You've Been Played

You've Been Played
Author: Adrian Hon
Publisher: Basic Books
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2022-09-20
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1541600193

How games are being harnessed as instruments of exploitation—and what we can do about it Warehouse workers pack boxes while a virtual dragon races across their screen. If they beat their colleagues, they get an award. If not, they can be fired. Uber presents exhausted drivers with challenges to keep them driving. China scores its citizens so they behave well, and games with in-app purchases use achievements to empty your wallet. Points, badges, and leaderboards are creeping into every aspect of modern life. In You’ve Been Played, game designer Adrian Hon delivers a blistering takedown of how corporations, schools, and governments use games and gamification as tools for profit and coercion. These are games that we often have no choice but to play, where losing has heavy penalties. You’ve Been Played is a scathing indictment of a tech-driven world that wants to convince us that misery is fun, and a call to arms for anyone who hopes to preserve their dignity and autonomy.

We Play Ourselves

We Play Ourselves
Author: Jen Silverman
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2021-02-09
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0399591524

After a humiliating scandal, a young writer flees to the West Coast, where she is drawn into the morally ambiguous orbit of a charismatic filmmaker and the teenage girls who are her next subjects. FINALIST FOR THE LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD • ONE OF BUZZFEED’S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • “A blistering story about the costs of creating art.”—O: The Oprah Magazine Not too long ago, Cass was a promising young playwright in New York, hailed as “a fierce new voice” and “queer, feminist, and ready to spill the tea.” But at the height of all this attention, Cass finds herself at the center of a searing public shaming, and flees to Los Angeles to escape—and reinvent herself. There she meets her next-door neighbor Caroline, a magnetic filmmaker on the rise, as well as the pack of teenage girls who hang around her house. They are the subjects of Caroline’s next semidocumentary movie, which follows the girls’ clandestine activity: a Fight Club inspired by the violent classic. As Cass is drawn into the film’s orbit, she is awed by Caroline’s ambition and confidence. But over time, she becomes troubled by how deeply Caroline is manipulating the teens in the name of art—especially as the consequences become increasingly disturbing. With her past proving hard to shake and her future one she’s no longer sure she wants, Cass is forced to reckon with her own ambitions and confront what she has come to believe about the steep price of success.

Fair Play

Fair Play
Author: Eve Rodsky
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2021-01-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0525541942

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK Tired, stressed, and in need of more help from your partner? Imagine running your household (and life!) in a new way... It started with the Sh*t I Do List. Tired of being the “shefault” parent responsible for all aspects of her busy household, Eve Rodsky counted up all the unpaid, invisible work she was doing for her family—and then sent that list to her husband, asking for things to change. His response was...underwhelming. Rodsky realized that simply identifying the issue of unequal labor on the home front wasn't enough: She needed a solution to this universal problem. Her sanity, identity, career, and marriage depended on it. The result is Fair Play: a time- and anxiety-saving system that offers couples a completely new way to divvy up domestic responsibilities. Rodsky interviewed more than five hundred men and women from all walks of life to figure out what the invisible work in a family actually entails and how to get it all done efficiently. With 4 easy-to-follow rules, 100 household tasks, and a series of conversation starters for you and your partner, Fair Play helps you prioritize what's important to your family and who should take the lead on every chore, from laundry to homework to dinner. “Winning” this game means rebalancing your home life, reigniting your relationship with your significant other, and reclaiming your Unicorn Space—the time to develop the skills and passions that keep you interested and interesting. Stop drowning in to-dos and lose some of that invisible workload that's pulling you down. Are you ready to try Fair Play? Let's deal you in.

The Game You Played

The Game You Played
Author: Anni Taylor
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 400
Release: 2016-06-30
Genre:
ISBN: 9781534888821

For readers of The Girl on The Train by Paula Hawkins and After Anna by Alex Lake. Little Boy Blue, where did you go? Who led you away? Only I know . . . . Two-year-old Tommy Basko goes missing from a popular inner-city playground. Six months later, his parents begin receiving cryptic messages in rhyme about Tommy. The police don't believe the messages are from the abductor, but Tommy's mother Phoebe is certain they're a game meant for her. Against the advice of the police, Phoebe decides to play the game. She begins a frantic search for the writer of the rhymes, at the cost of causing her marriage to shatter. When the shocking identity of the message-writer is discovered, Phoebe's desperate race for the truth has only just begun. Who took Tommy? And why?

Remember Why You Play

Remember Why You Play
Author: David Thomas
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2010
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1414337272

Thomas documents the lives, struggles, and triumphs of the players and coaches of Faith Christian School in Grapevine, Texas, following the team for a full season to record a story that is sure to inspire readers to understand that relationships are more important than winning.

Play Anything

Play Anything
Author: Ian Bogost
Publisher: Basic Books
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2016-09-13
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0465096506

How filling life with play-whether soccer or lawn mowing, counting sheep or tossing Angry Birds -- forges a new path for creativity and joy in our impatient age Life is boring: filled with meetings and traffic, errands and emails. Nothing we'd ever call fun. But what if we've gotten fun wrong? In Play Anything, visionary game designer and philosopher Ian Bogost shows how we can overcome our daily anxiety; transforming the boring, ordinary world around us into one of endless, playful possibilities. The key to this playful mindset lies in discovering the secret truth of fun and games. Play Anything, reveals that games appeal to us not because they are fun, but because they set limitations. Soccer wouldn't be soccer if it wasn't composed of two teams of eleven players using only their feet, heads, and torsos to get a ball into a goal; Tetris wouldn't be Tetris without falling pieces in characteristic shapes. Such rules seem needless, arbitrary, and difficult. Yet it is the limitations that make games enjoyable, just like it's the hard things in life that give it meaning. Play is what happens when we accept these limitations, narrow our focus, and, consequently, have fun. Which is also how to live a good life. Manipulating a soccer ball into a goal is no different than treating ordinary circumstances- like grocery shopping, lawn mowing, and making PowerPoints-as sources for meaning and joy. We can "play anything" by filling our days with attention and discipline, devotion and love for the world as it really is, beyond our desires and fears. Ranging from Internet culture to moral philosophy, ancient poetry to modern consumerism, Bogost shows us how today's chaotic world can only be tamed-and enjoyed-when we first impose boundaries on ourselves.

Players Got Played

Players Got Played
Author: Rechella
Publisher: Kensington Books
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2007-09
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9781601620200

When Nya Gamden is accepted into the nursing program at Old Dominion University, she is thrilled, until her boyfriend asks her to give up her dreams in exchange for marriage, forcing her into the arms of a well-respected businessman who is hidding a shocking secret. Original.

It's How You Play the Game

It's How You Play the Game
Author: Brian Kilmeade
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 362
Release: 2009-10-13
Genre: Humor
ISBN: 0061745529

“It’s How You Play the Game tells us what [athletes] were looking for when they started and what they found.” — Teddy Atlas, boxing trainer and commentator “Really gets at the heart of what sports is all about. ...Great read for anyone who ever played a sporyt.” — Tommy Lasorda, former Los Angeles Dodgers manager “I’ve watched many great players, but this is the first book that shows me how they became great people. ” — Joe Buck, Fox Sports “Brian does a masterful job laying out the values that have made America great.” — Gen. Tommy R. Franks, U.S. Army (Retired) “This is essential reading for sports fans and sports parents everywhere.” — Rick Wolff, host, “The Sports Edge” WFAN Radio “It’s How You Play the Game is a great read—insightful and well written.” — Donald J. Trump “...Humanizes our icons in a way that makes their success seem achievable and their life lessons invaluable.” — Jake Steinfeld, Chairman & CEO, Body by Jake Global “Helps to understand the value of sports and how it prepares you to deal with the stresses of everyday life.” — Bob Ferraro, President of the National High School Coaches Association “Like having a library of motivational books by successful people...a book you’ll refer to the rest of your life.” — Lou Holtz, former college football coach “This book taught me more about some of my favorite leaders than any profile of them I had ever read...” — Don Yaeger, Sports Illustrated writer, New York Times bestselling author

Playing the Cards You're Dealt (Scholastic Gold)

Playing the Cards You're Dealt (Scholastic Gold)
Author: Varian Johnson
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Total Pages: 222
Release: 2021-10-05
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1338348582

“With a deft hand, Johnson shows us there's no such thing as "too young" when it comes to questioning big ideas like manhood, or even family.” –Jason Reynolds, New York Times bestselling author of Look Both Ways and Stamped Literary powerhouse and Coretta Scott King Honor- and Boston Globe / Horn Book Honor-winning author of The Parker Inheritance Varian Johnson explores themes of toxic masculinity and family legacy in this heartfelt, hopeful story of one boy discovering what it really means to be a man. SECRETS ARE ALWAYS A GAMBLE Ten-year-old Anthony Joplin has made it to double digits! Which means he's finally old enough to play in the spades tournament every Joplin Man before him seems to have won. So while Ant's friends are stressing about fifth grade homework and girls, Ant only has one thing on his mind: how he'll measure up to his father's expectations at the card table. Then Ant's best friend gets grounded, and he's forced to find another spades partner. And Shirley, the new girl in his class, isn't exactly who he has in mind. She talks a whole lot of trash -- way more than his old partner. Plus, he's not sure that his father wants him playing with a girl. But she's smart and tough and pretty, and knows every card trick in the book. So Ant decides to join forces with Shirley -- and keep his plans a secret. Only it turns out secrets are another Joplin Man tradition. And his father is hiding one so big it may tear their family apart...