The Monopolists: Obsession, Fury, and the Scandal Behind the World’s Favorite Board Game by Mary Pilon [Little Shop of Stories, $17.00?]

Quite a fascinating piece of non-fiction reporting, recommended by a Little Shop of Stories employee.

Monopoly, like Risk, is one of the games I kind of feel bad about winning. Running everybody else out of business or violently overthrowing a nation doesn’t have the feel-good win of, say, winning a footrace or a basketball game, for some reason.

I guess that feeling has its roots in the true inventor of the game, Lizzie Magie, a turn of the (last) century activist who was trying to advocate for a single-tax system, which (and I’m not really clear on how) would help prevent wealth inequalities.

The rest of the story is full of interesting twists and turns, and a view into a different era, where board games were gaining popularity thanks to the advent of greater leisure time.

Well written and interesting, definitely worth the time.

The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir Who Got Trapped In An IKEA Wardrobe by Romain Puertolas [Paperback, Little Shop of Stories, $17]

Recommended by the staff at LSOS, this is a short, but entertaining romp of a novel. The blurb on the cover describes it as a “comic strip of a novel”, and that seems appropriate.

An Indian Fakir contrives to go to France to buy an IKEA nail bed (I’m not sure if it’s naive to assume that doesn’t exist or that it does), and the situation gets away from him.

Full of coincidences, but that’s okay. Well-written, even though translated from French.

Worth a read, but perhaps $17 was a bit much. I read it in my 2 hour flight from Phoenix to Sacramento. A two hour movie costs $10. Usually, I expect the hours of entertainment/cost ratio of a (non-graphic) novel to be much higher than a movie. But, oh well.

Books to Weeks ratio: 19/12 = 1.6