As promised, a book review. Technobabble will resume tomorrow.
The book Leaving Microsoft to Change the World: An Entrepreneur's Odyssey to Educate the World's Children is by an interesting guy named John Wood, who, as you may be able to guess from the title, used to work at Microsoft, left, and founded an excellent charity concerning books. You can see how I might be biased towards such a piece, since it involves both of my favorite things to do, but I think it is a genuinely good piece of writing.
A word about how I came by the book. Normally, I have a stack of books five or six high to read, and when I was given this book was no exception. Nine times out of ten a book I have never heard of given to me as a gift will end up getting ignored, not because of any fault of the gift giver, but due to the fact that I keep finding stuff to read in the meantime, and never get around to my gift. However, the person who gave me this book means a great deal to me, and I respect her opinion immensely. So a book that otherwise might never have had a chance got bumped to the top of the list.
And what an amazing book! John Wood has a particularly conversational style of writing, which makes for excellent nonfiction. Subjects which may have been boring when broached by other authors are quite interesting when rendered in his style. Also, he liberally sprinkles the book with interesting asides, both about his time at Microsoft (he worked in China during the height of Microsoft's power, and even had some dealings with The Bill) and about his attempts to start a charity. His stories about raising funding ring especially true to me, and anyone else running a startup.
While I don't want to give away too much of the book, I will end my mini-review by saying how inspiring the book is to anyone wishing to leave a lasting legacy of good in the world. And thanks to Audrey Etlinger for finding it!
And in case anyone reading this has spare pocket change or is looking for a cool charity, look no further than the one the book is all about, Room To Read.
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