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› Find signed collectible books: 'Boy Proof'

› Find signed collectible books: 'Comic Book Culture: Fanboys and True Believers'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Cryptonomicon'
Neal Stephenson enjoys cult status among science fiction fans and techie types thanks to Snow Crash, which so completely redefined conventional notions of the high-tech future that it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. But if his cyberpunk classic was big, Cryptonomicon is huge... gargantuan... massive, not just in size (a hefty 918 pages including appendices) but in scope and appeal. It's the hip, readable heir to Gravity's Rainbow and the Illuminatus trilogy. And it's only the first of a proposed series--for more information, read our interview with Stephenson.
Cryptonomicon zooms all over the world, careening conspiratorially back and forth between two time periods--World War II and the present. Our 1940s heroes are the brilliant mathematician Lawrence Waterhouse, cryptanalyst extraordinaire, and gung ho, morphine-addicted marine Bobby Shaftoe. They're part of Detachment 2702, an Allied group trying to break Axis communication codes while simultaneously preventing the enemy from figuring out that their codes have been broken. Their job boils down to layer upon layer of deception. Dr. Alan Turing is also a member of 2702, and he explains the unit's strange workings to Waterhouse. "When we want to sink a convoy, we send out an observation plane first.... Of course, to observe is not its real duty--we already know exactly where the convoy is. Its real duty is to be observed.... Then, when we come round and sink them, the Germans will not find it suspicious."
All of this secrecy resonates in the present-day story line, in which the grandchildren of the WWII heroes--inimitable programming geek Randy Waterhouse and the lovely and powerful Amy Shaftoe--team up to help create an offshore data haven in Southeast Asia and maybe uncover some gold once destined for Nazi coffers. To top off the paranoiac tone of the book, the mysterious Enoch Root, key member of Detachment 2702 and the Societas Eruditorum, pops up with an unbreakable encryption scheme left over from WWII to befuddle the 1990s protagonists with conspiratorial ties.
Cryptonomicon is vintage Stephenson from start to finish: short on plot, but long on detail so precise it's exhausting. Every page has a math problem, a quotable in-joke, an amazing idea, or a bit of sharp prose. Cryptonomicon is also packed with truly weird characters, funky tech, and crypto--all the crypto you'll ever need, in fact, not to mention all the computer jargon of the moment. A word to the wise: if you read this book in one sitting, you may die of information overload (and starvation). --Therese Littleton [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'Densha Otoko 1: The Story of the Train Man Who Fell in Love With a Girl'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Densha Otoko 2: Train Man'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dork Covenant'
It's All Geek to Me!
Release your inner nerd with Dork Covenant, the first collection of the hilarious, critically acclaimed fan-favorite Dork Tower comic book! From dragon-filled dungeons to star treks, from comic book conventions to internet naughtiness, Dork Tower is the comic that put the "cult" back into sub-culture! So join Matt, Igor, Ken, Gilly the Perky Goth and Carson the Muskrat in their uproariously dorky adventures! [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dramacon 1'
When amateur writer Christie settles in the artist alley of her first ever anime convention, she sees it only as an opportunity to promote the manga she had started with her artist boyfriend. But when she unexpectedly falls for a mysterious cosplayer, things become very complicated. Because what do you do when you fall in love with someone who is going to be miles away from you in just a couple of days? Web-comic vet and Ignatz Award-nominated creator Svetlana Chmakova gives us a funny, romantic, behind-the-scenes look at an anime convention--where sometimes even two is a crowd! [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dramacon 2'
A story about a romance that blooms over the course of several years at an anime convention. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dreamland Japan: Writings on Modern Manga'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Evil Geniuses in a Nutshell: A User Friendly Guide to World Domination'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Extra Life: Coming of Age in Cyberspace'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Geek Handbook : User Guide and Documentation for the Geek in Your Life'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho'
Teenage hackers Jesse Dailey and Eric Twilegar are the heroes of Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet out of Idaho, a thoughtful, affecting pop ethnography--and heroes is exactly what Jon Katz wants you to see them as. To the rest of the world, themselves included, they are geeks, which is a complicated thing to be these days. With the rise of the networked economy, the world and its wealth have become increasingly dependent on the expertise of Star Wars-loving, cola-swilling propellerheads everywhere. Yet at the same time, the typical geek--especially the typical adolescent geek--remains a consummate outsider, with passions for technological arcana that are both alienating and empowering.
Katz, a writer for both Rolling Stone and the profoundly geeky Web site Slashdot.org, does a fine job of mapping this ambiguous new state of affairs (the Geek Ascendancy, he calls it). But the book's heart and soul is the well-told tale of Jesse and Eric's adventurous flight from lonely, dead-end lives in Idaho Mormon country to brighter possibilities in Chicago.
Katz argues that this great escape couldn't have happened without the networks (both social and technological) that are the lifeblood of '90s geekdom, but he doesn't let his celebratory argument get in the way of the story. Although he's a tireless advocate for geeks (the last chapters retrace his impassioned advocacy for brooding teenage weirdos in the face of post-Columbine media attacks), he presents their culture warts and all, with its tendencies toward social awkwardness and arrogance recognizably intact. He doesn't demand your sympathy for his heroes and their world--but he wins it anyway, by bringing them vividly and honestly to life. --Julian Dibbell [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Genshiken 1'
MEMBERSHIP DRIVE
Its the spring of freshman year, and Kanji Sasahara is in a quandary. Should he fulfill his long-cherished dream of joining an otaku club? Saki Kasukabe also faces a dilemma. Can she ever turn her boyfriend, anime fanboy Kousaka, into a normal guy? Kanji triumphs where Saki fails, when both Kanji and Kousaka sign up for Genshiken: The Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture.
Undeterred, Saki chases Kousaka through the various activities of the club, from costume-playing and comic conventions to video gaming and collecting anime figureslearning more than she ever wanted to about the humorous world of the Japanese fan . . . [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Genshiken 2: The Society For The Study Of Modern Visual Culture'
SAVE THE GENSHIKEN!
Kanji Sasahara has finally accepted that hes a true otaku who belongs in the Genshiken. Meanwhile, Saki Kasukabe still cant stand how much time her boyfriend, video game master Kousaka, wastes with the Genshiken guys.
Saki isnt the only one whos upset that the club members do nothing but sit around playing video games. Kitagawa, the vicious vice president of the campus activities organization, is determined to break up the Genshiken. But the Prez has some dirt (and leverage) on Kitagawa. In fact, the Prez seems to have the lowdown on a lot of studentsincluding Saki Kasukabe, who suddenly harbors a fear of hidden cameras! [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Genshiken 3: The Society For The Study Of Modern Visual Culture'
SISTERLY LOVE
Kanji Sasharas annoyingly normal little sister, Keiko, has fallen for video game master Kousaka. And now shes willing to do whatever it takes to steal him away from his girlfriend, Saki Kasukabe . . . even if it means becoming a fangirl herself!
But as a wise member of the Genshiken once said: You dont become an otaku by trying. So Saki teaches Keiko-chan what dating a rabid fan truly means . . . and it aint pretty. Then, just to add to the craziness, theres plastic modeling mayhem (dont ask), the challenge of Kanjis first PC, and Sakis penchant for pyromania. Looks like things are heating up! [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Genshiken 4: The Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Genshiken 5'
THE DOUJINSHI CODE
The Genshiken has long been famous for its remarkable record of inactivity. But now that Kanji Sasahara has stepped in as the new club president, it looks as though things may change. Kanji wants the club to produce its first fanzineand when the Genshiken members are accepted as official vendors at the summer Comic-Fest, they are forced to create a real doujinshi . . . and fast! With only a month before the submission deadline, can this sluggish bunch of otaku actually get anything done? Meanwhile, Kousaka is about to reveal a secret side of himself that nobody has ever seen. . . . [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Genshiken 6: The Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Genshiken 7'
OTAKU FROM ANOTHER PLANET
On a lunch break at the Genshiken, Madarame is minding his own business when in walks Angela, a blond, blue-eyed otaku unlike anyone he has ever seen. However, Angela seems to know all about him! It turns out that Angela and her pal Susie, old friends of Ohnos, are visiting from the United States. Angela has a taste for hardcore doujinshi, and Sue cant seem to stop quoting offensive lines from her favorite anime. In just two days, the American visitors manage to turn the Genshiken upside down. Can the club survive a visit from these ambassadors of otakudom without inciting an international incident? [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Hacker Ethic: A Radical Approach to the Philosophy of Business'
You may be a hacker and not even know it. Being a hacker has nothing to do with cyberterrorism, and it doesnt even necessarily relate to the open-source movement. Being a hacker has more to do with your underlying assumptions about stress, time management, work, and play. Its about harmonizing the rhythms of your creative work with the rhythms of the rest of your life so that they amplify each other. It is a fundamentally new work ethic that is revolutionizing the way business is being done around the world.
Without hackers there would be no universal access to e-mail, no Internet, no World Wide Web, but the hacker ethic has spread far beyond the world of computers. It is a mind-set, a philosophy, based on the values of play, passion, sharing, and creativity, that has the potential to enhance every individuals and companys productivity and competitiveness. Now there is a greater need than ever for entrepreneurial versatility of the sort that has made hackers the most important innovators of our day. Pekka Himanen shows how we all can make use of this ongoing transformation in the way we approach our working lives. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Hacker Ethic : And the Spirit of the Information Age'
Nearly a century ago, Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism articulated the animating spirit of the industrial age, the Protestant ethic. Now, Pekka Hinamen together with Linus Torvalds and Manuel Castells articulates how hackers* represent a new, opposing ethos for the information age. Underlying hackers' technical creations such as the Internet and the personal computer, which have become symbols of our time are the hacker values that produced them and that challenge us all. These values promoted passionate and freely rhythmed work; the belief that individuals can create great things by joining forces in imaginative ways; and the need to maintain our existing ethical ideals, such as privacy and equality, in our new, increasingly technologized society. The Hacker Ethic takes us on a journey through fundamental questions about life in the information age a trip of constant surprises, after which out time and our lives can be seen from unexpected perspectives.
*In the original meaning of the word, hackers are enthusiastic computer programmers who share their work with others; they are not computer criminals. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'High Fidelity'
It has been said often enough that baby boomers are a television generation, but the very funny novel High Fidelity reminds that in a way they are the record-album generation as well. This funny novel is obsessed with music; Hornby's narrator is an early-thirtysomething English guy who runs a London record store. He sells albums recorded the old-fashioned way--on vinyl--and is having a tough time making other transitions as well, specifically adulthood. The book is in one sense a love story, both sweet and interesting; most entertaining, though, are the hilarious arguments over arcane matters of pop music. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'High Score: The Illustrated History of Electronic Games'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'High Score : The Illustrated History of Electronic Games'
In this lavishly illustrated full-color retrospective, discover never-before-seen photos that bring to life the people and stories behind the most popular games of all time, including Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Centipede, Donkey Kong, Asteroids, SimCity, Quake, Myst, Tomb Raider, and more. This is the inside scoop on the history, successes, tricks, and even failures of the entire electronic games industry. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Japan Edge: The Insider's Guide to Japanese Pop Subculture'
This lively, idiosyncratic survey of Japanese film, music, animation, and comics showcases the experiences of five avid American fans: journalist Carl Gustav Horn, who writes about anime; critic and musician Mason Jones, who releases Japanese alternative music on his Charnel Music record label; Patrick Macias, a writer on Asian film for the San Francisco Bay Guardian; Matt Thorn, a translator and expert on sh<@244>jo (girls') manga; and Yuji Oniki, a student of Japanese mass media. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'JPod'
Already dubbed Microserfs 2.0 by some pundits--a winking allusion to Douglas Coupland's previous novel Microserfs, which similarly chronicled pop-culture-damaged twentysomething misfits flailing, foundering, and occasionally succeeding in the high-tech sector--JPod is, like all of Coupland's novels, a byproduct of its era and yet strangely detached from it. Only this time with a bold and very crafty narrative device: Douglas Coupland, novelist, is a character in Douglas Coupland's novel. Which, when you think about it, makes sense since the type of people Coupland depicts are precisely the type of people who consume Coupland novels. As the once-great comedian Dennis Miller might holler, "Stop him before he sub-references again!" Readers familiar with Coupland's oeuvre know what to expect with the characterizations here. They also know that Coupland on a roll is both savagely observant and laugh-out-loud funny: "Bree was showing someone photos of her recent holiday visiting Korean animation sweathshops. She was bummed because she couldn't get into North Korea: too much legal juju. [She said] 'I just wanted to know what it's like to be in a society with no technology except for three dial telephones and a TV camera they won from Fidel Castro in a game of rock paper scissors.'" Much of the book is like that, built on granular and meandering exchanges between characters about . . . stuff. While JPod's flow is hobbled by some preposterous twists and character traits and by random words, phrases, and numbers splattered gratuitously across successive pages in oversized typeface, it's hard to imagine Coupland fans walking away disappointed. --Kim Hughes [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Knights Next Door: Everyday People Living Middle Ages Dreams'
Travel back in time to the Current Middle Ages, a re-created world of knights in shining armor, lords and ladies, artisans and minstrels with one foot in history, the other in today's modern society. Join a journey through the nation's largest medievalist group, the Society for Creative Anachronism, as it and other groups act out their passion for times long past. Meet the cast of colorful characters who call this re-created world home and follow a young fighter as he struggles to earn knighthood and the crown of the kingdom that serves as his stage. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The MacIntosh Way'
The Macintosh Way is a "take-no-prisoners guide to marketing warfare" says Jean Louis Gasse, founder and president of Be, Inc. Must reading for anyone in the high-tech industry, it is valuable, insightful guide to innovation management and marketing for any industry. [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'Maniac Road'

› Find signed collectible books: 'Megatokyo'
› Find signed collectible books: 'Microserfs'
Microserfs is not about Microsoft--it's about programmers who are searching for lives. A hilarious but frighteningly real look at geek life in the '90's, Coupland's book manifests a peculiar sense of how technology affects the human race and how it will continue to affect all of us. Microserfs is the hilarious journal of Dan, an ex-Microsoft programmer who, with his coder comrades, is on a quest to find purpose in life. This isn't just fodder for techies. The thoughts and fears of the not-so-stereotypical characters are easy for any of us to relate to, and their witty conversations and quirky view of the world make this a surprisingly thought-provoking book.
" ... just think about the way high-tech cultures purposefully protract out the adolescence of their employees well into their late 20s, if not their early 30s," muses one programmer. "I mean, all those Nerf toys and free beverages! And the way tech firms won't even call work 'the office,' but instead, 'the campus.' It's sick and evil." [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'Net Chick: A Smart-Girl Guide to the Wired World'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Netslaves: True Tales of Working the Web'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The New Hacker's Dictionary'
This third edition of the tremendously popular Hacker's Dictionary adds 100 new entries and updates 200 entries. In case you aren't familiar with it, this is no snoozer dictionary of technical terms, although you'll certainly find accurate definitions for most techie jargon. It's the slang and secret language among computer jocks that offers the most fun. Don't know what the Infinite-Monkey Theorem is? Or the meaning of "rat dance?" It's all here. Most people don't sit down to read dictionaries for entertainment, but this is surely an exception. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The New Hacker's Dictionary'
This third edition of the tremendously popular Hacker's Dictionary adds 100 new entries and updates 200 entries. In case you aren't familiar with it, this is no snoozer dictionary of technical terms, although you'll certainly find accurate definitions for most techie jargon. It's the slang and secret language among computer jocks that offers the most fun. Don't know what the Infinite-Monkey Theorem is? Or the meaning of "rat dance?" It's all here. Most people don't sit down to read dictionaries for entertainment, but this is surely an exception. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Pattern Recognition'
With Pattern Recognition, William Gibson, the man who introduced cyberpunk to the world, gives us his first novel set in the present. But as Gibson's imagination makes clear, our corporation-dominated, technologically advanced reality doesn't need much tweaking to take on the aura of science fiction.
If there's a fantastical element to this, the author's eighth book, it's in protagonist Cayce Pollard's special talent. Here, Gibson takes some of No Logo author Naomi Klein's ideas about branding to a logical extreme: Pollard has an instinctual, often violently intense reaction to logos, a condition that makes her valuable to advertising agencies looking for the most effective way to brand a product. This talent, however, makes a trip to a department store potentially lethal, as when she visits a London shopping emporium and is inundated by "a mountainside of Tommy [Hilfiger] coming down in her head." "Some people ingest a single peanut and their head swells like a basketball," writes Gibson. "When it happens to Cayce, it's her psyche.... When it starts, it's pure reaction, like biting down hard on a piece of foil." Pollard is also a "coolhunter" of the first order, which means she can sniff out a trend before it's even begun to be commodified. She's so good, in fact, that "she's met the very Mexican who first wore his baseball cap backwards."
With such sensitivity to our over-branded world, it's completely natural that our heroine would become fascinated by Internet footage of a film in which characters, setting, and time are completely generic--unbranded, unfixed, free. But Pollard isn't the only one obsessed by "the footage," as it's referred to, and this is where Gibson's masterful storytelling comes to the fore. Who will be the first to solve the mystery of the film's origin? Who else is trying, and for what potentially nefarious purpose? As usual the author proves adept at weaving a suspenseful narrative out of humdrum elements, such as e-mail exchanges. If there's a caveat, it's that, as with literary forefather Philip K. Dick, the Vancouver-based author's prose veers wildly from the poetic to the clunky. And his supporting characters often amount to nothing more than a combination of an unusual name and shadowy motive. But the continual barrage of ideas, and the way Gibson arranges them for maximum impact, make for a gripping and insightful glimpse into our hyperdriven consumer culture. --Shawn Conner [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'Train - Man 1: Densha Otoko'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Train - Man 2: Densha Otoko'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Train Man'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Train Man: A Shojo Manga'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'User Friendly'
Yes, it's a cliché, but it's true enough to be worth repeating: User Friendly is to the open-source world what Dilbert is to swarming hives of Windows cubicles. Set in an ISP company that keeps getting bought and sold, the constant remains a team of cynical, hilarious techies. M.B.A.s and marketers drift in and out, as do CEOs, often making statements like, "I can't surf the Web. I think the Internet is broken." For anyone who's dealt with similar situations, User Friendly is the ultimate in-joke.
To be fair, the comic is pretty basic in layout and execution. No one will confuse this book with a graphic novel, since the visuals basically exist only to further the punch line. (Think of a stripped-down Bloom County and you're getting close.) Lots of the jokes involve goofy, clichéd rants about the beauty of Quake, Linux, and Star Wars--the holy trinity for a white, wired, 18-26 year-old male audience. But when the author, Illiad, nails the bloated bureaucracy that exists in the tech working world, it's a laugh-out-loud payoff. In one comic, a new "suit" walks into the tech den and asks, What's "one thing that makes your job difficult, and we'll see about eliminating that." The chorus erupts: "Meetings." The new boss replies: "Very good. Now let's spend a few hours discussing why meetings make you unproductive." A comic that tilts at windmills and Windows, it's clear why User Friendly has developed such a strong online cult following. --Jennifer Buckendorff [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Welcome to the Nhk 1'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Wildly Foxtrot'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Wrong about Japan: A Father's Journey with His Son'
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