The Life And Times Of The Last Kid Picked

Sep 22, 2024 6:18 AM

Author:David Benjamin

Through the telling of his own madcap childhood, David Benjamin pays homage to the exuberance of young boys at play. Whether he's stalking frogs though the swamps of Tomah, Wisconsin, playing four-kid baseball with his bothersome little brother and two favourite cousins, or sneaking into the cinema to watch Saturday-afternoon Westerns, David Benjamin is the kind of kid who would have eagerly fallen in with Tom Sawyer. In relating his adventures - including one truly sorry incident with Snappy, the snapping turtle, and a run-in with a particularly fiendish squirrel - David Benjamin is by turns hysterically funny, movingly sincere, caustic, aggrieved and intrepid. Traversing the nooks and crannies of kidhood from playing fields to swimming holes, The Life and Times of the Last Kid Picked captures a time and a place in twentieth-century life and magically recalls the myriad scrapes and adventures and wanderlust that once made childhood such an exhilarating enterprise.

Reviews

Inspiring and engaging

—— Daily Telegraph

An intriguing and thought-provoking book

—— New Statesman

Despite her expertise, McGonigal's book is never overly technical, and as with a good computer game, anyone, regardless of gaming experience, is likely to get sucked in

—— New Scientist

McGonigal is persuasive and precise in explaining how games can transform our approach to those things we know we should do. McGonigal is also adept at showing how good games expose the alarming insubstantiality of much everyday experience. McGonigal is a passionate advocate... Given the power and the darker potentials of the tools she describes, we must hope that the world is listening

—— Tom Chatfield , Observer

McGonigal brilliantly deconstructs the components of good game design before parlaying them into a recipe for changing the offline, 'real' world'

—— Literary Review

She brilliantly links the growing scholarship on happiness to the gimmicks and tricks that commercial game designers devise to engage their febrile audiences

—— Pat Kane , Belfast Telegraph

I found as I read through her book I had already begin [sic] to feel empowered and make notes on the games I'd like to look into. Gamers can change reality - McGonigal proves that...

—— Keri Allan , Engineering & Technology

Lively and combative ... dauntingly well-informed ... injects a welcome dose of common sense into an issue that has been absurdly lacking in it.

—— John Preston , Sunday Telegraph

Piercing...convincing...timely.

—— Ben Hammersley , Financial Times

[M]ore than rewards a respectful reading, not only for the author's impressive knowledge of the internet toolbox...but because of his ability to relate such technological gadgetry to the increasing challenges that are being posed to entrenched authoritarianism

—— James M Murphy , Times Literary Supplement

Selected by the New York Times as one of the 100 Notable Books of 2011

—— New York Times

The year's most unusual travel book

—— Tom Chesshyre , The Times

[An] eye-opening and hugely enjoyable book

—— Daily Telegraph

Written in a delectable prose that scatters flashes of poetry over a sardonic undertow of social comment, Edgelands is a lyrical triumph. On Britain’s grotty margins, the duo trace “desire paths” to find beauty and mystery in the rough darkness on the edge of town

—— Boyd Tonkin , Independent

Previous Article：Digging Up the Dead Next Article：The Grand Design

Comments

Welcome to zzdbook comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.