Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a university academic who writes and teaches on American popular culture. I’ve played video games all my life—I remember first playing Breakout and Boot Hill at the local arcade back in the late 1970s as a young child, and yes, I had an Atari VCS. Today, I write, teach, and exhibit work on the history of video games, especially how games depict and connect with the USA. I still play video games, probably too much, and my favorite console is the Sega Dreamcast.


I wrote

Gamer Nation: Video Games and American Culture

By John Wills,

Book cover of Gamer Nation: Video Games and American Culture

What is my book about?

Gamer Nation looks at how America and video games come together, and how video games have evolved into a dominant…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Supercade: A Visual History of the Videogame Age 1971-1984

John Wills Why did I love this book?

I love this book. It’s an exquisite and beautiful coffee table title by Van Burnham, but that description really doesn’t do it justice. You can dip in and out of some wonderful features that chart the history of video games written by academics and other experts in the field. It is totally accessible and fun and the artwork is fantastic. Rejoice in old pixel video games you remember or have never heard of. The second volume is due out imminently and is totally brilliant. Buy both and enjoy!

By Van Burnham,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Supercade as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A gloriously illustrated history of the videogame and its legacy for both our mindscapes and video technology.

It was a time when technology was king, status was determined by your high score, and videogames were blitzing the world... From Pong to Pac-Man, Asteroids to Zaxxon—more than fifty million people around the world have come of age within the electronic flux of videogames, their subconscious forever etched with images projected from arcade and home videogame systems.

From the first interactive blips of electronic light at Brookhaven National Labs and the creation of Spacewar! at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; to the…


Book cover of Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames

John Wills Why did I love this book?

Persuasive Games is about how games persuade you, of ideas, what to buy, how to vote, how to live and more. It is a brilliantly inventive title from an established Game Studies scholar with a knack for original thought. Bogost brings in all kinds of little-known games to highlight his themes, and for me, it is just one of those books that you come back to for ideas and inspiration.

By Ian Bogost,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Persuasive Games as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

An exploration of the way videogames mount arguments and make expressive statements about the world that analyzes their unique persuasive power in terms of their computational properties.

Videogames are an expressive medium, and a persuasive medium; they represent how real and imagined systems work, and they invite players to interact with those systems and form judgments about them. In this innovative analysis, Ian Bogost examines the way videogames mount arguments and influence players. Drawing on the 2,500-year history of rhetoric, the study of persuasive expression, Bogost analyzes rhetoric's unique function in software in general and videogames in particular. The field…


Book cover of Atari Age: The Emergence of Video Games in America

John Wills Why did I love this book?

Atari Age is a wonderful title with possibly the best book cover ever (for any retro games aficionado anyhow!). Newman researches with skill the advent of video games in the United States, looking at how people became gamers, and exploring life in the arcades, and playing Atari VCSs for the first time at home. It’s a seriously good history book.  

By Michael Z. Newman,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Atari Age as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The cultural contradictions of early video games: a medium for family fun (but mainly for middle-class boys), an improvement over pinball and television (but possibly harmful).

Beginning with the release of the Magnavox Odyssey and Pong in 1972, video games, whether played in arcades and taverns or in family rec rooms, became part of popular culture, like television. In fact, video games were sometimes seen as an improvement on television because they spurred participation rather than passivity. These “space-age pinball machines” gave coin-operated games a high-tech and more respectable profile. In Atari Age, Michael Newman charts the emergence of video…


Book cover of Rockstar Games and American History: Promotional Materials and the Construction of Authenticity

John Wills Why did I love this book?

This book is just out and reflects the latest scholarship in historical game studies by a new leading academic. Wright’s book tackles one of the biggest players in the video game industry, Rockstar Games, and seeks to understand how Rockstar plays with American history, culture, and our notions of authenticity. Essential reading. 

By Esther Wright,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Rockstar Games and American History as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

For two decades, Rockstar Games have been making games that interrogate and represent the idea of America, past and present. Commercially successful, fan-beloved, and a frequent source of media attention, Rockstar's franchises are positioned as not only game-changing, ground-breaking interventions in the games industry, but also as critical, cultural histories on America and its excesses.



But what does Rockstar's version of American history look like, and how is it communicated through critically acclaimed titles like Red Dead Redemption (2010) and L.A. Noire (2011)? By combining analysis of Rockstar's games and a range of official communications and promotional materials, this book…


Book cover of Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture

John Wills Why did I love this book?

Originally written in 1938 in Dutch (Huizinga was a Dutch cultural theorist), Homo Ludens contemplates the meaning and function of play in society. It’s a seminal text, widely cited by anyone who researches games (including video games), and really gets you thinking about what we mean by ‘play’. It also predates the commercial video game industry by some 30-40 years but still speaks to the mechanics and appeal of gaming.

By Johan Huizinga,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Homo Ludens as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

First published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.


Explore my book 😀

Gamer Nation: Video Games and American Culture

By John Wills,

Book cover of Gamer Nation: Video Games and American Culture

What is my book about?

Gamer Nation looks at how America and video games come together, and how video games have evolved into a dominant aspect of contemporary American culture. The book looks at a range of titles from blockbuster series such as CivilizationCall of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, and Red Dead Redemption through to offensive curiosities such as Custer's Revenge and 08.46, studying how video games over the last half-century have depicted American history and society, and reshaped our understanding of the USA. 

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The Bloomsbury Photographs

By Maggie Humm,

Book cover of The Bloomsbury Photographs

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Why am I passionate about this?

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What is my book about?

An enthralling portrait of the Bloomsbury Group’s key figures told through a rich collection of intimate photographs. Photography framed the world of the Bloomsbury Group. The thousands of photographs surviving in albums kept by Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell, Dora Carrington, and Lytton Strachey, among others, today offer us a private insight into their lives.

Maggie Humm brings together a curated selection of these photographs to offer us a fresh portrait of the Bloomsbury Group, showing them in a new, domestic intimacy. She brings to life the texture of Bloomsbury: their pastimes, children, clothes, houses, servants, pets, and holidays.

The Bloomsbury…

The Bloomsbury Photographs

By Maggie Humm,

What is this book about?

An enthralling portrait of the Bloomsbury Group's key figures told through a rich collection of intimate photographs

Photography framed the world of the Bloomsbury Group. The thousands of photographs surviving in albums kept by Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell, Dora Carrington, and Lytton Strachey, among others, today offer us a private insight into their lives.

Maggie Humm brings together a curated selection of these photographs to offer us a fresh portrait of the Bloomsbury Group, showing them in a new, domestic intimacy. She brings to life the texture of Bloomsbury: their pastimes, children, clothes, houses, servants, pets, holidays. Several photographs are…


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Interested in video games, pop culture, and the video game industry?

Video Games 100 books
Pop Culture 162 books