Nerds! Nerds! Nerds!

Nerds take many shapes in our popular imagination; There’s the classic, bookish nerd with big glasses and no friends. There are also the computer geeks, the roll-playing gamers, and the quirky, outspoken dorks who embrace their nerdiness (think Duckie from Pretty in Pink).

But these are all broad generalizations and gross exaggerations. Dorks in the real world don’t always come in cookie-cutter shapes and sizes. A new book by Benjamin Nugent looks at the history and context of the modern geek. It’s called American Nerd: The Story of My People. We get a review of the book from Marie Mundaca, a writer, storyteller, self-described nerd, and contributor to the online literary review Hipster Book Club.

We also hear from radio producer Ethan Lindsey, who revisits the Dungeons and Dragons of his childhood to see how well the game stacks up to today’s role-playing video games. Ethan’s story comes to us from the alt.NPR podcast B-Side Radio. You can hear their full program about nerds and games here.

(Photo by Wouter Kersbergen)