What's the nerdiest thing you've ever read?

*Also, an honorable mention to Henry Petroski's books on the history of the bookshelf and the pencil (which were deeply fascinating! Cultural history as well as engineering.)

I'd read those books. They do sound fascinating! But then again, I am a proud nerd.

Me? Maybe a history of land titles in colonial Mexico.

Some of Dean Koontz's early books.

edutton said:

*Also, an honorable mention to Henry Petroski's books on the history of the bookshelf and the pencil (which were deeply fascinating! Cultural history as well as engineering.)

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I'd read that!


When I was a teenager I read Ussher's Annals of the World (the go-to history book for young-earthers), as well as Strong's Concordance, and (in my later teens) various systematic theologies of which I think Finney's (the arch-heretic!) was the only one I actually made through to the end (because all the rest were calvinist or pseudo-calvinist theology and I despised calvinism, lol).

More recently, I picked up Thorstein Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class, but I'm not sure that really counts since I snickered every time he referred to women as "venerable booty" and then tapped out a few pages after the previous owner tapped out (judging by when there were no longer definitions of various words scribbled in the margins). He uses a lot of uncommon words, in order to capture the most precise rendering of his ideas that he can, and I found it broke my focus irreparably to have to stop and look words up for myself. (Does that mean I'm not actually a nerd? Yikes! )

If you don't count things like D&D/GURPS manuals, then probably The Cosmic Serpent by Jeremy Narby.

"While living among Peruvian Indians, anthropologist Jeremy Narby became intrigued by their claim that their phenomenal knowledge of plants and biochemistry was communicated to them directly while under the influence of hallucinogens."

The Premise of Jim Butcher's Codex Alara is "Lost Roman Legion story meets Pokemon," so by default, it might be that. If we're talking about academic books, I found myself reading something on rithmomachy (a mathematical medieval boardgame) in the library. Unfortunately, I already had my arms full of books on Victorian stage magic which I actually needed for something, so I couldn't take that one home.

Well...I am a regular reader of the American Journal of Nursing, 1920s and 30s issues exclusively. Nerdy enough for you?

That would have to be the Marvel Encyclopedia. It is literally an entire encyclopedia of Marvel superheroes. It is proudly the nerdiest book I own.

That answer would change throughout life, as based on the mirror around me. As a child, I remember taking all sorts of heat for not only openly reading Little Women, but also for writing a glowing review of the book in the inside flap of the school library's copy. (I can't imagine defacing a book like that now, but back then I was just so passionate about it I had to tell SOMEONE!!!!) I was ostracized for QUITE A WHILE over that one.

Nothing I read is NERDY until someone else tells me it's nerdy...and even then...that's their baggage, not mine.

I accept all that I read as legitimate, non-nerdiness. Even The God Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, What is the Question? and A Pilgrim's Guide to the Camino de Santiago: St. Jean - Roncesvalles - Santiago, which I read cover to cover. (-;

Ready Player One by Ernest Kline was pretty darned nerdy in terms of video game culture, but I think Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, in a more sophisticated way, has it beat.

I mean, Alan Turing turns up as a character. And there's a scene where a character tries to mathematically model his bicycle chain falling off.

Probably the deeper corners of the Star Wars wiki, or something similar. I'm not even that into Star Wars (I swear, please don't take my lunch money), but I'm a sucker for expansive worldbuilding.

But how are we defining nerdiness, exactly? I read a lot of technical articles because I'm in a technical field, but that doesn't count as nerdy, in my book (unless I was somehow reading them in my lesiure time as well). I've got some obscure interests, but I don't really know what makes one person's obsessions nerdy when another's aren't, unless the interests are identifiably part of 'nerd culture' (you know it when you see it). I've met some pretty obsessive cricket stats fans. Like, really into cricket stats. Is that nerdery?

Grayson Moon said:

That would have to be the Marvel Encyclopedia. It is literally an entire encyclopedia of Marvel superheroes. It is proudly the nerdiest book I own.

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Haha, I've got that; however, it's incomplete. No Fantomex... most disappointing.

I also have the Avengers Encyclopedia, but it's not quite as cool.

The star trek chronology, technical manual and encyclopedia are quite nerdy. A good read was D S Hellewell - South Yorkshire's Transport. Its a history of the passenger transport executive and the pre/de- regulated bus companies in Sheffield and surrounding area. Its a good read but I bought it mostly for its coverage of the first Articulated buses to be introduced to Britain, and the picture of the long gone bendy bus I used to travel on, an since destroyed by Jeremy clarkeson on Top Gear (bastard). At twenty five quid in the mid nineties, its probably the most expensive book I own. Not counting the Fat Duck Cookbook, which was a gift.

Albedo said:

But how are we defining nerdiness, exactly? ... I've met some pretty obsessive cricket stats fans. Like, really into cricket stats. Is that nerdery?

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To me, nerdiness means passion, the opposite of cool. A person getting joyfully passionate about any topic is engaged in nerdery. A topic which provokes such passion in many people is a nerdy thing.

I had (may still have) one of the ST "technical manuals," though I never read it cover-to-cover.

The closest thing that falls near this category is the time I read a dictionary from A to Z. (It wasn't an unabridged, though.) I'd hoped it would cure my of my habit of getting lost looking up random words when I opened the thing to look up something specific, so I read it and wrote down all the "cool" words I found. Still get lost in dictionaries, though, so I suppose it didn't work...

jjdebenedictis said:

To me, nerdiness means passion, the opposite of cool. A person getting joyfully passionate about any topic is engaged in nerdery. A topic which provokes such passion in many people is a nerdy thing.

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Unless its football, football gets a free pass somehow, maybe there's money in it or something. Perhaps if a nerdy thing can be monetised, its nerdiness is succeeded by righteousness, and simply having a passion for something other than football, as an example, is by default nerdy, whether there is passion or not, even a passing interest in something, that isn't football, is nerdy.

Yeah, I got a chip on my shoulder. What of it?

Football. Pah!