Yes, those are scare quotes.
I was reading this review of the two Steve Jobs biographies (the one Walter Isaacson published in 2011 and a new one called Becoming Steve Jobs) and was about to dash off a letter to the editor, noting that a book that uses the phrase insanely great twice—just in examples quoted by the reviewer—had really poor editing. (I mean, really? Are the authors twenty-year-olds?)
But then I read more, and Time’s brilliant reviewer Lev Grossman has it covered:
It’s easy to see why Apple executives have endorsed Becoming Steve Jobs, but it has imperfections that would have irked Jobs himself. The writing is slack—it’s larded with clichés (“he wanted to play their game, but by his own rules”) and marred by small infelicities (it confuses jibe and gibe, twice).
Again, yes, it shows the authors (“Brent Schlender, a veteran technology journalist who was friendly with Jobs, and Rick Tetzeli, executive editor at Fast Company,” according to Time) aren’t very good writers, but worse … where was the editor? Where was the copyeditor? Where was the proofer, for the love of Pete? Jibe/gibe twice? Hang your head in shame, Random House, you and the editors you rode in on.
Tweet: A book that uses the phrase insanely great twice has been poorly edited.
Tweet: Hang your head in shame, Random House, you and the editors you rode in on.
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