What Carly Doesn't Say

Given all the madness surrounding Hewlett-Packard's board-leak investigation—from Congressional hearings to criminal indictments—it's hard to consider Tough Choices, the new book by former HP (HPQ) CEO Carly Fiorina, on its own merits. Rather, the temptation is to read it like one of those I Spy… books, hunting for salacious clues about the now infamous characters mixed up in the well-known HP spying scandal.

That's too bad, because Fiorina's book is very good in many ways. The first half is a richly told memoir, full of telling anecdotes—for example, how she was so afraid of losing her beloved parents that she'd always seem to get sick before they left the kids alone at home. There are great insights about the challenges of women executives, be they climbing the ladder or already at the top, bearing up under the glare of public scrutiny.