Welcome to Dragon Talk is an engaging and very interesting set of conversations based on the Dragon Talk Podcast by Shelly Mazzanoble and Greg Tito. Released 5th Dec 2022 by the University of Iowa Press, it's 198 pages and is available in paperback and ebook formats.
The chapters are arranged thematically by subjects and cover a very wide range of topics: what D&D and tabletop RPGs *are* how they are valuable, who plays them (and why), and a lovely selection of interviews and viewpoints from a variety of experts, therapists, researchers, and gamers on gaming who have all entered the orbit of the Dragon Talk podcast or its co-hosts.
Well written and accessible, it's full of stories about the people from the gaming community. It's not rigorous, even the experts and research-adjunct experts who have featured on the show weren't annotated and there wasn't a bibliography or reference list, no notations, and no index, at least in the advance copy provided for review purposes. That being said, it is engaging with glimmers of profundity. I was there at D&D's nascence and played for a very long time. It's not an exaggeration to say that D&D very much helped shape the person I am. This was a nostalgic and fun read for me.
Four stars. Recommended for fans of the podcast as well as for gamers. It would be a good choice for public library acquisition, gift giving, and home library use.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
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