Saturday, March 5, 2011

Weekend Gaming -- Recommending a book and appreciating a publisher


This is a nice little book, cheap if you get it new, probably next to free if you get it used and it has a very useful list of mathematical games ranging from battleship to nine-men's-morris to hex, sprouts and a board version of Eleusis.

The reissue I have comes from one of my favorite publishers, Barnes & Noble. You have heard all sorts of abuse heaped on this company but none it from me. These are damned fine book stores with a business model built around the realization that the strong, steady sales of the classics could be as or more profitable than the unpredictable spikes of the best seller list.

As a publisher, the company has a wonderful track record of bringing back books that ought to be in print but aren't. My copy of Extraordinary Popular Delusions came from Barnes and Noble, as did my collection of Damon Runyon stories and a great anthology culled from the chthonic pages of Weird Tales. All told, I probably have a couple dozen with their imprint and every one's a keeper.

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