Second Lives
Tim Guest
Arrow Books
362 pages
Read in 2009

"Each week more than 35 million people around the globe abandon reality for virtual realms. Some seek a world where they are no longer restrained by physical handicaps or limitations. Others have created a place beyond death - where real-world military skills can be learned and virtual battles can be fought and won without consequences. And many just like the idea of creating a new self. At first glance, these computer-generated places seem free from trouble and sorrow, but are they ? Tim Guest takes us on a revelatory journey through the electronic looking glass, as he investigates one of the most bizarre phenomena of the twenty-first century."