Best known for his Oscar-nominated song "Miss Misery" from the Good Will Hunting soundtrack, Elliott Smith was catapulted to the status of indie rock star after performing at the 1997 Academy Awards. Some of his albums, XO and Either/Or among them, would become '90s classics, helping to define an understated aesthetic that owed as much to the melodic emphasis of The Beatles as it did to punk. In the afterglow of the success of "Miss Misery," Smith's fame grew--alongside his struggles with depression and substance abuse. First relocating to Brooklyn, and then finally to...

"One of the season's most talked about cultural studies" (Los Angeles Times)--an incisive and irreverent appreciation of nerds that combines history, sociology, psychology, and memoir from noted journalist and self-proclaimed nerd Ben Nugent.

Most people know a nerd when they see one, but yet can't define just what a nerd is exactly. American Nerd: The Story of My People gives readers the history of the concept of nerdiness and its related subcultures. What makes Dr. Frankenstein the archetypal nerd? Where did the modern jock come from? When and how did...