A mix of context and content. We are not reading this article for pleasure, but for information, so give us the information! Like this: Isaacson’s latest book

A mix of context and content. We are not reading this article for pleasure, but for information, so give us the information! Like this: Isaacson’s latest book is a paean to cooperation, to the idea of force-multiplication through collective effort and, in particular, to the transformative power of the diamond triangle of industry, academia and government. This is surprising given it comes after his biography of Steve Jobs, who is generally, though not entirely correctly, understood to be the model of the radical (and congenitally irascible) American This puts the meat of the sentence up front and loses the passive participle ("coming") which is weak and awkward. The second sentence could be a subordinate clause (", which is surprising...") but given the author thought the factor of surprise strong enough to lead with it should likely stand on its own. Using "feature" is unnecessary, and as the Bible (Strunk & White) tells us, "eliminate unnecessary words". The Dickens sentence tells us what its about ("the hour of my birth") up front, tells us the source of the information, then tells us the information, which if we didn't source would seem simply ridiculous. By telling us the source first we learn something of the narrator's character as both a bit of a skeptic and keen observer of the less skeptical amongst us.