The Year of the Geek

This is a really geeky-fun gift book. It is a bit like a calendar, in that it has geek facts for every day of the year. Each selection is explained, and often there are graphs, grids, charts and diagrams to helpfully illustrated the impact or importance of the events. The graphics are fun and well-done.

I didn't like some of the facts chosen - perhaps it was hard to find pure geekish facts for every day of the year, and I know everyone's connection with geek culture differs, but I was not interested in seeing so much about filmmakers and actors. I enjoyed reading about books, authors, gaming milestones, scientific achievements, and the like. On the other hand, looking up a special date to find that the day was when the fourth series of the television show Babylon V aired, or that this was the date that Fox Mulder joined the FBI, was a real sad trombone.

This would be a fun gift for the geek in your life, and a good coffee table book, able to be picked up and read in short bursts, or to use for conversation starters.

If you need a primer on nerdiness, this book is the perfect choice.

Filled with cool facts from the start on a range of topics, this book taught me so much reading it and made me look up more books I want to read, more films I need to watch and a Netflix binge that is the length of which the world has never seen.

The infographics are fantastic throughout this book, the Buffy The Vampire Slayer one in particular made me really remember the percentage of the kills in the show which were Buffy’s and as you open it, the timeline of timelords is a really cool and well laid out graph that really summarises this book well.

I also really liked the representation in the book, throughout the book it was good to see a fair balance of female and male mentions that really allows for a rounded and honest representation of geek culture, mentioning writers such as Ursula LeGuin and Octavia Butler and actresses such as Zoe Saldana and director, Kathryn Bigelow.

An ideal book for a rookie geek, it’s an awesome Christmas gift for anyone of any age really. Well worth a read.

As a geek who loves facts and trivia I really enjoyed this book. The infographics and mini pictures were a nice addition and I can myself using some of the trivia for quiz nights. Not really something to sit down and read in one go. I'd probably call it a bathroom book.

Ideal for science fiction fans. This guide presents the interesting facts about the most popular of the sci-fi culture. From the classic of the start for the last century to today’s ouvres. Excellent book!

This would be a good gift for the geek in your life, or something fun to ease y0u into a large number of fandoms. The graphics are well done and fun to read. For each day that is chosen, something historic or interesting is presented about an aspect of "geek" culture. Subjects range from the typical Doctor Who and Star Trek, to information on the creator of the Hubble telescope and Alf. Information is presented in a fun and easily sharable way, and if nothing else, may help you win big on trivia night.

A Jazzy, Upbeat, Graphically Enhanced Book of Lists

I like books of lists - lists of movies, books, characters, places, events - you name it. It's fun to see what you know and what you don't know, where you've been and where you should go, what you've read and what you've missed. Well, this book is like the ultimate Geek book of lists, and the author has cast his net wide enough to interest just about anybody, not just the hardcore.

Now, if this were just a fancy thought-for-the-day style calendar book it might not have enough substance to afford it more than some passing interest. The author, though, gives us much more. About every third day gets a full page info-graphical treatment. The graphics might be of a network connecting each Star Wars character to each movie in which he appeared. Or, it might look like the Pac-Man game board, but with Pac-Man factoids spread around the paths. Or it might be an X and Y graph of every Pixar release by year and gross earnings. Want to know the San Diego Comic-Con attendance from each year since it was founded? Here it is. You get the idea.

The book fills up about half the days with references to birthdays or publication dates or release dates for seminal books and movies and for influential or foundational geek celebrities and innovators. The rest of the pages are loaded with graphics about just about anything. We cover games, books, movies, TV, cultural events, inventions/patents/doodads, comics, graphic novels, artists, computing, and science and technology. As I said, a wide net.

Some of the references are obscure and some are marginal, but the author's heart is in the right place and the overall project is winning. It was also interesting that the organization is based on dates, not years, so the things that happened on, say, October 6, 7, and 8 can be centuries apart and yet still feel connected. That everything-thrown-together approach makes for some felicitous combinations. That said, there are lots of indexes if you just want to look up references that especially interest you.

The bottom line for me was that while this wasn't really encyclopedic and it certainly wasn't comprehensive, it had just the right sort of random listness that made for a fun browse. A happy find.

(Please note that I received a free advance will-self-destruct-in-x-days Adobe Digital copy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)

Are you a fan of lists and graphics? Do you like to be a know-it-all? I am and I do, so I enjoyed this very much.Nicely curated and beautifully designed - this would be a lovely gift for sci-fi/fantasy fans of all kinds.

This book was awesome! Not only was the information provided incredibly entertaining, but the graphics were so eye-catching and fun and they added a whole new element to the book. Obviously, I would highly recommend this book to any geek I know, but I think there’s something in here for everyone to enjoy, whether or not they consider themself a geek. There’s stuff for movie fans, music fans, literature fans, TV fans, and more. I’m so glad this book exists and I can’t wait to buy a physical copy to add to my library. My only wish is that it had been longer. I wanted more!

This is exactly the sort of fun, nerdy coffee table book I LOVE. All the infographics were super well made, and super interesting.

Some were a little hard to read since I was reading this on Adobe Digital Editions, so I really want to buy a hardback.

If you're into geeky, meta stuff about your fandoms, then this is for you!

This is a kind of calendar with geeky info for each of the days. Some of the facts were more interesting, some less so, but I liked that the explanations came accompanied by infographics or diagrams. Overall, interesting and fun to read.

This is a fun little booklet, full of interesting tidbits about your geekdom of choice (some may be uninteresting to you, if you're not a fan of eg. Star Trek, or Dr. Who).
I would purchase this as a paperback, because I couldn't -for the life of me- get this on my Kindle to read, I had to do it on the Adobe Digital Editions, which is a pain in the @ss.

Perfect for anyone who loves flash fiction. Nice info graphs to support the writing. Brilliant read.

This is such a great little guide. It's the sort of a book that would make a really good Christmas gift or stocking stuffer.

As the title suggests, this book is a year long, with one page per day. Each day there's a fun little factoid. It might be an author or film star's birthday, or when a book was released, or something else like that.

Each day is written in a fun way that's educational, but without making it sound like it's a Wikipedia page or text book. The graphics are really well done. There's lots of charts and infographics that make it seem more fun and more engaging.

I was a bit worried that this book might be "too geeky" for me. What I mean by that is, I'm a huge fan of Fantasy and books, but I'm not really the biggest sci-fi buff, and I have a less than stellar interest in anime and comic books. But the information was interesting no matter the subject, and it was just enough to be a "fun fact" sized thing to learn. For me, it's a good way to start the morning.

If you or someone in your life is a lover of the Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, the SyFy channel, or any similar subjects, this is a cool book to have around.

I received a copy in exchange for my honest review.

This is a fantastic coffee table book for the geek in your life or even someone just mildly interested in the pop or geek culture! Every day has interesting tidbits about things that happened in history or why certain dates are important if geek culture is your thing. I wouldn't necessarily recommend sitting down and trying to just read it all right away, but give yourself time to absorb it day by day. It is colorful and the graphics are eye-catching. I would highly recommend this to anyone who is interested in finding out more about this ever-growing cultural phenomenon or for something to keep your friends entertained.