Of all things Geek. I am…
The New York Times called it “A remarkable collection of characters…courageously exploring mindspace, an innerworld where nobody had ever been before,” and they’re right. The book, Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy is as great a story as the real-life characters and their accomplishments that adorn the book.
Names you’ve heard like Wozniak and Gates, and those you haven’t like Felsenstein, Greenblatt, and Gosper are among the many mentioned.
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We can all use a little help. Sometimes from our friends, sometimes from ourselves. Whether or not we admit to needing help, to others or to ourselves, will make it all the more apparent that we need it.
For nerds, self-help books are everywhere, because learning comes from everywhere – from video games, from that tabletop dungeon crawl from eight years ago, or from the many experiences in between. A good self-help book for nerds is a bit like the Highlander: “There can be only one.” That one is The Nerdist Way: How to Reach the Next Level (In Real Life) by the Nerdist himself, Chris Hardwick.
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There are those among us who still maintain that The Rat Pack – sometimes called “the Summit” or “the Clan” of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop – are the epitome of cool. Consider me among them.
My mother, of all people, picked up The Rat Pack: Neon Nights with the Kings of Cool by Lawrence J. Quirk and William Schoell, for me at a used book store. This look into the Kings of Cool was written and published in 1998, just before the death of Frank Sinatra on May 14, 1998.
I literally couldn’t put it down.
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I just finished reading The Kronos Interference by Edward Miller and J.B. Manas and it was great!
The cover touts it as “Crichton meets Hitchcock,” and it lives up to that billing and them sum. It is a fantastical look at time travel, and its implications, while weaving a plot of intrigue that is at times scary and scientifically brilliant, while creating amazing historical anomalies.
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I saw my first Tucker at the America On Wheels Museum in Allentown, Pa., a few years ago. With just that taste, I found a thirst for more knowledge of this mesmerizing car, and I’m not what you would call a car guy.
This lead me to a the movie directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Jeff Bridges as Preston Tucker in Tucker: The Man and His Dream. But the movie wasn’t enough, and I later ended up receiving Preston Tucker A Biography: The Indomitable Tin Goose by Charles T. Pearson as a gift from my family.
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