Technically Speaking

The Geek Handbook: User Guide and Documentation for the Geek in Your Life

Pocket Books, 144 pp., $9.95 (paper)

The Geek Handbook is one of those light-as-a-feather explorations into a pop culture sub-phylum. Inspired by The Preppy Handbook, this software-manual parody bills itself as a guide to everything there is to know about society’s new ruling symbol, including how to identify and handle geek behavior. At 113 pages, it’s amusing and fairly exhaustive, but its annotations aren’t necessarily sidesplitting. A few years ago, author Mikki Halpin, former editor-in-chief of the online zine Stim, co-wrote an essay, “A Girl’s Guide to Geek Guys,” that became an Internet humor staple – thus the basis for this new book. The requisite topics are all here: Your garden-variety geek has reached every level of Myst; idolizes Data from Star Trek; has aversions to sunlight and fitness; and is hopelessly dependent on pizza and caffeinated soft drinks. (Chapter titles include “You and your geek,” “Upgrading your geek,” “Geek values go global,” etc.). Since it hasn’t got a mean bone in its body, Halpin’s book isn’t really in the same league as The Preppy Handbook. After all, The Geek Handbook delivers the sorts of yuks reserved for geeks and nerds. Like Preppy pioneer Lisa Birnbach, however, Halpin has really pinned down the Geek Type – from daily routines to deeply held values. “Geeks,” she writes, “believe in infinite networks populated by trap doors and easter eggs.” Although it can occasionally feel like a comedy routine that has run long, The Geek Handbook nevertheless is one of those gift-book ideas likely to hit the right reader right between the eyes.