The Cult of Mac

Rating:
Summary: Artistic and enlightening
Review: Few products acquire such fierce loyalty like the Mac. Fewer products inspire the creative juices and desire to "think different" than the Mac does. If you've just sighed or harrumphed quietly to yourself (you know who you are) then you need to a) lighten up and b) peruse the pages of this book... Come over to the Mac side... It'll be our little secret... =)

Beautifully creative and artistic, full color pages end to end. The book reveals in "coffee table format" a little history, a number of confessions, and plenty of portraiture from the birth of the Mac to the present day. My favorite chapter discusses the "Fantasy Macs". Mac devotees all over the world design and publish incredibly innovative and fanciful images of imaginary (and sometimes not so imaginary) Macs.

A must have for the True Mac user. For the rest, a little taste of what you've been missing out on for the last twenty years.

Rating:
Summary: Great gift for a Mac addict
Review: I got this book as a gift from my wife and I love it.

I am a Mac addict and I have been using Mac for ever. I love this book because it gives very interesting stories about the Mac from a non-techy point of view.

I believe this is a great gift for someone who loves his Mac. However, it may be a little boring for someone who does not have a true passion for his Mac.

Enjoy your Mac.

Donald

Rating:
Summary: Exploring the Cult
Review: I have a confession to make. I am a cult member. My wife is a cult member. My kids will probably grow up to be cult members. How did I go about joining such a select group of cultist? I simply purchased a Macintosh. (My wife owns a Macintosh as well.) It is nice to be reminded why one joins a cult, intentionally or not, and that is what Leander Kahney does with his book the Cult of Mac.

Kahney does an excellent job detailing the quirky, unique, and even dark underside of the Macintosh computer users. His account is exhaustive, chronicling the tribute Mac users pay to the company and the platform. Kahney includes a look at the psycho-sexual attachment, the soft porn product tributes, box collectors, tattooist, Mac bongs, and other oddball and off beat ways Macintosh users honor their favorite computer platform. He describes the sub cult of Steve (Jobs) and Steve (Wozniak) and their influence on the company and Mac acolytes.

The book is fist and foremost a testament to the loyalty of the Macintosh community, it is a book of homage. It is well designed, to the point of being almost over designed. For those looking for a serious, academic look at the cult side of Macintosh users should look elsewhere. For those interested in a glossy overview of the quirks of Macintosh users will find this an interesting and quirky exploration of the world of the Mac cult.

Rating:
Summary: By MacPeople, about Mac's and for MacLovers
Review: I simply cannot imagine anyone getting the Microsoft logo tatooed on their butt, but MacFreaks, yeah it figures. See page 57.

And what about the marketing study recently conducted by Chicago's DePaul University who researched the people who still use (and love) their Apple Newton's. (You can find Newton's on E-Bay for $150-200 if you want to join the group.)

This book is an unabashed love afair with the Mac. It's really a coffee table picture book about the Mac. From user group meetings to Jay Leno's Macquarium where the tube doesn't show pictures of fish but real ones, or paper models that you can use as Christmas tree ornaments; but why go on. By now you know the contents of this book. It's by MacPeople, about Mac's and for MacLovers.

It's a delight to see this book, it doesn't take itself too seriously, and has a lot of fun.

Rating:
Summary: Perfect gift for the Mac lover in your life
Review: If you think you've been bitten bad by the Apple bug, wait till you read about how far some people have gone to express their devotion to the Macintosh. Long-time Apple journalist Kahney has compiled and expanded his Wired News blogs into a thoroughly entertaining full-color 268-page hardcover. The uninitiated may mock the gusto with which geeks profess their love for a box of bits, while "the rest of us" can justify our extreme devotion to the Mac with a knowing wink of self-recognition and the relief that at least we're not as bad as those with Apple logo tattoos, warehouses full of old hardware, Classics converted into bongs, or the obsession of videotaping every Macworld Expo keynote.

In the interest of full disclosure, you should know that I am the author of Apple Confidential 2.0, another Mac-centric book from the same publisher, No Starch Press.

Rating:
Summary: Full of factual errors
Review: Kahney is a hack, sadly, and while Mac fanatics may love a world in which Apple can do no wrong, they will be ill-served by this bomb.

Rating:
Summary: MyMac.com Book Review
Review: The Cult of Mac
By Leander Kahney
Publisher: No Starch Press
Price: 39.95 US
ISBN: 1886411832



I review quite a few computer books, most of which are technical how-tos and the like. I read a ton of other books, though, most of which are fiction or historical in nature. But the books reviewed here at MyMac.com are Mac focused books, most of which end up on a shelf before I donate them to the local library. So it was a pleasant surprise to find Leander Kahney's hard cover The Cult of Mac in my mailbox last week.

The Cult of Mac is a beautiful hard cover book with a slipcover. It has color pages throughout, and the text is clean, crisp, and easy to read. Not all books are presented in such loving detail as The Cult of Mac is. It really is a nice total package.

What is The Cult of Mac about? Writer Kahney explores many subjects that can fall into the "Mac Users Cult" umbrella, including subjects such as the Newton, people who collect old Macs, the Macworld Expos, and any other oddball Mac user story that Kahney found interesting.

The term "Cult" is not used in a derogatory manner here, even though the term does carry negative connotations. The term really comes from Kahney's Wired columns in which many of these stories originated. There were a few times while reading a particular story in this book that I remembered reading the same thing, albeit in an abbreviated form, on the Wired.com website.

Kahney hits upon many subjects, though usually the book is focused on the extreme examples or subjects. While each story presented here is true and honest, and Kahney makes no editorial judgments as to whether the behavior is out of the ordinary, he does seem to neglect some of the core Mac user experience and relationship to the platform.

Because this book was written over quite a few years, I found many instances of outdated information. For instance, in one story, Kahney writes about how Stan Flack is the publisher of MacCentral, even though he has not been for three years now. But later in the book, he writes about how MacCentral is owned by Macworld magazine. This suggests that older material was never rewritten or put into historical perspective to when the book was actually published. This is a little sloppy writing or editing in my opinion, but it works very well as a historical reference.

The dated material aside, this is a wonderful book to look at and read. Many of the stories are captivating, and made me want to look up more information online of the people he writes about in the book. Pictures abound in the book, including old Macs, the different paintings of Peter Cohen's head at Macworld Expos, and the fashions people wear at Macworld Tokyo. All good stuff!

This is one book I will set on my bookshelf and pull down from time to time to reread. This isn't a book you have to read in sequential order, as each chapter is an island unto itself. Written with detail in mind, The Cult of Mac is a large and ambitious project that was put together with loving care by the author.

MyMac.com rating: 5 out of 5
http://www.mymac.com/showarticle.php?id=1840

Rating:
Summary: Amazing!
Review: The Cult of Mac is a delightful read whether you're a Mac User or not. It covers everything you need to know about Mac's with great depth, so much so, that you won't ever want to put the book down. If you want to be reading on a Sunday afternoon or during the evening at home, this book is perfect. PC users beware....who knows the next time you might reading this review, it may just be from your new Mac.
A very informative and entertaining read, The Cult Of Mac is not to be missed. Get those Christmas lists ready now!

Rating:
Summary: PC User won't understand
Review: This book details the comradery shared by all us Mac users. A PC user just won't get it. They are to busy removing spyware, virus's , doing a windows update and trying to figure out why they got the last blue screen of death.

Rating:
Summary: Coffee Table Book Stuns Fan of Non-Coffee-Table Books
Review: This book knocks me out. I've never been a huge fan of those "coffee table books," but I've gotta say that I'd put this one out on my coffee table, if I had one. From the front cover photo of the back of a shaved head, with the apple logo cut into it, to the amazingly designed chapter themes and photographs, this is one share-able book!

I've been a fan of the Macintosh since my first machine, back in 1994. I was a member of the EvangeList, which has a major part of a chapter devoted to it in this book. If you're a fan of Leander Kahney's writing for Wired, and a devotee (like me) of his Cult of Mac daily blog (weblog, for the uninitiated), you'll dig this book.

The design of the book is scrumptious. It has big glossy goodness in every page. The first page is a visual representation of the Mac start up chime, which is then followed by pages of the famous blue progress bar from Mac OS X 10.2, Jaguar. Each chapter shows a desktop, with a large window displaying the name of the chapter. The whole book is a tribute to the style of the mac interface, as well as the style and general cultishness of the mac community.

The book is divided into 5 sections: Macintosh Madness, Gatherings of the Clan, Incessant Tinkerers, Hoarders and Recyclers, and New Frontiers. Each one includes many smaller articles and essays on all things Macintosh and Apple. My favorite chapters include the one on the iPod, the chapter about old Macs and the collectors, and the chapter about Macs and the counterculture. Oh, yes, and the chapter about paper macintoshes. Get the book if you really want to know. :) I really enjoyed the long, essay style final chapter, entitled, "What Makes Mac Fans So Loyal?" The last is a moving piece, poetic and passionate, about why we all love our Macs so much, and the company that makes them.

This is a smash hit, if I've ever seen one. The writing is transparently wonderful, consistently easy to access, and kept me turning pages well past what I would have expected. The only small issue I had was some repetition in different parts of the book about the same thing. this is attributable to the fact that much of the Macintosh "content" is connected in many different ways.

Overall, this book is a knockout. It's artistic, concerns a subject near and dear to my heart, and was such a fun read that I'd recommend it to anyone. Buy it, share it, and put it on your coffee table!