Everybody Wins

First, to editor Matt Keefe and/or ABC Design: never, ever use small, skinny font, white text on a color background again! I was sorely tempted to give this book one star instead of five for the nearly unreadable sidebars. The white on yellow was particularly egregious. How did you possibly approve these proofs!

Fortunately, this history of the Spiel des Jahres winners is entertaining enough to persevere past the nearly unreadable sidebars. The author provides a short history of the origin of the award followed by a review of each year's winner, complete with whether or not the author felt it was a worthy choice.

I didn't always agree with the author's view 100%, but it was always interesting.

This book is well worth the read for anyone with an interest in the history of board games.

It's a "coffee table book," so it's filled with photos and sideboxes of facts and insights. For all that it is a genre leaning toward the lighter end of narrative, Wallis was able to fit a lot of interesting insights into Everybody Wins. If you're interested at all in tabletop gaming over the past forty years, this is a great overview of the places we've been and recent trends.