Gadgetory

and welcome to CNET book club I'm Dan Ackerman I'm Scot Stein and we've talked to a lot of serious authors about serious books over the last year and a half Walter Mosley a Jaron Lane hey Jeff and Amir yep but we thought it'd be fun for the holiday season to show you some fun books you can get his gifts that are actual physical books but just don't work as ebooks not available as ebooks these are books from our own collection this is stuff like I got two big bookshelves put into my living room and these are some of these I've had for years some of them I just bought and they're ones that I don't want to Kindle a lot of times they're constructed to be read because they have different typefaces they do a lot of like they they literally put things into the book physically there's some things you just can't recreate even simple illustrations don't read well on the Kindle it doesn't have a good way to resolve it yeah it's not a good way to go in fact you know if you see a visual book that's on a kindle sale you'll see if you download one that usually every the layout gets messed up so fYI forgiving that as a gift to someone so go with the physical book keep the Kindle for the pure text yeah now I'm gonna start off we're gonna show off some books here this is one I got very recently as I'm pretty excited about this is art and Arcania it's a big visual history of Dungeons and Dragons and it really goes all the way back in time and has a lot of really fantastic art like early advertisements and things like that from the game and gives you a lot of backstory about Gary Gygax and how it was created and eventually it goes into things I think I remember for when I was a kid that goes great like dungeon master guides illustrations and things like that and a little flashback oh yeah it's just flash back after flashback and if you grew up in any of this stuff you will remember this oh look at these books and ads and things like that a lot about metal mean if it ain't metal miniatures Scott no we're killing them nope never did although it was very I was very interested in them but I was the abstract board game and sleight of hand magic person that sort of like I danced around them but I'm now getting into Dungeons and Dragons see we I had the map tiles and had a little figure that would paint them they wrote me to lead back then yeah so you know like piei pewter II yeah I know I just 3d print them anyways this is 50 bucks and and that he seen it on sale yeah so this this thing too with a lot of these physical books like check out see if they're on sale a lot of places you can get them on deals especially this time of year discounting a lot of these books that just looked a bunch of them yeah like it a lot of plate a lot of book stores are offering like 10 20 percent discount so like you know forget list price like a lot of times you can get some discount I'm gonna give you a little a little fun fact about this number one the intro is written by Jove banjy loz the actor who's like the werewolf on True Blood and you see a lot bunch of other things and one of the three co-authors is Sam Witwer who's an actor who was in a couple of Star Wars games yeah and also in the American version of that vampire and werewolf and ghost lived together show the neighbor which escapes me being human why that he was the vampire in the American version of being human and he is a co-author on this Dungeons & Dragons book that's like fast and that's unusual but yeah that's like a great coffee table book and speaking of D&D and then we'll get our D&D out of the system I've you know my kid who is who's 10 has been getting interested in Dungeons and Dragons and I never played Dungeons & Dragons growing up more than like an hour and I suddenly became interested the Dungeon Master's they are it is the addition now I've seen this on sale a lot over Black Friday Cyber Monday and even now so shop around to see if you it's like list price $50 but you can get it for less than that and it's awesome I mean I got this The Player's Guide and the Monster Manual we're just still would not change the name of those since I was a kid have now retired from the game in the sixth grade that's the same books that we had the covers we did ahead mister manual because I loved the idea of all these monsters in a book and I had fiend folio and I had Monster Manual too but but now I just got the monster manual there are other books too but the layouts fantastic if you're interested in learning about the lore and it also kind of doubles as a coffee table at the coffee table art book yeah if you're not and this is a little more list heavy but there's definitely a lot of really cool illustrations really during the game you're probably using an app yes we talked about that a lot of people use apps but I still like the idea poring over a book keeping it on a on a shelf and it's got a really nice feel so anyway I treated myself to that and I've I got more of those coming for my kid he doesn't know yet knife knife all right Scott gonna give you now one that is new to me but you apparently knew about ahead of time I know it I read it it's like my Mexican finish I believe by Denmark Danielewski and it is apparently a cult favourite from the early 2000s I think and even though it looks like a regular book inside there's a ton of interesting typography there's all sorts of like writing in the margins there's like weird weird page layouts there's two sets of footnotes written in different fonts so you can tell which person is writing the footnotes to this because it's about a person writing about a person who wrote about another person who wrote about like a cult movie that no one can find about some other guy who discovered like a hallway in his house that doesn't seem to structurally belong in the house and that's only the most top level of it it's just a weird nightmarish dreamscape it's very David Lynch in I had a copy of House of Leaves years ago and one of my many moves I got rid of it because I thought I would never read it now I want to read it again and we have to brining another copy but the actual color graphs in here of things yeah it's a really something we never work on a Kindle it's not available as an e-book yeah I actually had to go to the Strand to get this copy which cost me $18 I was a fool for getting rid of my it might be my copy for all I know you might might have picked up the cop property of Scott asked all right yeah I left a little mark by margin I'll tell you I've really just started this and I am just blown away by it just the first you know chapter or two very unsettling if you like kind of weird fiction with with slightly supernatural but you don't really know what's going on over toads house of leads and mark Z Danielewski also has started releasing this series of books he has like based on all 26 letters of the alphabet so there are these massive again visual tomes with all sorts of puzzle e-text and I think that I bought on a Kindle and was very disappointed that I bought it on a camera but it was on Kindle sale so it was like $1.99 and I I took a leap onto it but if you're also interested that that's out there to buy that author so I'll pick this up this is a book that I picked up when I was interested in game design and game theory there's a newer version than this one but Raph Koster who's a really claimed thinker game designer worked on Ultima Online this is theory of fun for game design what's really cool about this book is not only is it about the basic theory of games and theories of fun but half of it is text and half of it is a comic and so every page you kind of getting two parallel stories as you it's not like a comic book but they're comic like illustrations to tell a parallel tale to what's going on in the text here so something like this is really meant to give you ideas as you flip through it think about it I started showing it to my kids and I think it's fun because you can you kind of think outside the box with with gaming and it's just a really fun read it kind of almost reminds me of what another great book that I didn't bring in is the understanding comics geology F by Scott MacLeod shows a great remains amazing he has that making comics reinventing comics this has almost a feel of that anybody in the industry to appreciate it exactly five books they just tell you good visual storytelling that will help you in a lot of fields yeah you're getting sort of like a fundamental understanding of maybe the cognitive elements of what makes gaming fun so great book and there's a newer version than this you get a newer edition getting the new cover yeah so you know what makes it's got loot boxes lots and lots of loot boxes give some loot boxes for the holidays okay here's over here here's a crazy one I've wanted to get this has this cool vintage look it's called ship of thesis and it is by JJ Abrams at an author named Doug doors but it looks like inside the slipcover you know an old book that you would get from the library it's that's a little library tag on it here on the side and there's a story in the book but there are basically two people who have taken this book out of the library and they keep writing each other notes in the margins of the book and they also like insert little postcards and little flyers so this is all part of the book obviously you can never do this look as a whole letter in here a handwritten letter you have to read it's there there's much more text outside of the story than inside of newspaper clipping the pages are perfectly yellow door and they just have a great aging to them it looks very authentic so you so you basically have the story of the book and then this other story that's happening in the background I have not gotten very far in this but someday I will get back to it but it's a fantastic-looking book and it would look great anywhere it is I think I said I was out for like 20 bucks get used to it when it came out it was like 40 and almost reminds me of the egg it gives me a feel of the Griffin and Sabina books those books that I that had little letters that you would open and it was this ah yeah Nick Banta that's what yeah a number I can't believe I remember that in a number of books that were like that with all the puzzles and Nick Banta also talking about a used book to pick up and this puzzle book called the Egyptian jukebox and I've got on my shelf which is a great visual puzzle book I didn't bring visual puzzle books but I brought other types of books I'm looking for a good visual puzzle book that needs to be made in 2019 this I'm just going to write to Simon Stalin hag so I missed a like a big been a a book superstar lately I think a lot of people Jeff Bakalar turned me on to his art and his work he has had two other books third one came out now called the electric state I think she got all of them but the electric state what's cool is it these books not only are they they they gorgeous they explore these dystopic Swedish worlds that take place in the past but feel like the future so this is like an alternate 90s where there's been some a puck apocalyptic cataclysmic a virtual reality game that people were playing there's a lot of ruins there's a lot of mystery these incredible paintings along with the storyline you just flip through it like an incredible art book I mean it's definitely on the more mature side but I think anyone would enjoy it the paintings are amazing again it's not like this at all but it kind of reminds me of Dinah topia in the sense that there's this like unfolding amazing story that's told through art his other two books are great this is a purely art book you would only ever want to get this in physical form no regrets purchase I just again I feel like these books I don't always read all the way through I like to flip through them if you have them you can go back to yeah you get ideas and you become very inspired but I love the I love the ruins in this book nice nice like that yeah I'm going to show you one now Scott that's brand-new in fact it's a it's a show that we all know would love stranger things and they've done a book like about the show but in an eighty style so it like a weathered old book it's got that plastic cover on it like you would get at the library or from school it's got a little used bookstore price tag on it that says it's in fair condition this was a used book Oh like randomly even a note on the autorap saying don't panic the book is supposed to look like this and inside look it's got some water stains on the inside it's really like really nicely aged and there's a lot of really great art inside besides the usual behind-the-scenes stuff and obviously you can't get that on a Kindle yeah and it's it's really a good mix of like about the people who made the show about the actors who were on the show behind the scenes stuff little paw up pages from you know biographies and and all kinds of stuff like this so I thought this was really well done and if you're a fan of the show it's certainly a good pickup and I think this was Ison on Amazon for sixteen dollars down from the usual thirty-six okay so so good good call there book that I did not bring in but but I would also recommend them at my books I didn't bring because it's gigantic the meta podcast within the break look up this book is it's the best weird giant art book you could ever get and it's been around for years it got released a couple of years ago codex Seraphin II oh yes it is why did you bring that is because it's gigantic because it wouldn't even fit in my backpack it's a is expensive I think it's like $80 it's just as beautiful as Mallika Tasha and type book where and the the pages are well textured it's written in gibberish or a supposedly Gervais or maybe it's another language it was it was created as this spin-off of the Voynich manuscript maybe like it like a commentary on it it's a very bizarre surreal pictures of people doing all sorts of things alien evolving stuff it just feels like a text that got downloaded out of another dimension but that's a great one speaking of other dimensions Jeff Vandermeer our friend our friend Jeff who you know his books are fantastic he has a book which you have to get in physical form you can also get an individual but get it in physical it's one of the best writing books out there for anyone who wants to think about writing or dream of other worlds called Wonder book this is the previous edition that I bought he has a new edition yeah without these 60 pages of new stuff first of all it's fantastically laid out and you know all sorts of really cool maps and interesting flowcharts and visuals and inspiring paintings weird ads and things but it's a book on on writing and creating and he has it feels like dozens of cameos from famous authors Neil Gaiman Zinn here Charles you Lev Grossman george RR martin ursula kala look in it's incredible Karen Lord so Kim Stanley I'm just gonna keep on but anyway they all have thoughts about writing so it's like not just him it's like a greatest hits of other people thinking so it's just a it's a great book on a lot of levels and it doesn't even cost that much I think was like $20 mm-hmm so feels it's very hitting the new version of this to my to my wishlist cuz I have a copy of this oh you don't know you have to get yes this is I kind of want to get the new version even though I have this version and because I think it's I think it's wonderful so it's on and of course Jeff Vandermeer was our very first book club guess he was our very first and now and then you know annihilation and mourn and all that other stuff so he's he's got another one coming out so fantastic yeah speaking of cool books here was a book about cool books by another cool author who also writes cool books the author is Grady Hendrix and he's got another new book out called we sold our souls but this is his nonfiction work paperbacks from hell and it is a study of 1970s and 80s pulp paperbacks horror fiction things like that and you will find all of these fantastic book covers in here and he talks about them and the origins of them and the different weird authors some of whom you know we're never seen again some of whom went on to become very famous and it's just once again you have to see these these book covers in in real time because they are just fantastic like here's all the knockoffs of like Rosemary's Baby with everyone's got a demon baby the only demon baby books man want you out there that's pretty great and all the you know let's see what the screaming all the screaming people that I and I remember that these are about these are the religious horror books Legion Dark Angel unholy communion so those are all collected and this is this is really really fun to flip through if you like kitschy 70s 80s book culture and they don't make book covers like this anymore like I still go to the Strand but I will look through the paperback the old paperback rack and try to find cool stuff just to have it because it looks so awesome and Grady Hendrix also wrote this other book that just came out a fiction book called we sold our souls about a rock band that apparently sells its soul to the devil in exchange for success and and it's it's it's a good creepy music tinge thriller well maybe because of that and and everyone getting into this they need to make more books of covers like that oh yes I was gonna it's bound to happen stranger things and all that stuff that retro style now everything well Kindle books don't have covers really just like we lost album art by going to digital music we've lost book cover art by going to Kindles what kills me is one of the digital book cover art suddenly changes oh right like it all wasn't over it looks different and it throws me off so I'm gonna go to a topic that I've also been really obsessed with after virtual reality which is immersive theater now you may not be aware of what immersive theater is or maybe you are which is the you know site-specific transformative things have you seen Sleep No More if you've seen then she fell in New York things that are defy explanation and and often will expand beyond normal spaces well this group called as I got deeper into the immersive theater world sort of collecting some books this group called Odyssey works has been exploring a very particular type of experience which they call like a immersive experiences for one completely crazy almost like the game handcrafted things that just happen to one person where everything around them changes they know they're part of it but it's more artistic and these worlds and so this group Odyssey works you can't experience those things really because they cost a crazy amount and they usually don't happen that many people but they decided to create this really cool art book published by Princeton Architectural press that is discusses their methods and their art and has an interview with Rick by Rick moody who I think experienced one of these so it's again crazy charts interesting story individuals talking about the art what it means to create their immersion it's a book that you'd want to flip through and think about your life thing with a path typography and the color of the text which again you can't do on a Kindle exactly so it is it's fascinating if you want to think about art differently if you want to think about what if you're interesting VR if you're interested in things like future tech and you want to think about what it means to create something that's immersive or AR this might be a really cool book to pick up or pick up for someone who's into that nice nice now for someone who's into more traditional visual storytelling like I don't know Star Wars there's this new book called creatures and aliens and I'm showing it to you for two reasons one my seven-year-old was fascinated with this because it's not just a standard you know photo book of stuff it's actually again has all this almost 3d stuff in it where yes it has all these you can look through all these like drawings you could pull stuff out of like concept drawings of different characters ibaka there's more Chewbacca and there's a lot of like little flip things that open up so it's like a oh look there's there's Peter Mayhew and there's two notes in theatre made before and now now you have and so it's a really heater making oh this is great this little mini book inside of a walk sketches and it's like several pages just like this so it's a book it's several books within a book and it's that same playful sort of you know let's shove a bunch of stuff outside of here and and look at early concept drawings of jar jar where they all he didn't get Benny better duck-billed yeah yeah it looks like it looks like it so I thought this was really cool this is the this is new $29 creatures and aliens and I really love that they've done more than just the standard art book have all these little pull ups and extras and that's gotta have a bonus for you this is the book that I mentioned to you briefly I don't know if I've shown it today Katie you have this book I want my spaghetti yes I am very envious about giraffes on horseback salad which is a graphic novel that recreates the lost script that Salvador Dali wrote for the Marx Brothers it was actually never even a full script pediatr treatment and maybe a few pages bananas and and and some guy went around and tracked down as much information as he could about this never made movie and finally got you know all the treatments and everything and basically wrote a script around it and he and he got that guy Tim Heidecker who does yeah yeah he's fantastic oh well it's him and Eric yeah yeah and he's done a bunch of other stuff since then so I see it was part of the writing team on this basically had a team who would write like Marx Brothers style gangs and jokes to follow along the storyline and then somebody Illustrated it and it has a lot of background about about the book itself and how it came together but it's a really cool like funny abstract graphic novel now the catch is I have a copy right here it doesn't come out until March of 2019 ah but why how did I get it why is this right now you know what it's got I'll tell you from experience that's the book industry and I think I turned in my book and it definitely did not come out until almost exactly one year later yeah so that's what happens but I got this at New York comic-con so if you go to a convention or a book convention or anything the company quirk books is already out there selling this so may not be able to retail store but if you're doing any kind of convention or anything I'm sure they will be happy to sell you a copy of the full retail price say new york-based it can I knock on their door I don't know that's a good question and I find can I know what I've got a card from somebody over there all no to get me for my for my birthday right and and and it's super trippy it's not like a standard jokey Marx Brothers movie it's much more it's much more out there because it's South Korea Dali but they call it the strangest movie never made anybody hate a premium for them you've got a great selection here of actual real world physical book gifts you can get for people I think I think anyone who collects real books would love would love any one of these and we're gonna put all the links to them on the article associated with this video so you can just go through there and click on them all add them to your collections this has been super fun I've been thinking about this for a long time yes ever finally did this we should do more of these basically what's on our bookshelves because the stuff keeps growing but this is really cool awesome awesome all right well anyway I'm Scott and that scene at book club for this year see you in 2019 bye now