Great Geek Reads

Looking for some fiction that's not just literate, but also 1337? Try these! 

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline is the great American video game novel. Its plot is basically a cheesy video game plot: will the main character dodge obstacles, evade the nefarious supervillain, escape dungeons, and save (well, okay, meet) the princess? But then its setting is a meta-commentary on video games: the world plays a giant virtual reality game. That's where the schools, jobs, and fun are now, leaving a bleak wasteland of "meatspace" behind. Hidden within this game are Easter eggs and challenges (some of which involve meticulous recreations of classic video games themselves) that the hero has to find and solve. And yes, the audiobook is totally read by Wil Wheaton.

You by Austin Grossman and Codex by Lev Grossman are by pop-culture savvy twin brothers who perfectly capture the rarely-delivered promise of infinite possibility in gaming culture. You draws on years of real-world video game design experience, while Codex boasts the Da Vinci Code-esque appeal of delving into a secret world's mysterious ancient texts.

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan takes Codex and raises it one: what if Google got its hands on one of those ancient mysteries? Throw in some great bookstore-employee anecdotes, references to geek arcana from ancient Apple hardware to Ruby data visualization to typography, and you've got a perfect e-Read.

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow (also available as a free download on the author's website) takes you on a hilarious and mind-bending adventure in a post-capitalist Disneyworld, where reputation is everything.

Redshirts by John Scalzi is fun for Trekk[er|ie]s who always wondered about the inner lives of the semi-interchangeable, frequently disposable "Redshirts." It will also appeal to the better-socialized (I kid, I kid!) who can gloss over the in-jokes for a lightweight sci-fi caper.

And let's throw one more bonus mention to Andy Weir's addictive debut The Martian, which Elizabeth reviewed recently. It's basically Island of the Blue Dolphins meets Gravity. Does it have geek cred, you wonder? Let's just say that an ASCII chart is of pivotal plot importance, and leave it at that.

Are any of your favorites missing? Nerd rants welcome in the comments!

Happy reading,
Jenny

Going Gray: What I Learned About Beauty, Sex, Work, Motherhood, Authenticity and Everything Else That Really Matters

If you’re old enough to remember the TV commercial that asked “Does she or doesn’t she? Only her hairdresser knows for sure,” then it could be that your hair is gray. It’s also a good bet that you color it, like 55-60 percent of American women (and who knows how many men). But if you’ve begun to question whether the secret to eternal youth can really be found in a bottle of hair dye, Going Gray is the book for you.

This was the question that Anne Kreamer, a 50-something journalist and former TV producer, asked the day she saw, with horror, a candid photo of herself, her hair dyed its usual but very unnatural dark brown. She didn’t look younger, she didn’t look right, and it wasn’t a good look. She sheared off her dyed locks, swore off hair color, and set off on a fact-finding mission that resulted in Going Gray, a thoughtful examination of how our culture of youth rejects graceful aging in favor of struggling to look 25 until we're 95. 

Her research is thorough, beginning with the roots (sorry!) of the hair coloring revolution-- it wasn’t that long ago, after all,  that women with dyed hair were gossip-worthy. She then moves into surveys, focus-groups, and interviews with professional image consultants. She even product-tests herself on dating websites, comparing the hits she gets with colored hair vs. gray--and the results may surprise you. Regional and professional attitudes toward gray hair are examined (hint: don’t attempt to let your hair go gray in southern California, or if you’re a female senator) and the financial hit of frequent hair coloring also adds to the interest.

Kreamer wasn’t without her critics--friends don’t let friends go gray, at least not without a fight--but she’s clearly comfortable with her decision. Readers on the fence about whether or not to get off the hair color treadmill will be intrigued by the surprising discoveries she made about herself, and also by what Going Gray says about how, as a youth-centric society, we buy into the cultural norms created by corporate advertising.

--Helene