second_life

Creating Your World: The Official Guide to Advanced Content Creation for Second Life
$39.99
The book has good tips in it for SL, as always though could use more.

Second Life For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech))
$24.99
Anyone who is involved in "SL", this is a great book to have on hand.
It gives you a better understanding and can aid you with what challenges you may face. One of the great features of this book, you can juup to whatever section you are interestesd in, issues you face and need help improving your Second Life skills. If you are a "Newb" (newbie),or desire to enhance your activities and interaction with others...this is a book to help you through step by step.

I, Avatar: The Culture and Consequences of Having a Second Life (New Riders)
$34.99
I Avatar is a very useful addition to the books I already have on Second Life (Wagner James Au's and Tim Guest's foremost among them) and takes a different tack - looking at the implications of recreating our virtual selves on the screen. How is it that we feel so emotionally bound to this collection of pixels? How do they come to represent our real life selves? What aspects of our own personality split off from us? How do we manage our relationships with our other selves and with those we come into contact with in the metaverse? What cultures will we find there, and how do they evolve? The answers are both fascinating and important as millions of us are making the migration - choosing to live simultaneously on both sides of the computer screen, committing time and energy to building a virtual life. Meadows writes honestly of his experiences and highlights both the positive aspects of immersion in this new world - and also the darker side, including forced slavery, griefers and stalkers.

The glossiness of the book bumped up the price of the book considerably. But I appreciate having the illustrations which (quite rightly) pay homage to some of the great characters that Meadows befriended in the virtual world. The avatar he creates for himself is quite awesome!

Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human
$32.95
well-written and insightful study of sl with an interesting view of virtual worlds as actual alternative realities