The book is The Game Design Reader, a collection of essays about game design and game culture. Katie Salen and I co-edited the book, which is just out 
from MIT Press. The Game Design Reader is a follow-up and companion volume to Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals, the MIT textbook Katie and I co-authored a couple years ago.

Unlike Rules of Play, The Game Design Reader is an edited anthology. It's a substantial book that includes 33 writings plus fourteen short introductory essays and several visual essays as well. The writings in the book come from a wide range of places, including game design and development, the academic study of games, and game fan culture.

Many of the essays are difficult to find, such as Warren Robinett's case study on Adventure for the Atari 2600 or David Sudnow's account of Breakout 
in Pilgrim in the Microworld. Brenda Laurel and Marc LeBlanc provided original essays for the book. A sample of other writings include:

 - Classic essays from Johan Huizinga, Roger Caillois, and Brian Sutton-Smith
 - Game design case studies from Richard Garfield, Ken Birdwell, and Chris Crawford
 - Game journalism from Tom Chick, William Poundstone, and always_black
 - Game design theory from Greg Costikyan, Doug Church, and Bernard DeKoven
 - Writings about game communities from Richard Bartle, Raph Koster, and Ted Castronova
 - Early game studies from Linda Hughes, Gary Allen Fine, and Stephen Sniderman
 - Contemporary game studies from James Gee, Henry Jenkins, and Michael Mateas & Andrew Stern

The book is available on the MIT Press website at:
     http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=10659

It's a unique and wide-ranging collection. Hope you enjoy it!


Eric Zimmerman
Co-Founder & CEO, gameLab

www.gamelab.com
www.ericzimmerman.com