About Today’s Title

Today’s book review title is probably the best-known line from the 1957 hit Great Balls of Fire by Jerry Lee Lewis. While it may not be a strong fit to the content of today’s book, it is a good fit with the title - Burn Book.

The song was recorded at the one and only Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee on October 8th of that year, and was an instant hit, selling one million copies in just the first 10 days of its release.

Released as a 45, the song was an international and cross-genre hit, charting on Billboard’s Pop (number two), R&B (number 3) and Country (number 1) charts. Lewis performed the song in in the 1957 movie Jamboree, and you can find a clip of that performance in this YouTube video.

Kara Swisher’s Burn Book offers both an autobiography and an engaging, thoughtful, and sometimes funny review of the history of the internet (and the rise of Silicon Valley) almost from the beginning.

As one of the earliest reporters whose beat focused solely on the internet Kara Swisher takes us on a first-hand ride through that history as no one else can. The author herself is a person of strong views and high ideals, who can come across as irreverent, even arrogant, but also charming.

Swisher sought out a role dedicated to covering the internet because she was not only a journalist but an early adopter of and a true believer in the internet, who saw its potential. In her time covering the industry she has also proven to be a keen observer and predicter of internet business trends.

I listened to the audiobook version of the book and that’s what I’d recommend for anyone else interested in this. It’s narrated by the author, whose voice will be familiar to many who have listened to her various podcast ventures over the years. She is an excellent writer and delivers her work in crisp sentences demonstrating a keen intellect and a cutting sense of humor.

While an interesting work, here’s a word of caution about what the book is and what it is not. The book serves as a broad review of Swisher’s thirty years covering the industry and is not a deep dive into any particular company or technology. In fact, Swisher covered so many companies and their CEOs over the years that the repeated name dropping can become a bit much. Just about every tech CEO you can think of over the last thirty years gets a mention at one point or another. This is a personal history of the rise of the internet.

Toward the end of the book Swisher delivers her opinions on how and why those industry leaders have gone from nose-to-the-grindstone innovators not much interested in the workings of government, who thought they were changing the world for the better, into crony capitalists who see themselves as attacked by lesser folk who don’t understand them, and who are colluding with a President with an authoritarian bent. That part of the book was the best and most interesting to me.

If you’re looking for the definitive history of the internet era, this book is not it. But, if you want to hear the ruminations of a smart, funny and opinionated journalist who has covered the internet from the start, well this is that book.

RATING: Three and a Half Stars ⭐⭐⭐🌠

RATING COMMENTS: A biography and personal history of the internet revolution from the journalist who’s covered it from the beginning.

WHERE I GOT MY COPY: I listened to the audiobook downloaded from my public library using the Libby app.