Best Books for Geeks & Nerds in 2021: Cerebral, Readable

Chuck Klosterman X is about rock ‘n’ roll and American sports. If that sentence turns you off, consider this: actually, it’s about everything but. In author Chuck Klosterman’s own words, “the only significant purpose of the text is to provide a superstructure for subtext (which always matters more).”

The veteran pop culture journalist has spent more than two decades going toe to toe with some of the world’s most famous people for the likes of Esquire, GQ, and ESPN. He’s built his reputation on his ability to pull back the proverbial curtain. Most celebrity interviews are banal and scripted; Klosterman’s are famously the opposite.

Chuck Klosterman X collects some of Klosterman’s most brilliant moments. Kobe Bryant describes ex-coach Phil Jackson with an f-bomb and asserts that he would have “destroyed people” under a different system. Later, Klosterman unironically asks ex-Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page “did you ever actually attempt magic?”.

The book is also peppered with essays and ramblings from Klosterman’s archives. Check out the 250-word “What If We Were Wrong? (Drink the Acid, Swallow the Mouse),” an oddball scribbling about his love of Mountain Dew.

There is the occasional clunker, which generally results from a dud interview. See “I’m Assuming It’s Going To Be Fun,” in which Pavement frontman Steven Malkmus builds a tiresome wall of hipster aphorisms until Klosterman appears to get bored and move on.

If you don’t like an article, just flip forward: the book contains 38 entries. It is noteworthy that a total of two feature women, which is a questionable editorial choice.

Still, Chuck Klosterman X is a consistently fascinating, hilarious book for pop culture nerds. It’s a reflective exhibit of popular American culture, executed by a master in his prime. Read my in-depth review here.

Former Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a lightning rod in our collective consciousness. During a career that spanned half a century (27 years on the highest court in the land), RBG faced steep odds time and time again: emerging from the mire that was a male-dominated legal environment (and the world) in the 1970s, surviving multiple cancer diagnoses, and forging tough compromises in several conservative Supreme Courts.

Do you want to nerd out on the inside dope of RBG’s life and career? What were those years in the trenches like, in her own words? How did her husband of 56 years end up with the exclusive role of the family chef, and how the hell did she work up to 20 pushups as an 80+-year-old cancer survivor? 

Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, co-written by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik, is a well-rounded chronicle of America’s most notorious Supreme Court Justice. Primary sourcing and excerpts from RBG’s work and lead the way. Ancillary information about her upbringing, early career, family life, and personal habits bolster the narrative.

The late Justice’s biography promises to be one of the most popular books for RBG geeks in the wake of her tragic death. Add photography that continues to engage throughout, plus handy references like a timeline, endnote list, and index, and Notorious RBG is a great tool for any nerdy RBG researcher or casual fan. Check out this New York Times Bestseller and read my in-depth review here.

What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions looks, in many ways, like the quintessential book for geeks and nerds. The coffee table (or bathroom) book covers each absurd question in less than 5 minutes with snappy reading and quippy cartoons from Randall Munroe, author of popular comic strip xkcd. The scenarios are nerd-centric and debate-ready.

The entertaining book for geeks would inspire lively banter among the right crowd, tackling questions like “Is it possible to build a jetpack using downward-firing machine guns?” and “How much Force power can Yoda output?” Some of Munroe’s responses, especially to the “Yoda” question, are impressively well-researched.

Kurt Andersen’s Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire is a thorough account of American history through the lens of our country’s fixation on alternative reality. The concept sounds a little far-out, but Andersen marshals cogent writing and studious research to produce a great book for history nerds.

Did you know that Ben Franklin, America’s categorically-celebrated first scientist, paid his bills for several years by publishing evangelical books that he himself considered nonsense? Or that America’s first white colonizers were compelled by private English advertising campaigns that promised fortunes in gold to those willing to make the trip?

Dr. Larrin Thomas’ Knife Engineering is as technical as its title: not knife “making,” but knife “engineering.”

Thomas, the son of a knifemaker, earned a PhD. in metallurgy and now writes about knives and steel for enthusiasts. Knife Engineering is a technical manual for those interested in an in-depth exploration of knife structure and metallurgy, heat treating, and knife making.

Charles Eisenstein’s Sacred Economics explores how we, as a global society, interpret money. Eisenstein lays out the history of money and outlines various economic systems to solve the world’s most pressing financial problems. He proposes a monetary approach that helps resources circulate freely without inducing catastrophic poverty or environmental consequences.

How? It’s complicated. Good thing Eisenstein is a Yale graduate with an economics degree and that he writes Sacred Economics largely in layman’s terms.

It brims with subtly profound one-liners like this one from page 40: “When there is no standard of value, different humans want different things. When money is exchangeable for anything, then all people want the same thing: money.”

Or this one, from page 186: “Property is not an objective feature of reality.”

As a TV series, The Walking Dead’s extreme success is predicated on its characters: the zombie-apocalypse epic is meant to make us reflect on ourselves, more so than scare us. The Walking Dead comics, by Robert Kirkman, display that approach convincingly. Published in 2004 (predating the show by 6 years), The Walking Dead, Volume 1: Days Gone Bye is a tour de force in simplistic art and time-tested storytelling, suitable for any comics nerd or fan of the show.

Days Gone Bye’s storyline is soap opera-worthy but genuine. (Note: spoilers ahead! Skip to next paragraph to avoid). A small-town cop protagonist awakens from a coma to a shocking new reality; searching for his missing wife and son, he finds them under the care of his old partner; eventually, we learn that the partner has fallen in love with his wife during his absence, and a jealous lover’s duel ensues, leading to the death of the partner at the hands of the son.

Do you want to read a book about food and nutrition that doesn’t exist for the sole purpose of selling you a diet? Me too. Consider The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Science books for nerds don’t get much more on-target; Michael Pollan’s excavation of human nutrition is as enlightening as it is unbiased.

Pollan traces nutrition to humanity’s ancestors in an attempt to reconcile the dietary confusion that hounds the developed world (and especially America). Our cultural impulse is to lurch between aggressively-marketed fad diets that demonize and eliminate certain nutrients or food groups while often completely misunderstanding (or being led to misunderstanding) the nutritional principles behind the diet. Even more disenfranchising, Pollan argues, is the industrialized, monocropping food system we collectively labor under.

Roald Dahl was a venerated master of young adult and children’s fiction. His novella Fantastic Mr. Fox is a clever, layered narrative. His novella Fantastic Mr. Fox is a nice book for nerds of all ages. On the surface, about a fox family outsmarting a group of cruel farmers. However, one layer below is an allegory about greed versus generosity and scarcity versus abundance.

Three cruel farmers, Boggis, Bunce, and Bean, try desperately to kill Mr. Fox, who “steals” a nominal amount of food from their farms each night for his family. Of course, there’s actually plenty of food for the farmers and the Fox family to coexist symbiotically — it’s just that the farmers would rather kill the Foxes. Boggis, Bunce, and Bean are megalomaniacs: their obsession with their own material superiority makes them senselessly violent.

(Spoilers ahead; skip next paragraph.)

Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller pull the rabbit out of the hat — or, they try to demonstrate how ESPN pulled the rabbit out of the hat — with the 785-page Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN. The titanic chronicle follows the network’s journey from a hare-brained startup to “The Worldwide Leader” through a fascinating collection of interviews with employees.

Those Guys Have All the Fun is a must-read book for any sports geek. It all started when a father and son got fired from their jobs as minor-league hockey announcers in 1979. As legend has it, Bill Rasmussen took out a $9,000 credit card advance and coaxed what would become ESPN out of it.