Book Bites: Good Game, No Rematch

Good Game, No Rematch: A Life Made of Video Games―A Comedian's Memoir of Gaming and Comedy, From Nintendo to The Tonight Show by Mike Drucker
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Mike Drucker’s “Good Game, No Rematch” is a delightful dead center bullseye in the humor / video games Venn Diagram. Drucker’s affinity for video games saturates essays on early Nintendo, on his grandparents and Gameboy Golf, on his massive, unplayed Steam library. His bona fides as a standup and Late Night staff writer ensure the text vibrates with actual jokes and laughter. As with any essay collection, some essays drag (hearing about a past D&D adventure is very near listening to someone tell you about a dream they had), but Good Game, No Rematch is so funny, so insightful and, in places, poignant, that even casual gamers will find enjoyment.

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Book Bites: All Fours

All Fours by Miranda July
My rating: 3 of 5 stars (or 4 of 5 stars? I still honestly don't know)

All Fours begins as a masterclass in tension and release. Early sections are pure, ecstatic tension, deeply erotic and overtly sexual (albeit without any actual sex) as our unnamed narrator diverts from her road trip, diverts from her family, and begins nesting in a motel, incubating new relationships and a life. July’s writing is superlative; wry without ever being snarky, honest and raw. There are genuine laugh out loud moments. Themes abound for anyone who cares to sink their teeth into them: marriage and motherhood and inspiration and suicide and art and menopause and aging, and, and…

Where other authors often unleash their characters only to rein them back to safety and normalcy in the third act, July gives her characters freedom to be unlikable, to truly metamorphose. However. The narrative often drags, especially in its closing pages. Everything here is also built on unrecognized privilege (husband and wife are both wildly-successful and wealthy artists) that can't help but read as "spoiled." I've sat with this book for awhile now and I'm still not entirely certain if All Fours is truly good, or merely interesting.

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Book Bites: The Greatest Nobodies in History

The Greatest Nobodies of History: Minor Characters from Major Moments by Adrian Bliss
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The Greatest Nobodies of History is a valiant attempt at a witty, readable history text. Each of the book's brief stories or events (Leonardo DaVinci's painting of 'Lady with an Ermine', Henry VII's marriage to Anne of Cleves) is re-told through fictionalized primary source documents (the Ermine's psychic testimony, the diary of Henry VII's toilet attendant) with varying success. The text is often not so witty as it thinks it is. Especially on events which can be summed in a single sentence, chapters tend to drag. Though a good entry point for people turned off by dry, stolid history tomes, The Greatest Nobodies of History doesn't quite hit the mark it aims for.

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Book Bites: Outraged

Outraged: Why We Fight About Morality and Politics and How to Find Common Ground by Kurt Gray
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Outraged is the rare, shining example of a pop-psychology book worth reading. Many in the genre fall into the tropes of overextrapolation and padding out word counts on what are essentially blog posts.

This is not that.

In Outraged, Kurt Gray lays out a simple hypothesis, backed by mountains of science: all morality stems from a fear of harm. Humans are more prey than predators, our brains evolved to detect harm before it can harm us, meaning our ideologies are far more alike than they are different. Knowing this, Gray provides simple, actionable and proven steps on how we can bridge seemingly impossible gaps and foster understanding. (Bonus points for repeated, gentle dunking on Jonathan Haidt).
One of the few pop-psychology books actually worth your time and effort. Highly recommend.


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