Shuffle This Book

If you're misting up over the iPod's 5^th birthday, you may want to shuffle The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture, and Coolness.

Newsweek's chief technology columnist, Steven Levy, takes a look at why we fell in love so hard and why we stay in love (so far) with this ever-shrinking personalized box of tunes. When the product launched, says one review's intro, Steven Jobs promised that he'd put "a thousand songs in your pocket." If you asked Levy, he'd say Jobs has done nothing short of transformed our culture by doing so.

The book not only looks like an iPod, but it shuffles like one too. Your eight chapters will most likely be in a different, random order than the other guy's. Filled with musings about why our music defines us, how iTunes changed the commercial music scene, insider gossip, and history, this book makes a well-timed entrance for the 5^th anniversary of the iPod.

Levy has never been shy about his Apple-love. He wrote Insanely Great, a history of Apple's Macintosh. As a matter of fact, the reviewers' blurbs for both books sound strikingly similar. Just substitute the word iPod for Macintosh. But if you love your iPod and think of it as a part of what defines you, then you'll love reading this book in any order it gets shuffled. It is a love song to the iPod. Want to read an excerpt?