Book Spotlight - Critical Hits
Lately, I've been eager to read writing ABOUT video games. So I did the most sensible thing I could think of: visited the library! While video game literature doesn't seem to occupy as much shelf space compared to other genres of writing like classical art or history, at least not at my local library branch, I was still pleased to find a handful of video game-related books in its own tiny area of the non-fiction section. I ended up checking out four books from that library visit. As of this writing, I've finished half of this mini book pile. The first of these books is the focus of today's little spotlight blog post!
Critical Hits: Writers Playing Video Games (2023), edited by Carmen Maria Machado and J. Robert Lennon, is an anthology of essays about video games that weaves personal reflections from the writers' unique experiences with games alongside insights on their wider resonance in our culture today. When I picked up this book, I was so excited at the prospect of engaging with the work of others who treat video games with the substance they deserve, and I was not disappointed! I felt like the essays in this book all had refreshing and interesting things to say about games, gaming culture, and what our relationships to all of it may tell us about ourselves. I'm also a firm appreciator of the use of personal narratives in writing, so the fact that this was frequently woven in by the contributors really kept me consistently engaged throughout the book. The very first contributor essay of the book, by Elissa Washuta, already pulled no punches with its immediate reckoning with navigating survival, chronic illness and disability, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns, and playing through the post-apocalyptic The Last of Us. These were just among the many nuanced intersections touched upon throughout the book, which I was especially excited by! We continue to be in sore need of smart perspectives on video games that help us expand the landscape of games culture beyond the reductive, invisibilizing, and otherwise harmful perceptions of who video games are/aren't supposed to be for (the answer being, to be completely clear, that video games should be for everyone).
Every essay in that book could warrant its own blog post, really. But to keep this spotlight simple and manageable, I might leave it here for now! Still figuring out how much is the right amount to blog about and such, but either way... highly enjoyed this book!