Remember the last game you played? Maybe you remember the first one, too …

If you love games, or know someone who does, you’ll know that board games today form a part of people’s lives every bit as cherished as music, movies, books or sports. Board games have become staples of popular culture around which we live our lives, and through which we navigate and remember many of life’s ups and downs. From chess and checkers to CATAN and Carcassonne, board games bring people together and touch lives in unlikely and surprising ways.

In this charming volume, authors including leading industry professionals and lifelong gamers from all walks of life tell us in their own words what board games mean to them. From stories of friends and loved ones met through games to how others came to make careers and livelihoods out of them, from the story of how an academic strike in Nigeria led to the founding of the first board games convention in Sub-Saharan Africa to how board games helped one autistic child discover his dream job, the essays in this volume lift the lid on how games have changed lives in the most remarkable ways.

Warm and witty, heartening and heartfelt, the twenty-eight personal accounts that make up this diverse collection bring together authors, artists, designers, parents, academics, an actor, a librarian and more to offer a remarkable insight into just why board games mean so much to so many.