Book review: It's All a Game by Tristan Donovan

The twenty-first book I read in 2018 was It's All a Game: The History of Board Games from Monopoly to Settlers of Catan by Tristan Donovan.  The subtitle is misleading, as the overview actually starts well before Monopoly with games of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia.  From there it travels through chess and backgammon before jumping ahead to the game of Life (which admittedly has a longer pedigree than I'd assumed), Monopoly, Risk, Clue, Scrabble, Mouse Trap, Twister, the Ungame, Trivial Pursuit, Pandemic, and (as advertised) Settlers of Catan, with a pair of digressions on the use of board games to help POWs escape during WWII and the rise of AIs in chess and go.

There are a lot of interesting facts on parade here, including what exactly a "rook" is, how many games got their start in Canada before crossing the southern border, and exactly how convoluted the origin story of Monopoly is.  The book could have used another editing run: Dungeons & Dragons co-creator Dave Arneson is consistently referred to as Dave Arenson, and the culprit in Clue is dubbed a "gentile" rather than genteel British murderer.  Still, this was an interesting read.  I learned some things and made a mental note of a few games I might pick up for our family to enjoy.