“While all art forms can elicit powerful emotions, only games can make the audience feel the emotion of agency. A novel can make you feel sad, but only a game can make you feel guilty for your actions. A play can make you feel joyful, but only a game can make you feel proud of yourself. A movie can make you feel angry with a traitor, but only a game can make you feel personally betrayed.“
- Lost in a Good Game
May 2015: Our 1st monthly Rebel Book Club event. August 2023: Our 100th.
Look back at all of our 100 rebel reads since 2015 here and discover how we choose what to read.
Thank you to everyone who has played their part so far in making this community and project such a great experience.Making (some) sense of our overwhelming, distracting world matters more than ever. So, at RBC, we keep going. Onto August's book...
Gaming: Our 100th book - Lost in a Good Game:
Thank you to member Erin who suggested this theme and helped create our shortlist. The winner of August’s member vote was: Lost in a Good Game: Why we play video games and what they can do for us by Pete Etchells
About the book:
When Pete Etchells was 14, his father died from motor neurone disease. In order to cope, he immersed himself in a virtual world - first as an escape, but later to try to understand what had happened.
In his book, he journeys through the history and development of video games - from Turing's chess machine to mass multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft - via scientific study, to investigate the highs and lows of playing and get to the bottom of our relationship with games - why we do it, and what they really mean to us.
Why we chose it:
“Once in an age, a piece of culture comes along that feels like it was specifically created for you, the beats and words and ideas are there because it is your life the creator is describing. Lost In A Good Game is exactly that. It will touch your heart and mind.”
- Adam Rutherford
We celebrated reading 100 books. Together
Over 130 of us met at our August London, Bristol, Oxford and online events, to celebrate and discuss our 100th read.
Our Bristol crowd hosted this month’s author, Pete Etchels, and gained fresh insights into his book on psychology + gaming. In London we were joined by RBC member and author Elaine Kasket, who talked about her new book, Reboot, over delish vegan cake & cocktails
Watch our event recap on Instagram here.
Join us for the next 100 books
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