Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

Published 2011 · 672 pages · 200,000 words · about 13 hours at an average pace · Biography, Business & Self-Help, Media & Technology, Nonfiction

How hard is Steve Jobs to read?

Steve Jobs scores 19 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it relatively accessible. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.

Vocabulary: 28 out of 100
Technology and business terminology. Very accessible.
Sentence structure: 28 out of 100
Abstraction: 25 out of 100
Concrete biography. Analysis embedded in narrative.
Information density: 48 out of 100
Dense with biographical detail, technology history, and business narrative.
Narrative indirection: 100 out of 100
Chronological biography. Direct, transparent.
Symbolic density: 100 out of 100
Jobs and Apple function as symbols of American innovation.
Ironic distance: 15 out of 100
Isaacson lets the contradictions speak for themselves.
Resolution withholding: 50 out of 100
The biography concludes with Jobs's death.
Structural complexity: 25 out of 100
Chronological with thematic sections. Well-organized.

How Steve Jobs is regarded

Steve Jobs holds a literary regard score of 46 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.

About the author

Walter Isaacson