Goodell, Jeff

PERSONAL:

Born in California.

ADDRESSES:

Home—New York, NY.

CAREER:

Journalist. Rolling Stone, New York, NY, contributing editor.

WRITINGS:

The Cyberthief and the Samurai, Dell (New York, NY), 1996.

Sunnyvale: The Rise and Fall of a Silicon Valley Family (memoir), Villard (New York, NY), 2000.

(With the Quecreek Miners) Our Story: 77 Hours that Tested Our Friendship and Our Faith, Hyperion (New York, NY), 2002.

Big Coal: The Dirty Secret behind America's Energy Future, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2006.

Contributor to periodicals, including New York Times Magazine, New Republic, New York, Wired, Rolling Stone, and the Nation.

SIDELIGHTS:

The search for and eventual capture of infamous computer hacker Kevin Mitnick is the focus of journalist Jeff Goodell's The Cyberthief and the Samurai. Having been previously arrested for computer fraud and burglary, Mitnick went on the run in 1992 after nearly being caught running a phone scam operation in California. It was near the end of 1994 when Mitnick set into action the series of events that would lead to his eventual capture and arrest. On December 25, 1994, his mistake was to break into the computer of Tsutomu Shimomura, a computational physicist (and computer security expert) whose work is funded by private companies and government organizations. While determining what had been stolen, Shimomura eventually settled on Mitnick as the primary suspect. With the help of other computer experts, as well as cellular phone companies and the FBI, Shimomura tracked down Mitnick, who was arrested for access-device fraud on February 15, 1995.

Three works were published on these events: Shimomura and John Markoff co-wrote one retelling of the events, Kevin Mitnick and Jonathan Littman another, and Goodell's solo The Cyberthief and the Samurai. In an analysis of the three books, Dana Kennedy in Entertainment Weekly found Goodell's book to be "the most entertaining of the lot." Kennedy felt that his "outsider" perspective created a more "historical" work than the other two provided. David Gelernter in the New York Times observed that Goodell "tells the straightest story." The Cyberthief and the Samurai "is a skillful, balanced account of how Kevin Mitnick went wrong—and how Tsutomu Shimomura helped to capture him," according to reviewer James Fallows in the New York Times Book Review. A Publishers Weekly contributor stated that the book provides "a good, clear look at the people, egos, companies and agencies involved."

In Sunnyvale: The Rise and Fall of a Silicon Valley Family, Goodell offers readers a glimpse of his own life growing up at the center of the technology boom. Goodell's earliest impressions of the world in which he was raised include his grandfather, who worked with Enrico Fermi and was employed by Westinghouse. When Goodell's parents separated, his mother started working for a then-new company called Apple. Goodell describes the high-achieving, progress-driven neighborhood the family lived. Both Goodell and his brother reacted differently to their upbringings, with Goodell choosing to eschew technology for a job as a journalist, while his brother turned to drugs and alcohol. Janet Maslin in the New York Times called Goodell's book a "perceptive memoir of growing up in a household that was post-nuclear with a vengeance." A reviewer for Publishers Weekly remarked that "Goodell writes with more raw power than literary polish."

Our Story: 77 Hours that Tested Our Friendship and Our Faith tells the story of nine miners who were trapped in a Pennsylvania mine for three days in July, 2002. Goodell spoke with the miners to get their stories; he presented the experiences just as he had heard them to preserve both accuracy and the mood of the miners. Goodell offers very little embellishment in the work, merely providing description when necessary in between the miner's reports, and maintaining a focus on the men's experiences. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly called Goodell's book "a blessedly unsentimental and true-to-life account of a horrifying situation and a triumphant escape."

Big Coal: The Dirty Secret behind America's Energy Future grew out of a trip that Goodell took to West Virginia in 2001 to research an article for the New York Times Magazine on the rise in the use of coal. He uncovered so much material, and developed such far-flung leads, that the story outgrew its parameters, and he expanded it into a full-length volume. Goodell addresses the use of coal as a substitute for oil in the United States, and as an export to nations such as China and India, where demand is on the rise. He also looks at the effects of coal usage on the environment. Melissa Mahoney, in a review for Audubon, wrote that Goodell "tracks the black rock on a bracing, eye-opening journey—from deep underground, through mining towns, to the railroads, through the halls of Congress." A Kirkus Reviews contributor wrote: "Goodell is right to say that the coal economy is little documented and not well understood, but his book makes a welcome corrective." A reviewer for Publishers Weekly concluded that "Goodell has a talent for pithy argument—and the book fairly crackles with informed conviction."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Goodell, Jeff, Sunnyvale: The Rise and Fall of a Silicon Valley Family, Villard (New York, NY), 2000.

PERIODICALS

Audubon, September-October, 2006, Melissa Mahoney, review of Big Coal: The Dirty Secret behind America's Energy Future, p. 95.

Computer Shopper, June, 1996, Chris O'Malley, review of The Cyberthief and the Samurai, p. 464.

Entertainment Weekly, February 2, 1996, Dana Kennedy, review of The Cyberthief and the Samauri, pp. 50-51.

Kirkus Reviews, May 1, 2006, review of Big Coal, p. 447.

New York Times, February 27, 1996, David Gelernter, review of The Cyberthief and the Samurai, p. B4; July 6, 2000, Janet Maslin, review of Sunnyvale, p. E8; June 21, 2006, William Grimes, "The Promise and Problems of Those Dirty Black Rocks," review of Big Coal.

New York Times Book Review, February 4, 1996, James Fallows, review of The Cyberthief and the Samurai, p. 14; June 25, 2006; Corey S. Powell, "Black Cloud" review of Big Coal.

Publishers Weekly, January 22, 1996, review of The Cyberthief and the Samurai, p. 65; June 5, 2000, review of Sunnyvale, p. 80; November 11, 2002, review of Our Story: 77 Hours that Tested Our Friendship and Our Faith, p. 54; April 10, 2006, review of Big Coal, p. 57.

Washington Post, August 6, 2006, Juliet Eilperin, "In Too Deep," review of Big Coal.