Monday 10 January 2011

Penguin bookchase

Who could resist a game where you are told that you have been voted Reader of the year?! Unsurprisingly, I drew this card - the rest of my family are great readers but certainly not as great a reader as me, and now it's official!

The Penguin bookchase game came out last year, and I had been quite keen to get my hands on a copy. My Gran kindly sent me a Christmas cheque in advance of Christmas so I decided that this would be something good to spend it on, since we were spending Christmas in the UK this year and at various family gatherings.

I can report that it is an excellent board game. You move around the board landing in each of six colour themed sections, answering questions which are predominantly (but not exclusively) related to bookish themes. It is a little like Trivial Pursuit, only rather better, in that each question has a choice of three answers, so even if you don't have any idea what the answer is, you still have a 1 in 3 chance of getting it right (and winning a book to put on your bookshelf playing piece). When you have books from all of the six colour categories, you must get back to the middle, but the presence of "Award or sentence" spaces where you must pick up a card that is a bit like a Monopoly chance card means that you can suddenly lose one (or three) of your books. This makes it fairer for the less bookish players (although, I think I have played it 8 times now and won all but one times). I have played it with an assortment of friends and family and it's easy to pick up and an enjoyable way to pass half an hour (if there are two of you), or more...

In other news, I am struggling somewhat with EXCRUCIATING pain in my ribs. I never shook off the cough that came with my flu, and coughed so much on Thursday that I have either cracked a rib or strained a muscle. I am unable to laugh without much pain, so have been sticking to sombre television and reading - I have managed to do quite a bit of reading as lying on the sofa seems to be best!

12 comments:

  1. Ohh: feel better soon Verity!

    I hope the Penguin game is eventually available on this side of the Atlantic. But I received Cranium for Christmas & have been enjoying it!

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  2. Poor you! That sounds so painful. I pulled a muscle in my leg yesterday and that was painful enough, so I can only imagine how much more painful it must be in your chest.

    The game sounds perfect for our book blogging community.

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  3. What a great game. Sadly I do not have a big family to play it with. And all my friends think I am mad reading so much!

    Hope the coughing gets better. This Flu bug seems to take its toll

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  4. This sounds like the coolest game ever!!!

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  5. Get well soon Verity. Thank you for reviewing this game. I've seen it in the shops and wondered what it's like - and now I know.

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  6. Firstly, I hope that muscle pain eases soon - some heat relief might help?

    I have looked at this game so many times but I have no one to play with - boo hoo...

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  7. Sorry to hear that you are still feeling poorly, hope that you're better soon. Love the idea of this game, might have to give Mr S rather a large hint!

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  8. This sounds like such a fun game! So sorry to hear you're in pain though... hope it's a pulled muscle. I imagine ribs would take longer to heal. Take care, Verity.

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  9. So sorry that you are in such pain and hope that it passes quickly. My Santa couldn't get the Penguin game over here, so he got me the original Bookchase game instead. There's something so fun about adding books to the bookshelf, isn't there? :)

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  10. Oh Verity, the pain from coughing too much, and too hard, really hurts! You poor thing.

    The game is irresistible, I wonder if it's available in Canada?

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