Play Money

Title: Play Money: Or, How I Quit My Day Job and Made Millions Trading Virtual Loot

Author: Julian Dibbell

Pages: 336

Genre: Non-Fiction

Grade: B

Synopsis: I think that this book has been on my to-read list since it was published in 2006. I finally got around to reading it and it was interesting to read this book in the context of 2019 as opposed to when it was written.  The book was about the digital economies of online role-playing games such as World of Warcraft, Everquest, Eve Online, Second Life, etc.  Similar to apps like Candy Crush or Farmville, a lot of the value in these games comes from simply spending time in the game and people are willing to pay for the items that are or can be produced by those who have spent enough time in the game to have obtained the expertise necessary to create rare items in the digital marketplaces.  This book gives background about these games and economies and outlines the author's attempt to create an income stream from the trading of these items that would be enough to live off of.

My Review: For the record, I've never actually played any of these games (or similar games), so I wasn't 100% familiar with what the book was about.  That said, I still found this relatively interesting, but this was a book that would have been far more intriguing during the heyday of these MMORPGs (massive multi-player online role-playing games).

Fire in the Bones

Title: Fire in the Bones: William Tyndale - Martyr, Father of the English Bible

Author: S. Michael Wilcox

Pages: 255

Genre: Religion

Grade: B

Synopsis: William Tyndale was a genius translator and familiar with numerous languages including Hebrew, Greek & Latin. During his life in the early 1500s, the printing press was a new invention and most people were illiterate.  The bible only existed in Latin, Hebrew and Greek and the Catholic church fought hard against reformers such as Martin Luther and others who were trying to translate the bible into the more common tongues of English, German, French, etc. Many of these condemned heretics were burned at the stake and hunted throughout both England and the European continent. Wilcox makes the comparison between Joseph Smith and William Tyndale and how both were guided by the Lord in their translation work.

My Review: I enjoyed the story, but it was loaded with speculation and conjecture and in my opinion was stretched out longer than necessary.  This book would have made the perfect novella or magazine article series, but was more of a stretch in book length.