Blatant plug: Simon Parkin's Death by Video Game is out now

Excuse us a brief spot of Friday afternoon promotion. Simon Parkin, a much-loved member of the Eurogamer family for the past ten years (he started as he went on, comparing an obscure JRPG to Tolstoy), has gotten all grown up and written a book. We're told they're like websites, only there's more words and you can't see all the angry comments at the end, though if you've a biro to hand and you're offended by what you've read you could always add some of your own.

Not that you're likely to! Simon's book, Death by Video Game, is an exploration of video game obsession, and some of the topics it covers might be familiar to long-time readers of Eurogamer. There's the boy who stole Half-Life 2, the spate of deaths in game cafes in Taiwan and plenty more besides - so if you've enjoyed Simon's work on Eurogamer, you're sure to like what's explored in the book. There will, of course, be plenty more of Simon's work on Eurogamer in the future too.

You can pick up Death by Video Game online at the book seller of your choice, and while you're there you may also want to pick up Rich Stanton's A Brief History of Video Games, which also launched recently. We'd like to say we're working on our own books here at Eurogamer, but Oli's yet to find a publisher for his 100,000 word ode to his Diablo 3 wizard and whenever I pitch my idea for one on great racing game corners of our time people back away slowly.