Recently, I read the hit non-fictional book, The History of the Future, written by Blake J.  Harris.  It takes readers through the journey of Palmer Luckey.  This tech titan went from living in a trailer to being a centimillionaire at the age of nineteen after he founded a virtual reality(VR) company called Oculus and sold it to Facebook for $2,000,000,000.  After Oculus was acquired, however, they were sued by Zenimax, an angry rival who thought Oculus copied them and stole their technology.  The History of the Future shows readers the ups and downs of the early days of assembling a start-up, inventing the Oculus Rift (the headset), getting famous, and the struggles of repeated lawsuits against Oculus. In the end, Luckey prevails and seems to have gone on to even bigger and better things with his new defense technology start-up, Anduril.

I chose The History of the Future because I am a technology enthusiast.  VR puts users in new worlds by using a headset to control their senses of hearing and vision.  The headset uses headphones and a screen to convince your senses you are somewhere you aren’t.  This technology is revolutionizing the gaming industry as I speak.  It also has many other applications, such as in training simulations for doctors, soldiers, and pilots.  I recently got a chance to use a VR console, and I was stunned at how real my environment felt.  Learning more about VR was of great interest to me.  I also appreciate a good rags-to-riches story, which was the main theme I identified throughout the book.  I enjoy this theme because it proves that there is more than one path to business success.  Palmer Luckey didn’t come from some Ivy League school or Stanford computer science lab.  He was essentially self-taught, but he worked and willed himself to succeed in the technology industry.  Luckey’s story resonated even more with me because most of it takes place right here in Orange County, California.

If I had to give The History of the Future a rating, I would give it a 10/10 because I really liked this book.  It was exciting to learn about VR and how Luckey built his company and shocking to find out that he was eventually fired from his own company unjustifiably.  The History of the Future really makes you feel like if you have a good idea and you pursue it with everything you’ve got, then anything is possible.  Also, if you tend to root for the underdog, then this book is for you.  Who expected a nineteen-year-old to found a game-changing technology start-up? When making this decision, I took into account the 5/5 rating this book earned on Barnes and Noble and the 97% rating it received from Google users.  If all of these readers enjoyed The History of the Future, you probably will too.  I would recommend this book to young adult readers and older since it includes some mature language and also uses some technical jargon that could be challenging for younger readers to understand.  For anyone over the age of thirteen, hold on to your hats and VR goggles as you’re immersed in 490 pages of fast-paced action and the suspenseful journey of Palmer Luckey from humble beginnings to a leader in the technology industry! Place a Hold on this book today before too many others do.  Or, you can always head to your favorite bookseller to get your own copy, like I did.