E. BRONSON INGRAM: Complete These Unfinished Tasks of Mine

Ingram sets out to create the definitive history of her husband's life and succeeds in documenting all the important milestones in the career of the man who, among other achievements, created the Ingram book distributor. Long on corporate record but short on personal details or insights, the book conveys that Ingram's husband was born wealthy and substantially expanded the family fortune in oil, shipping and natural resources before his death, at age 63, in 1995. Along the way, readers learn, in passing, about most of his business dealings. Ingram bought into the book business as a favor to his friend Harry Hoffman. According to the author, Ingram Book is responsible for popularizing the use of microfiche to track book sales to libraries and bookstores, and also takes credit for creating what became the now ubiquitous ISBN. But Ingram himself was not very connected to the book world: "He did not get involved in publisher relations. He did not get involved in customer relations. He did not go to the meetings of the American Booksellers Association." Aside from chronicles about the growth of Ingram's book distribution business, there are no anecdotes about the book publishing realm. In a magazine article in the 1980s, Bronson Ingram told a reporter, "there's just no need for me to be the center of attention." While his widow would understandably want to respect that sentiment, not treating the subject of a book as the center of attention produces an imbalance. Thus readers (especially those in the book business) do not learn much about how Ingram left behind a billion-dollar company. (Feb.)