Bill Gates' Personal Super Secret Private Laptop A Microspoof [Hardcover]

Henry Beard (Author), John Boswell (Author), Ron Barrett (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1998

WHERE WOULD YOU WANT TO GO TODAY -- IF YOU HAD 50 BILLION DOLLARS?

Find out on Bill Gates' Personal Super Secret Private Laptop: A Microspoof. Due to a miraculous twist of fate, the laptop you hold in your hand came into the possession of Henry Beard, John Boswell, and Ron Barrett, a trio of concerned, if computer-illiterate, citizens and authors of such bestselling humor books as O.J.'s Legal Pad and French for Cats. Now that these three have hired precocious preteens to hock into Gates' secret notes, plans, e-mails, and to-do lists, we can all be privy to the intellectual property of the richest man in the world.

Fabulously fabricated in two-color throughout, Bill Gates' Personal Super Secret Private Laptop exhaustively captures the mind, spirit, and nerdiness of Bill Gates -- the guy who owns you, or soon will.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Bill Gates' Personal Super Secret Private Laptop is both a genuinely witty and inventive swipe at the world's richest man and a masterwork of book design. Each page is a folded-out laptop, with jokes contained on the "screen." Here's a sample, from a chain letter Gates is sending to Warren Buffett, Rupert Murdoch, and others:

"...But the President of South Korea deleted this E-mail message, and his economy collapsed. Later, he managed to retrieve it and sent it out, and the IMF gave his country a $20 billion bailout. As soon as you receive this message, wire one million dollars to the bank account next to the name below, then add your own name to the list, and send 10 identical E-mail messages to your fellow moguls. Do not break the chain. Mike Milken failed to reply to his E-mail message, and look what happened to him!"

No one has used the ubiquitous graphical user interface as a comic canvas before, and the authors should be commended for their cheeky, stylish innovation. The book's joke-intensive screens include topic lines from Bill Gates news groups, both pro and con; a letter encouraging the Unabomber to correspond with his competitors; a list of new software products--including the Cubicle '98 office politics software ("BackStabber memo-writing program with BlameShifter feature and FingerPointer mouse hardware"); the Mafia's Web page; et cetera. Bill Gates' Personal Super Secret Private Laptop is great fun, and sure to cement this trio's reputation as the masters of parody publishing. And it's much cheaper than a laptop--for now, at least. --Michael Gerber

About the Author

Henry Beard was a founder of National Lampoon and is the author or coauthor of many popular humor books, including Miss Piggy's Guide to Life, Sailing: A Sailor's Dictionary, and The Official Politically Correct and Sexually Correct dictionaries.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 112 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First edition. edition (October 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684854643
• ISBN-13: 978-0684854649
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,529,198 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #64 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( G ) > Gates, Bill

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Humor at its Creative Best, December 6, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Bill Gates' Personal Super Secret Private Laptop A Microspoof (Hardcover)

This is the book you take with you to read in the waiting room at the doctor's office; otherwise, don't waste your time. The book's premise, albeit juvenile and narrow-minded, is an anchor for Beard and the gang to spin out some of the most creative stuff this reader's ever seen. (And don't let the laptop-style layout fool you--look closely at the keyboard on every page and you'll find irregularities in the keys.)

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bill has enough trouble, October 13, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Bill Gates' Personal Super Secret Private Laptop A Microspoof (Hardcover)

You'd think these guys would go easy on the world's richest man. This book is a devastating poke at Bill Gates and his meglomania. I'm sure Mr. Gates isn't as bad as all that but the book is very funny. It's rare that you see such a high quality humor book. Ron Barrett is excellent--I also read his children's books to my kids...

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars New Book on Gates Comes Close, September 18, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Bill Gates' Personal Super Secret Private Laptop A Microspoof (Hardcover)

Bill Gates' Laptop, by the same people who created O.J.'s Legal Pad, is an interesting parody aimed at Bill Gates. Unfortunately, the illustrations and concept are more interesting than the writing, which occasionally borders on the juvenile. But the graphics and illustration are worth the book's cover price and more than make up for some apparently uninformed writing. I will definately recommend this to anyone suffering from Microsoft-related stress.