One of my favorite things about the month I spent each year in Homer is reading.  We don’t have a TV here and, other than going out to dinner for some extra fresh halibut, Amy and I end up spending almost every evening at home reading, writing, or knitting (well – she knits).  I usually consume about a book a day (a few take me two days – so it ends up being five a week, or about twenty over the month.)

Today’s book was Grumby by Andy Kessler.  And it was just fucking awesome.  On July 1st Andy sent me an email with the following description of the book.

“its a very funny novel set in Silicon Valley (and Wall Street), about a hacker that creates the next great consumer electronics device (believe me, you’ll want one) and then the rollercoaster ride of getting screwed by VCs, hacked, the deluge of orders, Chinese manufacturing, privacy issues and going public amongst the chaos of competition and rivalries. the technology is its own character, eyes, ears, voice and face recognition, GPS, spy software and a wise-ass personality.”

I don’t know Andy very well, although we met last year at Defrag (he was the opening speaker) and our paths have crossed a few times. I’ve read all his books and am a huge fan so rather than wait for him to send me a pre-publication copy, I just went online and spent $7.96 on the Kindle version which is available now.

Andy pretty much nails every aspect of the rise and fall of a garage startup in Silicon Valley.  His fiction is great – it’s fast paced (thanks to many short chapters), full of dialogue and great characters, and lots of startup / entrepreneurship / Silicon Valley cliches.  He spares no one and there were many times where I cringed in remembrance of something that hit a little too close to home.  Way to go Andy – you nailed it.