Around the World in 80 Games

Having read it

★★★☆☆

One cannot deny the author’s enthusiasm and appreciation of playing games and his knowledge and skills with mathematics, nor even the suggested non-linear way of navigating the chapters of the book to read for a non-linear bit of fun.

Trouble is, like the badly laid out contents page that is difficult to view and read (ironic for a printed book, but likely not for a game’s rulebook!) it seems to lack a bit of spirit, even a good reason over the tenuous (but marketable?) threads of Phileas Fogg, beyond being just a bit of a slightly exotic travel list and partial memoir weighed down by numerical realities and formulae.

Still, it is a mathmetician’s guide to eighty of the world’s games and despite a few historical and cultural nods, maybe to appease the humanities department, it’s not very exciting or even that interesting and, being honest, I didn’t really read it, although its beginning and end were okay.