"First published in the United States in 2011 by Think Geek, Inc."--Title page verso.

The Bear Detectives try to figure out how Tic-Tac-Tom always wins at tic-tac-toe and whether he is cheating.

As he's shown in his previous hugely popular books, Jeffrey Brown has a real gift for finding humor in quirky yet universal truths. Now the bestselling author of Darth Vader and Son and Vader's Little Princess brings his witty comic observations to terrestrial parenting in this perceptive book celebrating the more surreal moments of raising a child. In charming colorful panels, Brown wryly illustrates his fiveyear- old son's take on the world around him, from watching TV ("Elton John looks pretty in that shirt") to playing with toys ("This truck can survive on very little water") to odd requests ("Don't feel happy at me"), capturing the sweetly weird times that mothers and fathers everywhere experience with their own curious, pure-minded kids.

An impassioned look at games and game design that offers the most ambitious framework for understanding them to date. As pop culture, games are as important as film or television—but game design has yet to develop a theoretical framework or critical vocabulary. In Rules of Play Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman present a much-needed primer for this emerging field. They offer a unified model for looking at all kinds of games, from board games and sports to computer and video games. As active participants in game culture, the authors have written Rules of Play as a catalyst for innovation, filled with new concepts, strategies, and methodologies for creating and understanding games. Building an aesthetics of interactive systems, Salen and Zimmerman define core concepts like "play," "design," and "interactivity." They look at games through a series of eighteen "game design schemas," or conceptual frameworks, including games as systems of emergence and information, as contexts for social play, as a storytelling medium, and as sites of cultural resistance. Written for game scholars, game developers, and interactive designers, Rules of Play is a textbook, reference book, and theoretical guide. It is the first comprehensive attempt to establish a solid theoretical framework for the emerging discipline of game design.

“[A] timely book . . . a wonderfully entertaining trip around the board, through 4,000 years of game history.” —The Wall Street Journal Board games have been with us even longer than the written word. But what is it about this pastime that continues to captivate us well into the age of smartphones and instant gratification? In It’s All a Game, Tristan Donovan, British journalist and author of Replay: The History of Video Games, opens the box on the incredible and often surprising history and psychology of board games. He traces the evolution of the game across cultures, time periods, and continents, from the paranoid Chicago toy genius behind classics like Operation and Mouse Trap, to the role of Monopoly in helping prisoners of war escape the Nazis, and even the scientific use of board games today to teach artificial intelligence how to reason and how to win. With these compelling stories and characters, Donovan ultimately reveals why board games—from chess to Monopoly to Risk and more—have captured hearts and minds all over the world for generations. “Splendid . . . A quick and breezy read, it doesn’t just tell the fascinating stories of the (often struggling) individuals who created our favorite games. It also manages to convey the entire sweep of board game history, from the earliest forms of checkers to modern-day surprise hits like Settlers of Catan.” —Mashable “Artfully weaves together culture, business, and ways games impact society.” —Booklist “A fascinating and insightful discussion not only of games past, but the socioeconomic and historical factors that contributed to their popularity.” —Chicago Review of Books

For fans of THE ROSIE PROJECT and THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHTTIME, a broken man and his damaged robot build an unlikely friendship—with some assembly required. Ben's really great at failing at things—his job, being a husband, taking the garbage out. But then he finds a battered robot named Tang in his garden. And Tang needs Ben. More ornery and prone to tantrums than one would expect from something made of gears and springs, Tang desperately must be fixed—and he just might be the thing to fix what's broken in Ben. Together they will discover that friendship can rise up under the strangest of circumstances, and what it really means to be human. Funny, touching, charming, wise, and a bit unusual, A Robot in the Garden is a gem of a first novel, perfect for anyone who has ever found it difficult to connection with the world. "Our hero is a FANTASTIC and UNFORGETTABLE creation, and so is this absolute marvel of a novel."—Neil Smith, author of Bang Crunch and Boo "An inventive and utterly charming tale...heartwarming."—Booklist, Starred Review

In the bleak alternate near future New York of 2025, Ellen, an over-educated, under employed delivery girl gets pulled into the mob controlled underworld of illicit SHIFT racing in the twisted maze of subway tunnels beneath the city. SHIFT technology allows for objects and people to pass through solid matter. In this future where, economic and environmental decline has worsened and the gap between rich and poor never been wider a single act of defiance against the corrupt protectionist thugs on her street leads down a path to understanding the nature of her city and its true masters. Her experience joyriding in stolen cars as a teenager becomes extremely useful as she enters a racing league where various conflicting underworld factions recreate the bloody Roman Circus Maximus using high-tech miniaturized aircraft in the tunnels of the city. In these tight confines and absurd speeds crashing is just a matter of time, but the mysterious SHIFT technology re-purposed from military stealth aircraft can land you on the right side of the razors edge between life and death.