Writer and critic Eric Thurm digs deep into his own experience as a board game enthusiast to explore the emotional and social rules that games create and reveal, telling a series of stories about a pastime that is also about relationships. From the outdated gender roles in Life and Mystery Date to the cutthroat, capitalist priorities of Monopoly and its socialist counterpart, Class Struggle, Thurm thinks through his ongoing rivalries with his siblings and ponders the ways games both upset and enforce hierarchies and relationships—from the familial to the geopolitical. Like sitting down at the table for family game night, is an engaging book of twists and turns, trivia, and nostalgia. is a series of short books about how culture makes us feel. Founded in 2012 by Sarah Blackwood and Sarah Mesle, —an online magazine supported by the —specializes in short-form critical essays devoted to thinking and feeling. is an exciting new series featuring books that are part memoir, part cultural criticism, each bringing to life the author’s emotional relationship to a cultural artifact or experience. invites us to explore the surprising pleasures and obstacles of everyday life.