Must Read of the Week: Nerd Do Well

I've always had a fondness for all things Simon Pegg.  Name one person who has not seen, quoted, laughed, and rewatched "Shaun of the Dead".  Hot Fuzz scores big with me, too.  I love Run, Fatboy, Run, ate up his bit part in both Star Trek and Mission Impossible 3, and laughed my ass off at Spaced.  So, when his autobiography dropped, I knew I was in for something special. 

I hadn't a clue.

Simon Pegg is a geektastic nerd of the highest order.  Cut in between the narrative, Pegg pokes fun of himself and the creative process.  He writes a little fiction of him writing the book as some sort of superhero while his robot butler, Canterbury, interrupts him with the Coke Zero/fatty Coke dilemma and other such stuff.  In those moments, you get a sense of Pegg's influences and his style.  For example, here's one of my favorite sentences (maybe ever) about giving Canterbury an earring:

It was the eighties when he had installed the accessory, a time when men wearing earrings was cool and not the least bit twatty.

And...

...said Pegg, standing up to reveal his great body which was muscular but not too big (like Brad Pitt in Fight Club).

This thing is a minefield of pop-culture references.  What's more, if you're a kid who grew up with Star Wars and Raiders and the awesometude of the seventies, then you'll read this and on every single page hear the nostalgic alarm signal in your brain. 

Outside the humour, Pegg really does an outstanding job of offering a very intimate look into his personal life (something, admittedly, he has trouble doing, except with his dog Minnie).  We see the first flirtations with comedy, how his first joke was worked through in his brain.  Also, we see some schoolyard antics that elicited laughter.

You get a glimpse of the confusion of sex in the teens.

We glimpse how everything - every nano-detail - from his past led to the genius of his collaboration with Nick Frost.

And, we learn a little of how this ginger, average-looking guy became a pop-culture hero.

What's Good?  Everything.  Unlike many autobiographical works, this one paces relatively well.  I think that's a nod to those little fiction bits on the creative process.  The humor of the book is outstanding as well; Pegg never onces forces the funny on the reader.  Instead, the reader finds the funny in much the same way that Pegg found his initial funnyside.

There's also a genius easter egg here, too.  You know those Marvel movies and the little scene that is hidden at the end of the credits?  Yeah, thisbook has one of those and it's pure genius.  It just runs after the book...er, uh, rather the trailer.

What's Not So Good?  Not a whole lot.  The book may be the perfect autobiographical work.

Verdict?  Not enough praise can be given.  Worth your money.  If you're a fanboy or girl, a geek, a nerd, a dork, and can remember seeing Star Wars on the big screen this is required reading.