Rich with enticing origin stories, and a shining treatise on why games are so universal, so important, and so foundational to the human experience. This book beautifully explores their rich and textured legacy as everything from simple play to divine ritual. An exceptional read.
--Tom Brewster, Shut Up & Sit Down

The best book on games I've read in years.
--G.T. Karber, bestselling author of Murdle

Tabletop games are ordinary and extraordinary. Ordinary because they're everywhere: played in bars and cafés, churches and casinos, through sunless winters in polar research stations and in the sweltering summer heat of Tanzanian villages and streamed live over Twitch to millions of viewers. They fill the activity pages of children's magazines and the halls of senior centers. They appear as smartphone apps and in luxury editions and as game boards scratched into the dirt.

And they're extraordinary for precisely the same reason: they're everywhere, in every civilization, everywhere in the world across all recorded human history.

In Across the Board, tabletop game aficionado Tim Clare takes us through that history and across those civilizations. We learn how the same games emerge over and over and how they've evolved and spread, as well as about the contemporary culture of gaming: with rousing enthusiasm, Tim explores games as familiar to us as Monopoly or chess, as niche as Magic: The Gathering, and as unexpected as the Japanese poetry-matching card game karuta. We learn about games as recreation and as ritual, and above all, we see how they can be a way for us to come together--because of all the things that make us human, there's nothing quite so set up for connection as sharing a round of cards or the roll of a d20.

Told with fantastic wit and great love for the subject, Tim Clare's Across the Board is a book for all of us, from the tic-tac-toe players to the dungeon masters and back again.

As she explores the house and discovers the secret network of hidden passages that thread through the estate, Delphine unearths a world more dark and threatening than she ever imagined. With the help of head gamekeeper Mr Garforth, Delphine must learn the bloody lessons of war, and find the soldier within herself in time to battle the deadly forces amassing in the woods . . .

War doesn't end. It sleeps.

Delphine Venner is an old woman now. She is old, but she remembers everything. She remembers what it is to be a child of war, she remembers fighting for her life and she remembers what the terrifying creatures from another world took from her all those years ago. She remembers the gateway, and those she lost.

And in that other world, beast-filled and brutal, someone waits for her. Hagar, a centuries-old assassin, daily paying a terrible price for her unending youth, is planning one final death: that of her abhorrent master, the Grand-Duc. The death that will cost her everything. The death which requires Delphine.

Voyaging into this violence and chaos, Delphine must remember who she really is and be ready to fight once more, as war reawakens. In the battle to destroy an ageless evil, will both worlds be saved -- or will every mortal creature lose everything?

TRUE HONOUR IS ENDLESS. JOIN US.

1935. Norfolk.

War is looming in Great Britain and the sprawling country estate of Alderberen Hall is shadowed by suspicion and paranoia. Thirteen-year-old Delphine Venner is determined to uncover the secrets of the Hall's elite society, which has taken in her gullible mother and unstable father.

As she explores the house and discovers the secret network of hidden passages that thread through the estate, Delphine uncovers a world more dark and threatening than she ever imagined. With the help of head gamekeeper Mr Garforth, Delphine must learn the bloody lessons of war and find the soldier within herself in time to battle the deadly forces amassing in the woods . . .

The Honours is a dark, glittering and dangerously unputdownable novel which invites you to enter a thrilling and fantastical world unlike any other.

Tim Clare has suffered from anxiety and panic attacks for over a decade. At their worst, his attacks would see him curled on the floor, screaming to his wife for help. When they became more than he and his family could manage, Tim made a promise to himself - he would try everything he could to get better, every method and medicine.

In Coward, Tim Clare explores all the possible treatments for anxiety, from SSRIs to hypnosis, running to extreme diets. He interviews experts and becomes a guinea pig, testing their methods on himself. At the end of a year of many ups and downs, Tim discovers what helps him (and what doesn't), and what might help others. Most of all, he comes to rethink anxiety and encourages all of us to do the same.

Delphine Venner remembers everything. She remembers what it is to be a child of war, and what the terrifying creatures from another world took from her all those years ago.

And in that other world, Avalonia, someone waits for Delphine. Hagar, a centuries-old assassin, daily paying a terrible price for her unending youth, is planning one final death, the death that will cost her everything. The death which requires Delphine.

In the battle to destroy an ageless evil, Delphine must remember who she is and be ready to fight once more, as war reawakens.

Blending memoir, self-help and science, and offering practical help, Tim Clare asks us to rethink anxiety

After a decade of living with panic attacks and anxiety, Tim Clare made a promise to himself - he would try everything he could to get better, every method and medicine.

His year of treatments took him from anti-depressants to hypnosis, running to extreme diets, ice baths to faecal transplants. At the end of it he discovers what helps him (and what doesn't), and what might help others. Most of all, he comes to rethink anxiety and encourages all of us to do the same.