The Return to the Little Kingdom

Steve Jobs, The Creation of Apple and How it Changed the World

By: Michael Moritz

Narrated by: Kevin Pariseau

Length: 15 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's Summary

Twenty-five years later, revisiting the first authorized biography of Apple and its co-founder and celebrity CEO, Steve Jobs. In 1984, The Little Kingdom: The Private Story of Apple Computer told the story of Apples first decade alongside the histories of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Now, completely revised and expanded, Return to the Little Kingdom is the definitive biography of Apple and its founders from the very beginning. Moritz brings readers inside the childhood homes of Jobs and Wozniak and records how they dropped out of college and founded Apple in 1976. He follows the fortunes of the company through the mid-1980s, and in new material, tracks the development of Apple to the present and offers an insider's profile of Jobs, whose genius made Apple the powerhouse it is today. Required reading for everyone who's ever listened to music on an iPod, Return to the Little Kingdom is timely and thorough, and the only book that explains how Steve Jobs founded the company that changed our world.

©2009 Michael Moritz (P)2010 Audible, Inc

Good book… Right up until the last hour

I really enjoyed listened to this audiobook. I've been listening to a couple of different biographies and stories about the early days of silicon valley and I heard a recommendation to listen to this one, so I gave it a try. It was a little convoluted how the story would bounce back and forth between the present (present for when the book was written) to the past. You do get a sense of all the people who helped start Apple and get it going. The worst part of this book, though, is the epilogue. This was added on about a year or two ago (the iPhone4 was referenced). The author tells how he is an investor in Apple and then launches into a praise-a-thon for all that Apple has done since the return of Steve Jobs. It was a little too gushing with praise for me. He did point out Apple's missteps for about a minute, but the other hour of the epilogue kept the theme of Apple's infallibility.

Other than that, I found that this was a great listen. Try it and enjoy!

Limited in time but much better than Isacsson

Any additional comments?

It seems to relive those times, so real and interesting to someone who, like me, likes to learn everything about when personal computers were born...

Interesting book

If you're into apple this is a must listen. It focuses mainly on apple as a business, though there is some Steve Job's worship. Overall it was a good little book though.

Don't bother!

I'm not done this book but thought I would warn others to not bother with this book. It's all over the place and it's hard to follow the progress of Apple. One day he describes moving to a new building and the next time they are international. The book is so boring that I barely pay attention and usually end up thinking about other things while listening!

if you liked Walter Isaacson's Jobs bio, get this!

I had been hesitant to pick up The Little Kingdom for a while. I thought that after reading the Isaacson biography on Jobs and just about every other Apple/Jobs book, that a book written in 1985 would just be a rehash of stories I knew. Boy was I wrong! The Little Kingdom gives a deep dive in to the childhoods of Jobs and Woz, detailing their early lives in a way that gives wonderful context to their futures. Moritz gives details that are not present in later books and lays out exactly what it was like at early Apple.

Might be the best Apple Origin Story ever

Listened to this one twice. Just great from start to finish. If you’re interested in the incredible beginning of this incredible company, this audiobook is fantastic, one of my favorites.

Excellent, historical record of Apple Inc

Captivating writing and excellent narration kept me listening to what I initially believed would be very dry subject matter. Michael Moritz brought the story to life!

Great Story BUT

Would you try another book from Michael Moritz and/or Kevin Pariseau?

No problem with Kevin's reading but Michael's story of the two Stevens was written way in the past and not brought up to date in anywhere near the detail.

Any additional comments?

The Steve Jobs story could be much more about the newer Apple products brought up to date with a lot less of the initial history and more of the current challenges and successes.

Good story, but stuffy reading and too much detail

The first few chapters of this audiobook almost made me not continue listening. I thought the reader, Kevin Pariseau, sounded too stuffy and maybe it was just me, but I just wasn't crazy about his style...maybe it sounded too formal?

Anyway, the other factor that almost made me stop listening was the amount of laborious detail about early computers - the circuit boards and components, chips, etc. It was an amount of detail I think would tune out the typical listener and interest mostly engineering types.

I decided to keep listening and as the lives of Steve Jobs and the co-founders of Apple progressed, it did get more interesting and I'm glad I listened all the way through. While it still had too much detail, the story was pretty interesting, fascinating really, and I would recommend it. Maybe you'll want to skip some of part 1, but part 2 was definitely better and a good listen on my commutes back and forth from work.

Hard work

I don't normally write reviews but hopefully I can help my fellow man and help someone to avoid this book. I thought there would be more books about Steve Jobs and the Apple phenomenon but the choice, unfortunately, is limited. This book is long, tedious and full of meaningless detail. Avoid it, unless you like that kind of thing.

Meticulous anticlimax

Contains impressively thorough minutiae which make up a fascinating picture of Steve Jobs and, more accurately, the tale of Apple Computers, Inc. Right up until 1984.
Exactly.
A clumsily tacked on final chapter addressing the minor details of Woz' & Jobs' departure, the return of the latter and the salvation of Apple with iMac, not to mention the company's second global revolution, this time in the field of mobile devices, is nothing short of an embarrassment. And a massive anticlimax.
Which is the unfortunate reason that an audiobook which often had me glued to the Apple device of my choice only gets 2 stars (unlike the latter which, inevitably, gets 5.)

Restoring Balance To The Force...

If you made it through Walter Isaacsons Biography and thought it painted a rather poor picture of Steve Jobs overall, then this is worth listening to to restore the balance...

The two go together surprisingly rather well..

I recommend reading this last.