hard and sleep late, a girl who always knew, deep in her heart, that someday, somehow, she would be a famous writer.
One day our girl happened to drink some evil potion, in the form of slums rotten water, and fell sick, just like any other respectable princess. Far from home and forced to bed, she decided to make the best of it and spent her days pouring her dreams into words, tapping away with light fingers.

Proud and impatient she woke up the morning after typing "The End" on the last page of her very first masterpiece.

Little did she know that upon reading the first two chapters of her "bestseller", she couldn't have kept reading another word, such boring and vague and confused her writing had turned out to be. Now, let's not fear for our hero, as she had never been the type of person who let a bump in the road trick her into believing life was not awesome. And so it came that, holding her chin high, our girl opened a new pristine document and set to wait for the Muse to fill it with amazing adventures. 

You see, this happened around the time when the whole realm was celebrating the green and gold of the Leprechauns, and so it happened that on such day the Muse had gone to Dublin and was presently proudly showing off a foamy pair of Guinness mustache, totally oblivious to her noble duties. Deceived and lonely, after hours and hours of uselessly staring at the blank page, our girl found herself typing a one, single word on the paper. HELP.

She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to send telepathic messages to the Muse, begging her to assist her writing. Nothing happened.

She then wrote one more word. PLEASE.
Nothing.

I AM STUCK.

A sudden image of a gorgeous smart woman trapped in a bottomless well as a result of the evil doing of some psycho-schyzo-weirdo inspired our girl. She forgot of grammar and spelling, jumped inside her own head, and in three months she had the first draft of her very first book. It was never a bestseller, but it got her started in the wonderful writing career. Practice did the rest. We will hear from her again, soon. Hopefully. 

Every famous writer gives the same advice over and over.
Do you want to become a writer? Write. Write. Write. Every day. Anything. Whatever. You will sweat and swear and shake your head in shame. You will wish you were a farmer shoveling crap, you will be jealous of bureaucrats with a nine-to-five office job. You won't give up . You will practice, every day, like an athlete for a marathon. You might win, you might not. After all, there can be only one winner in a marathon. Still, the best thing about a marathon is the helicopter view on the massive colorful blob of participants. Whoever has run a marathon is proud of it, and so is who has finally wrote their book. Time to go stretching.

Have a good novel!

THE FIVE LOVE LANGUAGES by GARY CHAPMAN

The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate by Gary Chapman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Dr Gary Chapman observed dozens of couples seeking an answer to the same question: "How can I love and feel loved in a relationship for many years without falling in the trap of dullness?"
Dr Chapman collected the couples' complaints in 5 major categories:
1) words of affirmation
2) quality time
3) receiving gifts
4) acts of service
5) Physical touch
Each one of us needs to be loved to value ourselves as a significant human being. Every one of us has a love tank that needs to be constantly filled by our partner, while we have the duty to fill our partner's love tank.
In order to do so we need to learn what is our primary love language and what is our partner's primary love language.