Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet out of Idaho by Jon Katz

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(Paperback - 1ST BROADW)

Average Customer Rating: Customer Rating for this product is 4.5 out of 5 (12 ratings)

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  • Publisher: Broadway Books
  • Pub. Date: February 2001
  • ISBN-13: 9780767906999
  • Sales Rank: 73,451
  • 256pp
  • Edition Description: 1ST BROADW
 
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Synopsis

Geeks is the story of how Jesse and Eric--and others like them--used technology to try and change their lives and alter their destiny.

Publishers Weekly

While promoting his book Virtuous Reality, journalist Katz was introduced to the world of "geeks," those smart, technically savvy misfits who are ostracized by their high school peers. Katz wrote in his column on the slashdot.org Web site about the isolation, exclusion and maltreatment--from dirty looks to brutal beatings--such kids routinely face. Tens of thousands of anguished e-mails confirmed his story. One of the e-mailers was Jesse Dailey, a working-class 19-year-old trapped in rural Idaho, where he and his friend Eric Twilegar fixed computers for a living, and hacked and surfed the Web, convinced that they were losers and outcasts. Katz, also a writer for Wired and Rolling Stone, traveled to Idaho to meet the pair, intending to chronicle their lives. He wound up encouraging and sometimes assisting Jesse and Eric as they tried to improve their lives by moving to Chicago, where they sought better jobs and even considered applying to college. Sometimes intensely earnest, Katz cuts back and forth between Jesse and Eric's story and more general discussions of the geeks' condition. Over the course of the book, Jesse and Eric come to represent geeks' collective weaknesses and strengths. While the bulk of the book has broad social and educational implications (concerning the fate of bright kids who don't come from socially and educationally privileged backgrounds), it is a highly personal tale: Katz takes us inside the lives of these two young men, shows us their sense of isolation, their complete absorption in the cyberworld, their distrust of authority and institutions, and their attempts to negotiate an often hostile society. He breaks through the stereotype and humanizes this outcast group of young people. (Feb.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

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Biography

A versatile, modern writer about life at the turn of the century, Jon Katz has gone from "suburban mysteries" to cultural criticism to personal memoir. His spirited, often humorous musings have earned him both fans and critics; as he wrote in his last column for the web site HotWired: "If the quality of my work was sometimes uneven, my determination to rant was unwavering."

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Customer Reviews

Number of Reviews: 12
Average Rating: Customer Rating for this product is 4.5 out of 5
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Customer Rating for this product is 4 out of 5 Great Book!
Hugo Garcia, A reviewer, 12/12/2007

A fun filled book good for all ages. A very easy read and leaves you wanting more and more!!!

Customer Rating for this product is 5 out of 5 Inspiring Spirits
Richard Robb (reaperofjustice@hotmail.com) , A reviewer, 03/20/2007

This book is known for catching your attention from the beginning and holding it in place.This book is emotional and funny in all the right places.This book is great.

Also recommended: On Writing by Stephen King

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