Leah Stanton reads widely and plays a lot of board games, and writes about both here, without much of a filter.https://leahshelfspace.com/en-UShttps://leahshelfspace.com/articles/godtear/https://leahshelfspace.com/articles/godtear/It looks like a miniatures game and plays like an abstract, and once that clicked for me I stopped comparing it to anything else on my shelf.Sat, 15 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTGodtearLeah Stantonhttps://leahshelfspace.com/articles/weapons-of-math-destruction/https://leahshelfspace.com/articles/weapons-of-math-destruction/O'Neil coined the acronym herself, WMDs, and by the end of the book you understand exactly why she picked something that blunt.Thu, 13 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTWeapons of Math DestructionLeah Stantonhttps://leahshelfspace.com/articles/the-reading-log-is-just-a-notebook/https://leahshelfspace.com/articles/the-reading-log-is-just-a-notebook/People assume a cataloging librarian tracks her reading in some elaborate spreadsheet. It's a five dollar notebook, and I like it that way.Wed, 05 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayLeah Stantonhttps://leahshelfspace.com/articles/this-war-of-mine-the-board-game/https://leahshelfspace.com/articles/this-war-of-mine-the-board-game/I have not won this game once, and I'm not sure winning is really the point of a game about civilians surviving a siege.Wed, 15 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTThis War of Mine: The Board GameLeah Stantonhttps://leahshelfspace.com/articles/at-home-in-the-universe/https://leahshelfspace.com/articles/at-home-in-the-universe/Kauffman builds these lattice simulations of chemicals bumping into each other and somehow, from that, argues that life might not have needed a miracle to get started.Tue, 14 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTAt Home in the UniverseLeah Stantonhttps://leahshelfspace.com/articles/dune-imperium-uprising/https://leahshelfspace.com/articles/dune-imperium-uprising/I wasn't even that into the original game, and this standalone follow up still kept me thinking about it long after we'd packed it away.Mon, 06 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTDune: Imperium – UprisingLeah Stantonhttps://leahshelfspace.com/articles/aeons-end/https://leahshelfspace.com/articles/aeons-end/The most satisfying cooperative deckbuilder I own, and I say that as someone with several other cooperative deckbuilders competing for the same shelf space.Sat, 04 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTAeon's EndLeah Stantonhttps://leahshelfspace.com/articles/teaching-marcus-to-lose-gracefully/https://leahshelfspace.com/articles/teaching-marcus-to-lose-gracefully/My brother is not a reader, not really a gamer either until he visits, and every visit turns into a small experiment in whether this is the game that finally gets him.Thu, 18 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayLeah Stantonhttps://leahshelfspace.com/articles/starfish/https://leahshelfspace.com/articles/starfish/Everyone qualified to work this job is damaged in some specific way, and Watts is not interested in softening that premise for you.Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTStarfishLeah Stantonhttps://leahshelfspace.com/articles/sea-salt-and-paper/https://leahshelfspace.com/articles/sea-salt-and-paper/It was an impulse buy in a French cafe when I needed something small for a two person table, and it's barely left my bag since.Tue, 02 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTSea Salt and PaperLeah Stantonhttps://leahshelfspace.com/articles/seeing-like-a-state/https://leahshelfspace.com/articles/seeing-like-a-state/It starts, of all places, with 18th century Prussian forestry, and somehow that's the perfect place to start.Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTSeeing Like a StateLeah Stantonhttps://leahshelfspace.com/articles/ankh-gods-of-egypt/https://leahshelfspace.com/articles/ankh-gods-of-egypt/Gorgeous art, lovely miniatures, and I still ended up asking myself why I'd pick this over Blood Rage on a given game night.Tue, 26 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTAnkh: Gods of EgyptLeah Stantonhttps://leahshelfspace.com/articles/why-i-wont-play-a-game-solo-if-i-can-help-it/https://leahshelfspace.com/articles/why-i-wont-play-a-game-solo-if-i-can-help-it/Solo modes are a genuine achievement of design, and I still mostly ignore them, which I know is a little contrarian given how good some of them have gotten.Thu, 21 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayLeah Stantonhttps://leahshelfspace.com/articles/the-dispossessed/https://leahshelfspace.com/articles/the-dispossessed/The sunlights differ, but there is only one darkness, and she means it, and somehow that line does not read as a slogan even once.Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTThe DispossessedLeah Stantonhttps://leahshelfspace.com/articles/supersizing-the-mind/https://leahshelfspace.com/articles/supersizing-the-mind/Clark's whole argument is that your notebook, your phone, the sticky note on your monitor, all of it might genuinely be part of your mind and not just a tool your mind uses.Tue, 12 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTSupersizing the MindLeah Stantonhttps://leahshelfspace.com/articles/the-weeding-shelf/https://leahshelfspace.com/articles/the-weeding-shelf/Once a semester we pull the books nobody's checked out in a decade, and I always take a few home before they go to the sale.Mon, 27 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayLeah Stantonhttps://leahshelfspace.com/articles/neuromancer/https://leahshelfspace.com/articles/neuromancer/I stopped about forty pages in the first time and had to come back a week later before it clicked, and once it clicked it did not let go.Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTNeuromancerLeah Stantonhttps://leahshelfspace.com/articles/i-was-wrong-about-ankh-the-first-time/https://leahshelfspace.com/articles/i-was-wrong-about-ankh-the-first-time/I told three separate people this was one of the best area control games I owned. Then I actually sat with why I kept not wanting to play it again.Sun, 12 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayLeah Stantonhttps://leahshelfspace.com/articles/kemet/https://leahshelfspace.com/articles/kemet/A birthday gift years ago, and I still can't decide if it's a genuinely deep area control game or just Cyclades with better temples.Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTKemetLeah Stantonhttps://leahshelfspace.com/articles/teaching-priya-a-game-she-took-apart/https://leahshelfspace.com/articles/teaching-priya-a-game-she-took-apart/I brought a new game to Thursday group specifically to surprise her, and she had the whole thing figured out before I'd finished explaining the setup.Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayLeah Stantonhttps://leahshelfspace.com/articles/a-bad-night-for-this-war-of-mine/https://leahshelfspace.com/articles/a-bad-night-for-this-war-of-mine/One session went quiet in a way our Thursday group's sessions almost never do, and afterward nobody wanted to talk about it right away.Sun, 08 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayLeah Stantonhttps://leahshelfspace.com/articles/what-cataloging-does-to-how-i-read/https://leahshelfspace.com/articles/what-cataloging-does-to-how-i-read/People assume the job ruins reading for pleasure. It's the opposite, mostly, except for the one specific way it's completely ruined it.Wed, 04 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayLeah Stantonhttps://leahshelfspace.com/articles/harmonies/https://leahshelfspace.com/articles/harmonies/Puzzly games aren't usually my thing, and this one still got its hooks into me within a single sitting.Wed, 11 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTHarmoniesLeah Stantonhttps://leahshelfspace.com/articles/the-rediscovery-of-man/https://leahshelfspace.com/articles/the-rediscovery-of-man/One of the strangest collections I've read, and I say that having read a lot of strange ones, and it took the whole book before I decided whether I even liked it.Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTThe Rediscovery of ManLeah Stantonhttps://leahshelfspace.com/articles/bloomington-in-february/https://leahshelfspace.com/articles/bloomington-in-february/The whole town empties out a little between semesters, and it's the only time of year I actually like the cold.Mon, 02 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayLeah Stantonhttps://leahshelfspace.com/articles/gloomhaven-buttons-and-bugs/https://leahshelfspace.com/articles/gloomhaven-buttons-and-bugs/This is the Gloomhaven I actually wanted Gloomhaven to be: five minute setup, true solo combat puzzles, and none of the campaign upkeep I always dreaded.Mon, 05 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTGloomhaven: Buttons & BugsLeah Stantonhttps://leahshelfspace.com/articles/the-insert-i-didnt-need-to-rebuild/https://leahshelfspace.com/articles/the-insert-i-didnt-need-to-rebuild/The box worked fine. I spent a Saturday building a new insert for it anyway, and I'm not entirely sure I can defend the hours that took.Fri, 26 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayLeah Stantonhttps://leahshelfspace.com/articles/never-let-me-go/https://leahshelfspace.com/articles/never-let-me-go/I finished it on a Sunday and just sat there for a while afterward, not really able to explain to myself why.Tue, 16 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTNever Let Me GoLeah Stantonhttps://leahshelfspace.com/articles/vantage/https://leahshelfspace.com/articles/vantage/An open-world co-op adventure with nearly eight hundred locations across four hundred cards, and I went in with expectations set way too high by the hype cycle around it.Fri, 05 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTVantageLeah Stantonhttps://leahshelfspace.com/articles/echopraxia/https://leahshelfspace.com/articles/echopraxia/It answers almost none of the questions Blindsight left open and instead hands you a fresh stack of them, and somehow that is still worth reading.Fri, 28 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMTEchopraxiaLeah Stanton