The Books on the Bookshelf

It’s autumn. Around here the trees are turning into yellows and reds that make you notice the dark lines of limbs and the blue of the sky. Walking has gotten louder as I crunch through fallen leaves and acorns. The nights are starting to get chilly, and it’s a great time to stay indoors with books.

I recently found a book I’d almost forgotten, Quag Keep by Andre Norton. Not the best book in the world, but a very early example of writing about role playing games. If you run across it, give it a read. It won’t take long.

But that book got me thinking about other books—novels, usually—with games in them, especially when games take center stage. Sure there’s Jumanji and The Westing Game (more of a mystery, but a bit like a giant Clue game with a challenging puzzle at the center). Through the Looking Glass has a chess game hidden in the narrative.  The Glass Bead Game in Hermann Hesse’s novel of the same name is more of an intellectual pursuit, but the example might work.

My bookshelves are jammed with books, but that won’t stop me from reading more. Bruno Faidutti has his Ideal Game Library, but I’d like to start, well, just a library. And I need your suggestions. What have you read and liked? Or not even liked, necessarily. Let’s get a list of fiction—or poetry, for that matter—going so we can settle down with something interesting when the gaming group’s gone home and you still have a little bit of time left with the fireplace.