"...a whole art form has developed in my lifetime. I remember for the first time reading: "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." I remember the first time I heard: "I believe in America. America has made my fortune." And I remember standing in an open field, west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here." This is quite baggy and in places unfocused, but every now and then, there are moments of sharp focus. Most notably: the relation of the impulse to write to the impulse to play games (an escapist impulse in Prebble's mind, but that's not a bad one), and the understanding that 'culture is culture'.

"I know which side I'm on: the more books I write, the more convinced I become that what we encounter in a novel is not selves, but networks; that what we hear in poems is (to use the language of communications technology) not signal but noise. The German poet Rilke had a word for it: Geräusch, the crackle of the universe, angels dancing in the static."

Joe Moran on Daniel Miller's "The Comfort Of Things", which has gone straight onto my wishlist.

"Little stories are the internet’s native and ideal art form." Yes. This is a good one.

Russell on Joe Moran's new book, which I'm clearly going to have to read.

"They preserve them as best they can, perhaps without even knowing that’s what they’re doing, but in the understanding that no archives may be kept, no histories written, and that what sustains their digital lives is the lived-out, written-down, spoken word." Reminds me of the "what five pages would you print out" conundrum, and the end of Fahrenheit 451; walking the woods, chanting entries from Encyclopedia Dramatica

"The Twiggy Game is a charming cultural object from a bygone era; it's also a stark representation of what went wrong with boardgames, and a stark warning for what can go wrong with games as a whole -- at least, if we fail to inculcate, in ourselves and in others who love games, an aesthetic that prizes something beyond the brand." Costikyan on the dangers of games having a 'lack of culture'.

"Now that suburban housewives in Missouri are letting their thoughts be known via Twitter, it's as if writing itself is thought to be under attack, invaded from all sides by the unwashed masses whose thoughts have not been sanctioned as Literature™. In many ways, I'm reminded of Truman Capote's infamous put-down of Jack Kerouac: "That's not writing, it's typing.""

"I smile. I didn't fool him in the slightest. But it doesn't matter. I didn't fall. Wax on the arm." Lovely.

Wonderful, delightful, charming writing from Duncan Fyfe; this, and the eight chapters that follow it, are pretty essential, and they're nice and brief. Speculative fiction about games, culture, and the future. And fandom.

"I am a terrible gaming evangelist. Every time I think I’m onto something my mind’s invaded by Marcus Fenix and his sweaty, homoerotic pecs, by Cloud and his implausible sword and cod-philosophy and, most poignantly, by me, in my pajamas aged nine playing Tetris on the toilet and by me, in my pajamas aged twenty-nine, playing Tetris on the toilet." And Simon powers straight into /my/ favourite games writing of 2008. Bravo.

Lanchester writing about games, from the point of view of a smart person who's actually played the games he described. I certainly don't agree with all his points, but I don't disagree with them all, and he's not mouthing off: he's making smart connections and indicating more than a passing familiarity with the medium. Might write a tad more on this.

"And if all videogames could ever aspire to was being big, dumb, blockbusting escapism, does that even matter? Hasn’t every generation that ever lived created make-believe worlds to climb into and take refuge? I don’t know. I don’t know. I just wish we’d asked each other the questions a bit more fifty years ago." Too many quotations to choose from in this; wonderful writing from Simon Parkin.

"This is an afterword to essays by young writers on first peoples’ histories. I am picking up the notion that there is no Before and After in culture. Culture is always Now, in-between, in process." God this is good.

"...arguments of this exact form have been raised against nearly every distinctly modern art form." Barber's book sounds interesting, if flawed. Pliskin's criticism is, as ever, good. It's getting exhausting linking to him.

"“It’s only a game” is a phrase that agrees with all of those who ever looked down their noses at the medium... who want to promote the kind of prejudice that will keep games from ever achieving widespread respect for everything they are."

Rex Sorgatz on his essay in Wired, where he suggests that "gaming has become the prevailing narrative of our time."

"Literature is inescapably intertwined with our everyday environment. By making this visible, we can encourage and spread it, and send it in new and exciting directions."

"The Romans knew all about productivity. Of course, their version of Getting Things Done would be one word: 'slaves.'"