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张 小峰 45915578289a3 — Someone thoughtfully grabbed this for me a couple of birthdays ago, and I finally got it underway. The purchaser obviously knew of my interest in games, and that was enough. What he could not have known is in my ongoing fascination with the "business" of my childhood. Disney, Hershey, Comic Books and now toys & games. Those four entities cover a lot of my childhood, and I can't get enough of them. Why did some succeeed, why did some fail? What were the missed opportunities? Who were the heroes and who were the villans? I don't know that I would care about this sort of minutia in other industries, but where my childhood is concerned, I eat it up with a spoon. So, Philip Orbanes and Harvard Business Press have tapped a deep vein of personal interest with this book. Phil Orbanes knows of what he writes. He worked at Parker Brothers during the critical General Mills period. Additionally, he would go on to become President of Winning Moves games -- a company well known to the Eurogame crowd. Let me say at the outset, that the book is a fond look at Parker Brothers. Yet, its a tone that's hard to argue with. Orbanes does not avoid mentioning ther personal foibles of George Parker (something of a stuffy dandy, it would seem), but taken as a whole, the company he built is truly amazing. The book is full of nuggets that I just did not know. I didn't realize that Pit was George Parker's first big hit, and the Theodore Roosevelt liked to play it. I didn't know that George Parker broke through a convention that games were to teach lessons and morality. Parker was really the first guy to try and bring the element of "simulation" to boardgaming. Then there are the accomplishments. Everyone knows that Parker Brothers brought Monopoly to the vast majority of Americans. But did you know they were also responsible for introducing America to Mahjong? What about Ping Pong? Jigsaw Puzzles? George Parker would have deserved a place in the history of American culture without Monopoly. When you add Monopoly, Clue and Risk to that, you can only say wow! This really is an important company. The book is best when describing the mom and pop shop made good. You enjoy reading about the little turn of the century company that evolves through two world wars and grows and grows in little Salem Massachusetts (interestingly, Milton Bradley has its roots nearby). The narrative suffers a bit when we get to the era of corporate transitions, and a nameless cast that you can't bring yourself to care about. Still, even in that context, it was interesting to learn of the toxic combination of corporate ambition and video games that would ultimately destroy the great game company. Like so many others, Parker Brothers was drawn into the the video game boom of the 80's and did not adapt to the bust. Their heretofore spotless image tarnished, they become Kenner/Parker and then ultimately end up in the hands of Hasborg. These days, they are little more than a brand in the Hasborg empire. No doubt, at one time, Parker Brothers could have easily bought and disposed of Hasbro, but such are the vagaries of the business world. In any event, any gamer, even a wargamer, will enjoy better understanding our hobbies origins. Parker Brother's role in that hobby would be impossible to overstate. Orbanes is exactly the right chronicler for the tale, and I enjoyed the read thoroughly.

Cecilia Forbes iyaforbes — I didn't get very far in Switched by Amanda Hocking, mainly because I didn't like the character. When she finds out she's a changeling and thinks about what choices she has know, all she can think about is the cute guy Finn who wants to take her away from her family. If I found out I was a troll I would be freaking out and not thinking about spending my life with some cute messenger guy. I thought it was a poor version of Julie Kagawa's series. I would recommend the YA series by Amanda Hocking it was too childish for me.