I've collected strategy guides since I was a kid. In fact, my collection got me into trouble more than once. I'd slip a guide between the folders of my Trapper Keeper and smuggle them into class, where I'd absorb pro tips and expert strats behind a wall of textbooks. Yes, I was that weirdo who read strategy guides like novels. I admired the artistry that went into their layouts and text, and was agog at the info organized so colorfully on their glossy pages.
That's what made talking with David Ellis, strategy guide author for many games, Sid Meier's Civilization II and UFO: Enemy Unknown among them, such a pleasure. He also authored the Civilopedia, Civ II's massive in-game encyclopedia—and a game construct that made a huge impact on the development of X-COM.