From: Michael Keller (Wgreview@aol.com)
Date: Sat, 24 Aug 1996 21:01:19 -0400
Subject: Dominoes, Ludography, etc.
Michael Keller
World Game Review
1747 Little Creek Drive
Baltimore, MD 21207-5230
August 24, 1996
Wgreview@aol.com
Ken Tidwell
editor@gamecabinet.com
Dear Ken,
It's been a while since I've looked in at the Games Cabinet, but I took a brief look yesterday. Of particular interest to me was the bibliography of domino books. I've been working on one of my own for a couple of years now (an eventual WGR article). I know of the Muller book through the Amazons on-line bookstore, but don't have a copy yet. I'm not familiar with The Games Treasury or the Gamescape booklet -- I'll have to check these out. I would recommend two books in particular :
Both books are out of print, but should be easier to find in libraries than the 1959 edition of Dominoes. Both authors spend a great deal of their books covering domino puzzles, but also include rules for a number of games. Armanino's book is clearly the best in my view -- he discusses a lot of games besides Five-Up (there are at least two watered-down editions of this, possibly still in print).
The Wood/Goddard reference is probably dispensable -- there are much better Hoyles, in particular The New Complete Hoyle by Morehead/Frey/Mott-Smith (revised several years ago). Most domino sets you buy in toy stores have leaflets as good as (if not better than) the section in Wood/Goddard.
Could you add my e-mail address to the Periodicals listing (it appears to be either missing or perhaps truncated)?
I haven't looked at the Ludography listing lately (I sent a bunch of corrections and additions a while back). Are you still planning to maintain this, or might you think about collaborating with Mario Boller-Olfert's Luding database? He's put a lot of work into it, but it's still pretty weak on American inventors and games. I might be willing to help out filling in some gaps if it were part of a collaborative effort.
Best wishes,
Michael
Thanks for all the information. You are, as always, a veritable storehouse of data.
Mario is Mr. Ludography as far as I'm concerned. I may make small updates to the Cabinet's ludography from time to time but Mario clearly owns that territory now.
ken