Tristan Donovan
Author, editor, journalist and more

It's All a Game

Board games have been with us longer than even the written word. But what is it about this pastime that continues to captivate us well into the age of smartphones and instant gratification?

In It’s All a Game, British journalist and renowned games expert Tristan Donovan opens the box on the incredible and often surprising history and psychology of board games. He traces the evolution of the game across cultures, time periods, and continents, from the paranoid Chicago toy genius behind classics like Operation and Mouse Trap, to the role of Monopoly in helping prisoners of war escape the Nazis, and even the scientific use of board games today to teach artificial intelligence how to reason and how to win. With these compelling stories and characters, Donovan ultimately reveals why board games have captured hearts and minds all over the world for generations.

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Fizz

How Soda Shook Up the World

This social, cultural, and culinary history charts soda's remarkable, world-changing journey from awe-inspiring natural mystery to ubiquity. Off-the-wall and offbeat stories abound, including how quack medicine peddlers spawned some of the world's biggest brands, how fizzy pop cashed in on Prohibition, how soda helped presidents reach the White House, and even how Pepsi influenced Apple's marketing of the iPod. This history of carbonated drinks follows a seemingly simple everyday refreshment as it zinged and pinged over society's taste buds and, in doing so, changed the world. The story of soda is the story of the modern world, a tale of glamorous bubbles, sparkling dreams, big bucks, miracle cures, and spreading waistlines. Fizz: How Soda Shook Up the World charts soda’s remarkable, world-changing journey from awe-inspiring natural mystery to ubiquitous presence in all our lives.

Along the way you’ll meet the patent medicine peddlers who spawned some of the world’s biggest brands with their all-healing concoctions, as well as the grandees of science and medicine mesmerized by the magic of bubbling water. You’ll discover how fizzy pop cashed in on Prohibition, helped presidents reach the White House, and became public health enemy number one. You’ll learn how Pepsi put the fizz in Apple’s marketing, how Coca-Cola joined the space race, and how soda’s sticky sweet allure defined and built nations. And you’ll find out how an alleged soda-loving snail rewrote the law books.

Fizz tells the extraordinary tale of how a seemingly simple everyday refreshment zinged and pinged over our taste buds and, in doing so, changed the world around us.

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Replay

The History of Video Games

A riveting account of the birth and remarkable evolution of the most important development in entertainment since television, Replay: The History of Video Games is the ultimate history of video games. From its origins in the research labs of the 1940s to the groundbreaking success of the Wii, Replay sheds new light on gaming's past. Along the way it takes in the spectacular rise and fall of Atari, the crazed cottage industry spawned by the computers of Sir Clive Sinclair, Japan's rapid ascent to the top of the gaming tree and the seismic impact of Doom.

Replay: The History of Video Games tells the sensational story of how the creative vision of game designers across the globe gave rise to one of the world's most popular and dynamic art forms. Based on extensive research and more than 140 interviews, Replay includes insights from video game legends such as Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, Will Wright - the creator of The Sims, Doom designer John Romero and Hironobu Sakaguchi of Final Fantasy fame. Replay also includes a foreword by Richard Garriott (aka Lord British), a gameography covering more than 800 of the most notable games ever made and a 26-page guide to the consoles and computers of gaming's past and present.

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Tristan is the author of the acclaimed Replay: The History of Video Games and writes about games for The Times, Stuff, Eurogamer and Gamasutra

His writing has also appeared in/on BBC News, Stuff, The Times, Eurogamer, Community Care, Farmers Weekly, The Telegraph, Edge, Gamasutra, ADASS, The Guardian, Third Sector, GamesTM, Kotaku, The Gadget Show and Game Developer and more

He also writes about social affairs for titles such as Community Care, produces events for Community Care and Farmers Weekly and does other bits and bobs.