Hey, remember I was in a game studies essay collection that just came out? I'm in a new game studies interview collection that just came out!
This one isn't about game design, though. It's not lectures at all -- I promise you are in no danger of learning to do anything in particular. The book is about play as a general concept. A bunch of people from different walks of life, talking about play. How we play; how we create play; where we play; how we learned to play; why we play. And on.
The project sprouted from a series of interviews and questions organized by Drew Davidson. I agreed to talk to Drew, and so did a lot of other people, and this book is the result. "A playful thematic oral history of the stories shared," as the blurb page says.
Like the Kaleidoscope, Ludic Narrans messes with the idea of linearity. Two editions are available: Playing it Straight is organized by topic, whereas Playing Around interleaves topical sections in a playful fugue. Same content, variable structure.
Names you might recognize: Jenova Chen, Naomi Clark, Mia Consalvo, James Ernest, Rami Ismail, Jim Munroe, and no doubt others. And me of course.
Both editions are available as free PDFs. (See the "Download" links on the book pages.) The text is under a Creative Commons license (BY-NC-ND).
Or you can pay for either print or ebook editions at Lulu. Note that each print edition is itself available in two forms. The only difference is the interior illustrations, printed in color or monochrome. (They're nice illustrations but I wouldn't call them central to the book's presentation.)
Once again, I'll quote a single line from one of my bits:
never been designed for. This is why tool programming starts out easy and then turns into a
Grab the book to read the rest!