This will finish the "what do you read this summer" posts.

Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire by James Wallace and Jim Erickson is basically a Bill Gate biography up to about 1993.  It focuses mainly on Bill's interaction with computers in general and then Microsoft specifically, but it also includes not necessarily Microsoft related information about Bill.  I think it is a good source of "how did Microsoft get started" information...if you are looking for that type of info, that is.

The Interpretation of Financial Statements by Benjamin Graham and Spencer Meredith is a primer on common financial terms.  If you aren't too familiar with how financial statements work or what their line items mean, this book is a good place to start.

Richard Clarke's Against All Enemies was quite the conversation piece last year when it was released.  It is a first person account of the counter-terrorism efforts of the United States government over the last 20 years or so.  As Clarke says himself in the book, it is written form his perspective, but that aside, it provides a glimpse of where we stand and how we got to where we are.  If Clarke's account of Clinton's efforts are to be believed, it also gave me a bit of respect for him.

The Supreme Court by William Rehnquist is a detailed history of the United States Supreme Court up to the (almost) present day.  Like All the Laws but One, it is written for those without a background in the law.  It explains the history, the purpose, and the day-to-day operations of the Supreme Court.  It was a very interesting read and I am saddened that he is no longer around to write similar books in the future.

Apple Confidential 2.0 by Owen Linzmayer is a history of Apple from its founding to about 2003.  For the most part I found it very informative, though two things stood out as annoying.  First is the style of the book.  Rather than taking a time line approach, the author takes a topical approach and then does that topic chronologically.  This makes the book a bit disjointed.  For instance, if you have never heard of "Copland" (and I hadn't), you have to wait till near the end of the book to understand how it fits in the time line.  The other thing is that, though the author is critical of Apple general and Steve Jobs specifically, he often makes incorrect claims about market share, product performance, and the like.  It's not annoying Apple fan boy literature, but it isn't exactly unbiased either.  Then again, it's hard to find a book on either Apple or Microsoft that feels unbiased.

It's My Party, Too: The Battle for the Heart of the GOP and the Future of America by Christine Whitman was of interest to me, because she was the governor of New Jersey when I lived there.  The book describes Whitman's opinion on what it means to be a Republican, where the party stands right now, and where it needs to go.  It was an interesting read, though I think her logic is flawed in many cases.  One major instance of this is brushing aside issues such as gay marriage and abortion as though her position is the only logical and acceptable one.  If such things were so obvious, the issues wouldn't be hotly debated as they are.  That aside, it is an first person account of roughly the last 50 years of Republican politics.