Sid Meier's Memoir!
The life and career of the legendary developer celebrated as the “godfather of computer gaming” and creator of Civilization.
Over his four-decade career, Sid Meier has produced some of the world’s most popular videogames, including Sid Meier’s Civilization, which has sold more than 51 million units worldwide and accumulated more than one billion hours of play. Sid Meier’s Memoir! is the story of an obsessive young computer enthusiast who helped launch a multibillion-dollar industry. Writing with warmth and ironic humor, Meier describes the genesis of his influential studio, MicroProse, founded in 1982 after a trip to a Las Vegas arcade, and recounts the development of landmark games, from vintage classics like Pirates! and Railroad Tycoon, to Civilization and beyond.
[W. W. Norton 2020]
No Map to This Country
“Part of the torture of autism is that the future is so impossibly unsure. Your child might become a fully functioning member of society and appear no different than anyone else, even if he does have to look at mouths instead of eyes and can’t stand to give his own kids a bath. Or, he might be so violent that he requires institutionalization… Either way, you’re expected to work your ass off for it.”
With equal parts defiance, tenacity, and wry humor, No Map to This Country details one family’s journey through the modern autism epidemic, and the lengths to which a mother will go in order to heal her family. Noonan’s groundbreaking yet profoundly relatable memoir seamlessly combines cutting edge research with a gripping and unapologetic account of their fight for recovery.
[Da Capo/Lifelong 2016]
Damn Interesting
“Damn Interesting is a small, independent, award-winning, and award-losing project dedicated to the dissemination of legitimately fascinating but obscure true stories from science, history, and psychology since 2005.”
- Damn Interesting Week – a weekly podcast hosted by Jennifer Lee Noonan
- The Rube's Dilemma – A great pitcher's great temptation.
- The Unceasing Cessna Hacienda – In 1958, one heavily modified airplane flew out of Las Vegas with a single objective: Don’t land.
- Dupes and Duplicity – The true story of the 18th century's greatest femme fatale, and the most unfortunate of her victims. [Winner of the NYTimes 2020 Sidney Award]
- The Most Modern of Modern Sports – The secret runaway success of Kenneth Cecil Gandar-Dower's racing cheetahs.
- A Debaculous Fiasco – The most expensive, bizarre, and obscure work ever created by Dr. Seuss.
- Fire and Dice – A tragic hotel fire of Rube Goldberg proportions.
- The Greatest Baroque Composer Never Known – A 300-year-old hunt for the unsung hero of Salzburg.
- Hard to Swallow – A brief examination of the 1906 Tonsillectomy Riots
- The Colors of Numbers – Cleverly-designed studies prove the existence of synesthesia without a brain scan.