This was a book that I was eagerly expecting as I am quite interested in the history of the concept of play, its origins, and evolution as well as its cultural and philosophical interpretations. My master thesis on philosophy was titled ''The Ontology of Play in Heraclitus and Nietzsche'' so I was familiar with the relevant bibliography and various theories on the subject. This book offers a history of the use of the notion of play in different social contexts, it differentiates the ''original'' from the ''cultural'' play and overall it is a worthy addition in the list of the notable studies on the subject which begun with Johan Huizinga's ''Homo Ludens: A Study of Play Element in Culture''. For those who have an academic interest on play there is a number of great books in the bibliography many of which are already on my to-read list. The main advantage of this book though is that it is not written in a strict academic style and it can be read by anyone who wishes to delve into the study of the concept and broaden his perspective on the ludic phenomenon.

This book is nothing but insightful. Looking at play, the origin of play and how over the years the human adult has conditioned or better yet created the kind of environment we see. I liked the first three chapters and loved reading about 'Dada' but beyond that, everything took me a while to comprehend.
The book's well written and the author takes his time building upon history, research and observations to persuade the reader. There's a part where he says "Play means being open to randomness and irrationality- patterns beyond our normal comprehension," and that stuck with me because there are times you do something and someone would say "that's not how an adult ought to behave" like there's this set of rules that defines an adult and a child and we've forgotten how to play or have fun anymore. Well, I'm digressing, I voluntarily requested to read this book and thank you Netgalley for the eARC.