Book Review: The Most Relaxing Video Games

Video games are so much more than just full throttle blasts of gunfights, violence and white-knuckle competition. They can also be beautiful, cosy and even emotionally uplifting journeys too. The ideal escapism after a day you’d sooner forget or the perfect sedative following a particularly stress-filled afternoon.

The Most Relaxing Video Games will walk you through a selection of gaming experiences sure to help you unwind. From the familiar warmth of sitting down with a good classic board game (51 of them to be exact) through to the solving of hundreds of puzzles on a mysterious island using nothing but lines, there’s a world of delightfully comforting video games just waiting to sooth your gaming soul.

Book Review: 1000 Words

In 2018, novelist Jami Attenberg, faced with a looming deadline, needed writing inspiration. Using a bootcamp model, she and a friend set out to write one thousand words daily for two weeks straight. They opened this practice to Attenberg’s online community and soon hundreds then thousands of people started using the #1000WordsofSummer hashtag to track their work and support one another. What began as a simple challenge between two friends has become a literary movement—write 1,000 words per day without judgment, or bias, or concerns about writer’s block, and see what comes of it.

Book Review: Thirteen Ways to Kill Lulabelle Rock

Set in a world of the near future, the celebrity elite have access to a technology that allows them to make perfect copies of themselves, known as Portraits. These Portraits exist to fulfil all the various duties that come as the price of fame.

Our protagonist is the thirteenth copy made of the actress known as Lulabelle Rock. Her purpose is very simple: to track down and eliminate her predecessors. While initially easy, her task is made difficult by the labyrinthine confusion of Bubble City and the unfortunate stirrings of a developing conscience. When she makes the mistake of falling in love with one of her targets, the would-be assassin faces the ultimate question; when you don’t want to kill yourself, what’s the alternative?

Book Review: When I Was Your Age

Kenan Thompson is Saturday Night Live’s longest-ever-serving cast member and is hugely beloved thanks to a tidal wave of nostalgic fans who grew up on early 2000s classics All That, Good Burger, and Kenan & Kel on Nickelodeon. He’s also a dad in his mid-40s living in suburbia, and whose universal, relatable, family-friendly humor has created unbelievable appeal and engagement from fans from middle America to coastal elites. Becoming a dad sucked the cool right out of him -- and he's OK with that!

When I Was Your Age is packed with hilarious yet poignant essays that are aimed to offer any reader valuable advice on parenting, focusing on positivity, and having fun in life. Kids, new parents, fellow fathers, budding comics, and aunties who want to pinch his cheeks, can all learn from his biggest mistakes and most triumphant victories. There’s something for everybody here!

Book Review: The Con50le

The Con50le is a comprehensive yet conversational account of 50 years of home video gaming history, leaving no rarely sighted system unturned and providing a chronological account of the evolution of the biggest entertainment medium in the world.

From the earliest consoles of the 1970s to the cutting-edge machines of the here and now, a line is drawn from one man’s eureka moment to the multi-billion-dollar global industry of today. All the well-known names and massive-selling consoles are here: the Nintendo Entertainment System, the SEGA Mega Drive, the Atari 2600, the Xbox 360, the PlayStation 2.

Book Review: Dungeons and Dragons Art and Arcana

Dungeons and Dragons is the most iconic and pervasive tabletop gaming franchise in the world. It is a seminal RPG (role-playing game) and the inspiration for video games like World of Warcraft and Zelda, fantasy art, and countless other facets of "geek culture."

This officially licensed illustrated history provides an unprecedented look at the visual evolution of the game, showing its continued influence on the worlds of pop culture and fantasy. It features more than 700 pieces of artwork--from each edition of the game's core books, supplements, and modules; decades of Dragon and Dungeon magazines; classic advertisements and merchandise; and never-before-seen sketches, large-format canvases, rare photographs, one-of-a-kind drafts, and more from the now-famous designers and artists associated with the game. This is the most comprehensive collection of D&D imagery ever assembled, making this the ultimate collectible for the game's millions of fans around the world.

Book Review: Marriage Toxin vol. 1

As a deadly assassin from the poison clan, Hikaru Gero swears he’ll never settle down—that is, until the family orders his sister to produce the poison clan’s next heir. Refusing to let his sister abandon her chance at true love with her girlfriend, clueless Gero desperately turns to marriage swindler Mei Kinosaki for relationship advice and to learn everything she knows about love. Can Kinosaki turn this trained killer into a charming husband-to-be? Together, this unlikely pair will do whatever it takes to get Gero hitched—even if they have to take on the entire criminal underworld in the process!

Marriage Toxin vol. 1, with story by Joumyaku and art by Mizuki Yoda, will be released on January 2, 2004. VIZ Media provided an early galley for review.

Book Review: Come and Get It

It's 2017 at the University of Arkansas. Millie Cousins, a senior resident assistant, wants to graduate, get a job, and buy a house. So when Agatha Paul, a visiting professor and writer, offers Millie an easy yet unusual opportunity, she jumps at the chance. But Millie's starry-eyed hustle becomes jeopardized by odd new friends, vengeful dorm pranks, and illicit intrigue.

A fresh and intimate portrait of desire, consumption, and reckless abandon, Come and Get It is a tension-filled story about money, indiscretion, and bad behavior—and the highly anticipated new novel by acclaimed and award-winning author Kiley Reid.

Book Review: Will & Grace

The sitcom Will & Grace (1998–2006, 2017–20) shifted the media landscape and its treatment of queer themes by starring an openly gay protagonist, Will Truman, on primetime network television. Will, along with his best friend Grace Adler and their constant companions Jack McFarland and Karen Walker, engaged in many stereotypical sitcom shenanigans imbued with decidedly queer twists. Despite the series' groundbreaking nature, its accuracy and responsibility in representing gay men―and of queer culture in general―has been questioned throughout its initial run and reboot. Author Tison Pugh places the sitcom in its historical context of the late 1990s and early 2000s, considering how it contributed to contemporary debates concerning queer life.

Book Review: Age Matters Volume 1

Age Matters follows 29-year-old Rose Choi as she tries to pick up her life after her ex-boyfriend cheated on, and then dumped her. In need of employment, she takes over her best friend's odd job to cook and deliver meals to a mysterious boss. This boss turns out to be the 23-year-old CEO of Lime, Daniel Yoon. She finds him too abrasive while he finds her too desperate, but they eventually learn to get along with each other . . . and fall for each other.