Books for First-Years, Games

Summary

The Commentary Magazine Podcast

Episode: "Books for First-Years, Games"

Date: August 22, 2025
Participants: John Podhoretz (host), Abe Greenwald, Seth Mandel, Christine Rosen, Matthew Continetti

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Overview

In this special summer episode, the Commentary staff takes a break from news to offer insightful, sometimes quirky, recommendations for books that college-bound students should read—and discuss the best (and worst) board games to play, especially as families and friends gather for the new school year. Full of humor and warmth, the episode provides a blend of high-minded literary discussion with relatable anecdotes about the joys and agonies of family game night.

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Book Recommendations for College First-Years

(00:57 – 15:43)

Each panelist suggests one life-changing or crucial book for a student about to embark on their college journey.

Christine Rosen:

The Captive Mind by Czesław Miłosz

• Why: "When you go off to college you get a lot of new information, a lot of new experiences, but not always a lot of wisdom going in." (02:59)
• What it offers: An accessible, psychological exploration of human nature and the moral weight of choices.
• Quote: “It shows you so many facets of the human personality and in a way that's quite accessible for… a younger, impressionable mind.” (03:22)
• Practicality: Short enough to read in a week; rich enough to mull its lessons over time.

Seth Mandel:

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

• Why: A quintessential novel about moments of transition and uncertainty.
• Context: Post-Cold War, late-20th-century setting where old certainties are vanishing, much like the transition to college.
• Quote: “A book about standing at the precipice along with everybody else around you and nobody really knowing exactly what to do now, but also understanding that this is now the moment of opportunity…” (04:21)

Abe Greenwald:

A New History of the World by J.M. Roberts (Fourth Edition or earlier)

• Why: Abe wished he'd read it before college—helps connect disparate academic knowledge into a coherent historical narrative.
• Description: “It is gripping. It begins with prehistory and goes right up through to the end of the 20th century. And it explains the movements of nations, of peoples, of intellectual movements, of science and technology.” (07:15)
• Warning: Avoid later editions for “being edited in strange ways.”

Matthew Continetti:

Cultural Amnesia by Clive James

• Why: Offers foundational cultural literacy through accessible vignettes of major thinkers, artists, and cultural figures.
• Quote: “It is basically a collection of biographical portraits of significant cultural figures… along with commentary by Clive James, who's a very good Australian born, then lived in England most of his life, literary critic.” (08:09)
• Tone: “Just a lot of fun to read…you’re going to have a wide breadth of knowledge about all of the different movements that inform our…postmodern apocalyptic landscape today.” (08:39)

John Podhoretz:

High Windows by Philip Larkin (plus a bonus suggestion)

• Why: A brief, powerful poetry collection for literary-minded students—emphasizes transcendence from everyday frustrations.
• Personal anecdote: “This one book changed my life as a…as a rising, near-to undergraduate…” (11:26)
• Notable quote about Larkin’s poetry: “They begin grounded on earth and then they soar into a kind of transcendent greatness about what it means to be alive, often tragic, often incredibly sad, and yet totally human.” (10:59)
• Bonus for the politically minded:
  • Plunkitt of Tammany Hall by George Washington Plunkitt—a humorous, cynical primer on the realities of politics.
  • “It is conversational to the extreme. It is funny, probably without him meaning to be funny, but as a portrait of the way the world really works…” (13:23)
  • Available free online (Project Gutenberg).

Books Recap:

• The Captive Mind (Miłosz)
• The Corrections (Franzen)
• A New History of the World (Roberts)
• Cultural Amnesia (James)
• High Windows (Larkin)
• Plunkitt of Tammany Hall (Plunkitt)

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Board & Card Games: Family Favorites and Cautionary Tales

(17:01 – 37:35)

The panel transitions from books to the world of games—what to play (and what to avoid) with friends and family, especially in dorm rooms full of new freshmen.

Abe Greenwald:

Favorite Game: Scrabble (under duress)

• “I don't like board games, but I will play them under duress. It won't be very pleasant because I'll be bored…” (18:07)
• Not a Scrabble expert himself, but enjoys the challenge.

Christine Rosen:

Scrabble, Poker

• Scrabble made enjoyable through “family hacks” and house rules to keep things moving.
  • “One kid took way too long to find a word, the other would just add an S to someone else's awesome word. And we're like, that's not fair.” (18:57)
• Poker as a life lesson during COVID: “To learn how to bet, to learn how to bluff. All that stuff was—these are great, important human life lessons.” (19:41)

John Podhoretz:

Boggle

• “One of the great pleasures of Scrabble as a parent is losing—to your kid as your kid gets older… Boggle has much the same effect… I just swell with pride at being humiliated by my kid at Boggle.” (20:21)
• Savoring moments when children outpace parents.

Seth Mandel:

Chess & The Magic Labyrinth

• Cherishes the day his nephew beat him at chess: “Because it's like…your kid beats you at one on one in basketball… there's a stage of development they have reached…” (21:29)
• The Magic Labyrinth—a memory and obstacle board game that teaches kids to navigate invisible mazes.
  • “That sounds like hell on earth to me. That horrifying thing…if you wanted me to give up the nuclear code, you would make me play that game…” (24:07, John Podhoretz reacting)

Matthew Continetti:

Axis and Allies

• “As a young man I needed ways to express my Napoleonic tendencies. And so I found them released in what I believe to be the best board game of all time. And that is Axis and Allies.” (24:31)
• Recounts hours strategizing World War II with friends.

John Podhoretz (again):

Monopoly

• “Designed to be a sort of primer for socialism… but, because people want to win things and not cooperate, it taught people how to be savage and how to bankrupt other people.” (26:06)
• Anecdote about game tokens: “Did you or did you not get the car?…you almost didn't even have to win because you had the car.” (27:59)

Further Chess Discussion

(28:17 on)

• Chess as a unique intellectual passion—“If you do have, like an eidetic memory and a certain type of brain, you can literally know every chess game that has ever been played and play it in response to whatever move is being made by your opposite number.” (30:19)
• Analysis of grandmasters like Magnus Carlsen and chess prodigies.
• Mention of the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer, with John recommending it as a “beautiful, interesting movie about…what it's like to…raise a kid who, like, has gifts that you can't even begin to imagine.” (32:06)
• Seth’s personal story: losing at Washington Square Park to a Pepsi mascot for an ad campaign—a reminder of chess’s colorful subculture. (34:11)

Caution: Game to Avoid

Settlers of Catan

• John’s strong advice: “Do whatever you can to avoid it. If you have young kids…do not bring it into your house. You will be so sorry.” (37:11)
• “It is excruciating. It is boring. It is some form of politicized…about sustainability.” (37:19)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “This is one of our special summer podcasts, undated because I don't know when it's going to run, that we are recording to give ourselves a break and to provide you with non-news insights from the Commentary family.” —John Podhoretz (00:24)
• “It's always fun to be humiliated by someone ten years younger than you.” —John Podhoretz on losing at Boggle (20:25)
• “The main issue is, did you or did you not get the car?”—John Podhoretz on Monopoly (27:59)
• “Under no circumstances should this child be allowed anywhere near a chessboard because it would swallow him up and trap him forever.”—John Podhoretz on the pull of chess (28:17)
• “Do NOT bring Settlers of Catan into your house… You are gonna be so sorry.”—John Podhoretz’s closing warning (37:11)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:57 — Panel introductions and set-up
• 02:59 — Christine’s book pick (Captive Mind)
• 04:09 — Seth’s book pick (The Corrections)
• 05:45 — Abe’s book pick (New History of the World)
• 07:56 — Matt’s book pick (Cultural Amnesia)
• 10:58 — John’s poetry pick (High Windows)
• 13:08 — Plunkitt of Tammany Hall discussion
• 17:01 — Transition to board games
• 18:32 — Scrabble and family rules
• 19:41 — Poker and life lessons
• 20:21 — Losing to kids at games (Boggle)
• 21:29 — Chess and “beating your elders” stories
• 22:14 — The Magic Labyrinth explained
• 24:31 — Axis and Allies discussion
• 25:37 — Monopoly, its origins, and social lessons
• 30:19 — The passion (and peril) of chess mastery
• 32:06 — Searching for Bobby Fischer film
• 34:11 — Chess in Washington Square Park
• 37:11 — Settlers of Catan: a dire warning

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Tone & Conclusion

The episode is marked by a mix of warmth, intellectual curiosity, and playful self-deprecation. Alternating between heartfelt parental observations and witty group banter, the panel delivers insightful, idiosyncratic advice for both the mind and the game table, useful for both soon-to-be college students and their families looking to navigate change—and maybe just survive the next round of Monopoly.

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Transcript

[John Podhoretz]

Hope for the best, expect the worst Some preach and pain Some die of thirst the way of knowing which way.

[Seth Mandel]

It'S going Hope for the best Expect.

[Abe Greenwald]

The worst, Hope for the best.

[John Podhoretz]

Welcome to the Commentary magazine daily podcast. This is one of our special summer podcasts Undated because I don't know when it's going to run, that we are recording to give ourselves a break and to provide you with non news insights from the Commentary family. That family being, of course, executive editor Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.

[Abe Greenwald]

Hi, John.

[John Podhoretz]

Senior editor Seth Mandel. Hi, Seth.

[Seth Mandel]

Hi, John.

[John Podhoretz]

Social Commentary columnist Christine Rosen. Hi, Christine.

[Christine Rosen]

Hi, John.

[John Podhoretz]

And Washington Commentary columnist Matthew Continetti. Hi, Matt.

[Matthew Continetti]

Hi, John.

[Abe Greenwald]

I felt like the Waltons just then when you. Because you introduced us as a family. As a family.

[John Podhoretz]

Ah. Good night. Good night, Abe. Boy.

[Seth Mandel]

Four more and you can make the, you know, the Hollywood Squares board.

[John Podhoretz]

Yeah, the Hollywood Squares board is even. But we sort of look like, you don't see as we set up, we look, we look like the Hollywood Squares board often, except that there are only. There are five of us today and Hollywood Squareboard is, of course, nine. And none of us is Paul Lynde, unfortunately. But okay. So today we wanted to make some recommendations as we are approaching the end of summer. And some of us have meaning me have a child going off to college for the first time. I mean, I have an older daughter who is going to be a senior in college, but I have my younger daughter who is going off to her freshman year in college. And we had this idea that maybe we would want to make recommendations to people for now or for the future, whatever. On the one book that we think maybe you should give to your kid on the way to college to read in conjunction with the work that your kid will be doing in college or maybe if you hear this before they have to go off the book that maybe they could read in the week while you're packing and having enormous fights over what to put in the bags and what not to put in the bags and what to order from Target and things like that to put in the dorm room. So the one book that you as a 17, 18. You think a 1718 year old should read that they might not have read. And I'm, I'm gonna go with Christine first because she really wanted to do this and has herself had two kids go off to college last year for the first time. Yes.

[Christine Rosen]

So I'm gonna pick first of all, because it's a college student and they don't have a lot of time to devote to reading A shorter book, but Czeslav Milos the Captive Mind was my choice because I feel like when you go off to college you get a lot of new information, a lot of new experiences, but not always a lot of wisdom going in. And what this book, when I first read it, I was already out of college, but it struck me as being almost a great psychology textbook, a textbook about human nature. It shows you so many facets of the human personality and in a way that's quite accessible for I think, a younger, impressionable mind. And it also reminds you that the choices that people make in their lives at every stage have moral resonance. And so I would recommend this. And it's not done in a heavy handed way. I think it's probably, I hope it's still assigned in some classes at the college level, but it's something they can read in a week and hopefully mull over some of its important lessons.

[John Podhoretz]

Okay, Seth, what do you have for that young impressionable mind?

[Seth Mandel]

So I surprised myself with this, but with this, the specific question, which is a great question by the way of a book for somebody going away to college to read. I actually settled on the Corrections by Jonathan Franzen because it is a sort of quintessential modern novel of era of change, of going from the end of something big and stable, even if you didn't, you know, even if it wasn't always great. I mean this is like post Cold War, the end of the 20th century, you know, is what happens with the. Is the nut where the novel is, is based in. And nobody really knows what to do in the new. In the sort of new world that's in emerging. You know, there's tech and you know, the, the patriarch of the family was an old railroad engineer or whatever and you know, that stuff is all gone and. But it's just a book about standing at the precipice along with everybody else around you and nobody really knowing exactly what to do now, but also understanding that this is now the moment of opportunity that like people say you could literally do anything, which is how the late 90s felt, but also paralyzed by indecision or whatever. So I think thinking, thinking about moments of big change and going along with all the people around you also experiencing it. I went with the Corrections.

[John Podhoretz]

Okay, Abe.

[Abe Greenwald]

So I chose a book that I read after college and I wish I had read it before college. It's very big, Very, very, very big book. Before I say the book, I'll explain my reasons why. When I went to it's the Magic.

[Seth Mandel]

Mountain, when I went to school.

[John Podhoretz]

I.

[Abe Greenwald]

Would take all these courses, but I had a very hard time integrating one piece of information with another, putting together a sort of comprehensive intellectual picture in my head of what this all sort of added up to. And this applies to, you know, no matter what your interest, what your major is in college, whether it has to do with literature or history or science or anything, sort of putting together ages and movements and sort of placing it in the proper historical context.

[John Podhoretz]

So.

[Abe Greenwald]

And I sort of left college still a bit confused about all that. And I read J.M. roberts, New History of the World. Don't get any later than the fourth edition, which means you have to get an old one, which is why this, when I say it's big, it's a giant doorstopper that I'm showing here, showing fourth edition YouTube viewers, because after the fourth edition, all the, all the PC editors got a hold of it and started doing weird things with it. But it is gripping. It begins with prehistory and goes right up through to the, to the end of the 20th century. And it explains the movements of nations, of peoples, of intellectual movements, of science and technology. And you, you, you get a complete perspective, change. You sort of, you sort of have some working knowledge of what came before and it's. It was an amazing experience for me.

[John Podhoretz]

So that's J.M. roberts, History of the World.

[Matthew Continetti]

Matt My choice is somewhat similar to. To ABES in that it, I think, provides a great backing for intellectual exploration and cultural literacy, which I'm obsessed with. And that is a book by the critic Clive James called Cultural Necessary Memories from History and the Arts. This is a book that came out, I think the hardcover. Came out when, in 2007. Yeah, but it's still in print, in paperback. And it is a basically collection of biographical portraits of significant cultural figures, some historical, some scientific, many cultural. Literary, music, visual arts, along with commentary by Clive James, who's a very good Australian born then lived in England most of his life. Literary critic. And it's just a lot of fun to read. You're going to learn a lot, but you're also going to have a wide breadth of knowledge about all of the different movements that inform our, you know, postmodern apocalyptic landscape today.

[John Podhoretz]

One of the weightiest writers who ever lived, Clive James, wrote a series of picturesque poems. Felicity Fark in the Land of the Media Peregrine Anyway, these sort of tour Doris on of like London comic portraits of London and world culture and society that are like.

[Matthew Continetti]

He's just a great writer.

[John Podhoretz]

He was a genuinely.

[Matthew Continetti]

My favorite poem of his is the book of my enemy.

[John Podhoretz]

Yes, the book of my enemy has been remaindered. Yes, one of the greatest.

[Matthew Continetti]

I love that poem.

[John Podhoretz]

So I was thinking about what Christine said about short books, and three short books came to mind. One of them, I think, actually interestingly connected to Clive James, whose last book was a. Was an exegesis of the work of Philip Larkin, the British poet. And Christine and I were having a conversation over text about some things and somehow Larkin came up and when I was 15, my dad brought home this little book of poetry we didn't like. It's not like books of poetry popped up on our coffee table very frequently. This was sort of 1975, something like that, called High Windows. I'd never heard of Philip Larkin. It was a book of poems by Philip Larkin, who began publishing novels and poetry just at the end, at the beginning, at the period at the end of the Second World War. And easily the greatest English language poet of the second half of the 20th century, I think. I don't even think that's sort of in dispute kind of by this point, though many people have difficulty with this politics and other things. But High Windows was the book that led me to believe that poetry was a thing of Glory. It's 24 poems. They are short, they are pithy, and they do what Larkin does at his most extreme, extraordinary, which is that they often begin in a kind of crabbed small irritation with the condition of contemporary life in which he's basically complaining about something that is an annoyance or worse to him about how we live. And by the end, he finds in these moments of irritation some doorway into the metaphysical. I don't know how else to describe it. They, they, they begin grounded on earth and then they soar into a kind of transcendent greatness about what it means to be alive, often tragic, often incredibly sad, and yet totally human. And so that for somebody who might be beginning at college of a literary bent, if you haven't read Philip Larkin and you don't want to get the collected point, this one book changed my life as a, as a sort of a. As a. As a rising near to undergraduate and, and I think it could have that effect on almost anybody. But there's one other short book that I was thinking for people who are of a political bent that I don't think many people read anymore, that is so remarkable and extraordinary that it's worth citing. And though it is very low down and hilarious and cheap and weird and it's called Plunkett of Tammany Hall, It's a collection of essentially conversations, lectures, something like. Given by a late 19th century New York political figure named George Washington Plunkett, who describes his view of politics and what it means to get along in. In a. In a war, in a fallen world, let's say, because he. Tammany hall, of course, was the political organization that helped run New York for almost 75 years. And it is in this book that he. That he lays out the difference between honest and dishonest graft. It's. It is conversational to the extreme. It is funny, probably without him meaning to be funny, but as a portrait of the. Okay, no crap. If you sort of want to understand the ultimate world from which Trump emerges, the ultimate primordial ooze from which Trump emerges. It is the culture of Tammany hall that is represented by George Washington Plunkett, which is the. Okay, enough with the high and mighty and noble. This is the way the world really works. And it is kind of the way the world really works. And it's. Aside from being one of the most enjoyable books you will ever read, it's one of the shortest books that you will ever read.

[Christine Rosen]

I think you can get it online free too. I think it's like in the.

[John Podhoretz]

In. In the Project Gutenberg or whatever.

[Seth Mandel]

Yeah.

[John Podhoretz]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think it's like 25, 30,000 words or something like that. But it is. If you are going into. In order to counteract both the highest political philosophy that you might read and then the most nonsense theory that they might impose on you in political science or political philosophy or whatever theory class that you might take this grounding in the muck and mire of the actual way that politics get that the sausage is made is just sort of like a. It's. It's a. A very important salvin tonic, I would say. Okay, so that gives us. What do we have there got. We got the corrections by Jonathan Franzen. We have History of the World by J.M. roberts. We have the Captive Mind by Cheshan Milos, and I forget which Clive James. Cultural amnesia.

[Matthew Continetti]

How appropriate that you.

[John Podhoretz]

Yeah, I forgot cultural amnesia.

[Matthew Continetti]

You're suffering from the very malady James laments in this one.

[John Podhoretz]

There we go. Absolutely.

[Abe Greenwald]

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[John Podhoretz]

In the car, gym, even sleeping. So when they finally went on tour, Martha bundled her flight and hotel on Expedia to see them live. She saved so much, she got her seat close enough to actually see and hear them. Sort of. You were made to scream from the front row. We were made to quietly save you more Expedia made to travel savings vary and subject to availability. Flight inclusive packages are atoll protected. Okay, so since we've only done 15 minutes of this, then we thought maybe we would go on to go. And this is something people also do in dorm rooms in order to get to know each other in their freshman years, but also whatever. And that is board games or games. Favorite board games. So I've just, you know, I've a 15 year old at home, I have an 18 year old and 21 year old and we do play a lot of games and I don't like games, so I'm not gonna. I really don't like playing games. I like playing poker, but I hate games.

[Abe Greenwald]

But I'll start.

[John Podhoretz]

Okay, you start that.

[Abe Greenwald]

Yeah, I'm glad. I feel freed up because you said, yeah, I don't like board games, but I will play them under duress. It won't be very pleasant because I'll be. I'll be bored.

[Matthew Continetti]

Yeah.

[Abe Greenwald]

Then triumphal as I start to do well. And then almost completely absent the second that I'm losing ground.

[Matthew Continetti]

Do you have a favorite? So one to play under duress.

[Abe Greenwald]

Scrabble. And people would say, oh, you must be good at scra. I'm not good at scrapple. I'm not. I'm not. Whatever, whatever my facility with language and words is, it doesn't translate into the particular skills required to play Scrabble well. But I will play it. I think I have it because I will play it. But it doesn't come up a lot in my life. But yeah, scrap.

[John Podhoretz]

Okay.

[Christine Rosen]

Can I can I jump in? Because I have, you know, I have twins and one loves any board game. And I spent a lot of of the last 19 years playing various board games and I'm ambivalent about them, but I do like Scrabble. But I think the only way Scrabble works is that you, each family has to hack it in its own way. So we, we had to devise all kinds of rules because one kid took way too long to find a word, the other would just add an S to someone else's awesome word. And we're like, that's not fair. So you. We created our own little family rule book for Scrabble which made it kind of go along at a quicker pace because some of the agony, especially when you're playing civilizational based board games with young boys, is it like that's your whole afternoon that's going to be, that's going to be it for you. It's like building the big Legos, which I find more fun than the board games. But Scrabble is great if you hack it, and I'm a huge fan of that. But the game actually, as they got older, that everybody loved and we did this during COVID with, with a nearby family, we were in the same bubble is that we all, we learned all the different strategies and ways to play poker. And that took many, many months. And we would meet every week and you know, we played for pennies. And it was really great for the kids to learn because there were two teenagers and one younger kid to learn how to bet, to learn how to bluff. All that stuff was these are great, important human life lessons. And so I'm more of a fan of poker than board games, but I do like Scrabble.

[John Podhoretz]

So can I just say that one of the great pleasures of Scrabble as a parent is losing. Maybe people don't feel this way, but is like losing to your kid as your kid gets older and gets better and better and their vocabulary enlarges and they start seeing patterns and words and things like that. Boggle has much the same effect. If you've ever played, if you ever played Boggle, which is like a word jumble version of the jumble and that used to be in the newspaper. And at least one of my kids play a game and you know, I like go through three minutes, you have a timer and you go through this. And I'm very proud because I get like 22 words and then it's over. Like my daughter will say, can I go first? And I'll Be. Yes. And then she'll have like 80, I don't know, like she. And she's got 22 letter words. I mean, she's. It's unbelievable how. And so I, and so I just swell with pride at being humiliated by my, by my kid at Boggle. Anyway. So, Seth, you with six children.

[Seth Mandel]

Yes. So that's. Actually, I'm going to do two real quick. But the, and that's the. I have similar thinking along the lines of. The first one is chess. And you know, my kids aren't old enough to beat me yet, but I played with my nephew all through his chat. Spent a lot of time with my sister's family, especially when the two were. The two. The two oldest were young and so I played chess with him. And the first time he beat me was one of the happiest moments of my. I was like texting my sister and we were taking pictures, you know, and it was like. Because it's like I, I mean, I taught him how to beat me. But it's kind of like, you know, if your kid beats you at one on one in basketball or something, it's like there's a stage of development they have reached where they have, you know, but chess is something that just, you know, it will stick with you. The skills you learn will stick with you for life. That's sort of an obvious one for young, for, for children. The game that I have actually, the game that I, I actually like my kids playing is called the Magic Labyrinth. And this is for parents out there. The, the way you play the game is somebody sets up sort of maze. It's a, there's a, it's, it's magnetized. And somebody sets up the walls of a maze in order to put a specific prize or whatever, you know, somewhere on some square. The catch is the maze is underneath the board and you, your player has a magnetized bottom and a marble underneath him. And when you run into a wall, the marble drops and you have to go back to the start. So the, the wall, the maze is invisible. It teaches you to make an invisible maze. And the, and you have to remember each time you run into a wall and go back to the beginning, you have to try to remember the pathway that you've used to get different things.

[Matthew Continetti]

And this is different than Labyrinth. Yes, the game that all the.

[John Podhoretz]

We played as kids.

[Seth Mandel]

Yes, yes. Which is awesome.

[Matthew Continetti]

I mean, magic labyrinth.

[Seth Mandel]

Yeah, the magic.

[Matthew Continetti]

Where the maze, it's not the marble.

[Seth Mandel]

Although, although Labyrinth is amazing and great and you know, obviously, but yeah, it's Called the Magic Labyrinth, right. Is where somebody has to build, somebody who's not playing has to build an invisible wall and then the players have to learn the contours of the wall.

[John Podhoretz]

That sounds like hell on earth to me. That horrifying thing that's like if you wanted to let me, if you wanted me to give up the nuclear code, you would make me play that game. That is my idea of the worst thing I've ever heard. So. But I'm sure my kids would.

[Matthew Continetti]

Then there's of course the game from Parks and Recreation, the Cones of Dunshire.

[John Podhoretz]

Oh yeah, very cop.

[Matthew Continetti]

But so my, my choice, you know, as a young man I needed ways to express my Napoleonic tendencies. And so I found them released in what I believe to be the best board game of all time. And that is Axis and Allies. And so Axis and Allies, of course you up to five players, either three allies, major allied powers and then the two major axis powers and you run World War II and you get to be in the cockpit on either side. But of course one of the best pieces, parts of Axis and Allies are the game pieces because you know, as a 13 year old boy you like having your own submarine fleet and aircraft carrier fleet where you can position the fighters and then you have your bombers. And so there were many, many hours spent with my, my good friends playing Axis and Allies as a teenager. And so I recommend that to anyone who wants to conquer the world.

[John Podhoretz]

I mean, I guess I have to go with the most popular board game of all time, which is Monopoly. Yeah. And it can be depending on the age that you. And Monopoly has also many hacks. Right. There are many, many ways you can play Monopoly if you don't want to have a three and a half hour game. Which is.

[Christine Rosen]

I have a friend who wouldn't allow anyone to go to jail. She's very liberal, she's like no jail, no jail, no carceral state in Monopoly.

[John Podhoretz]

The story of Monopoly is fascinating. It was designed to be a sort of primer for socialism. And then of course because, because people want to win things and not, not, not, not cooperate. The, you know, they taught people how to be savage and how to bankrupt other people and get their property for as little as they possibly could and maximize their own strength and power and all of that. But it such a brilliantly designed conceit Monopoly that you know, almost 100 years later, I think it is still among the most popular, if not the most popular board game. And that thing as it begins to decline, where you see someone just getting slowly Squeezed and broken as. As things turn. Turn against them.

[Christine Rosen]

You add a hotel to, you know, Boardwalk.

[John Podhoretz]

Yeah. Rents get high. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, it's. I mean, by the way, on.

[Seth Mandel]

On Monopoly, you know, there's a. There's a. I was just reading this fascinating review of a book, Monopoly X in the Wall Street Journal. There is a history of how Monopoly was used by the Allies to escape prison camps in the Second World War. The. A wealthy. A wealthy Londoner made game. Made versions of the games because board games were being sent to prisoners. You could bring, you know, the Red Cross could bring board games for people to play in prison camps or whatever. They made certain versions of Monopoly and that had tiny compasses the size of a Monopoly piece and maps where there were some other stuff and they were marked in a very secret way. And this was. This was part of the. So Monopoly actually helped. Helped save the world.

[John Podhoretz]

There you go. And of course, the main issue is, did you or did you not get the car? Because, you know, if you started out the game with the car, you almost didn't even have to win because you had the car.

[Matthew Continetti]

As opposed to the top hat is my favorite charm.

[John Podhoretz]

But nobody wanted the shoe.

[Matthew Continetti]

No one wants the shoe.

[John Podhoretz]

I agree. Nobody wanted the shoe. But I am going to conclude by saying that of all games that are in existence, aside from Seth and chess, my son is a very good chess player. I am really not a chess player at all. But that the intellectual engagement that people have with chess is kind of a remarkable thing. And, and can, of course, go way too far. That there's a great family story that my dear family friend Hugh Weldon told of a friend of his who had a son who was clearly a genius, like three years old. The kid had started to learn Greek and Latin and. And stuff like that. And the parents were like, what do we do with this kid? How are we gonna keep him engaged? And something spectacular and strange and difficult is going on here. And the one thing that they all agreed on was that under no circumstances should this child be allowed anywhere near a chessboard because it would swallow him up and trap him forever. Bobby Fischer. Bobby Fischer. But I mean, that it has a particular connection to a certain type of intellectual, certain type of brain that it can capture and that you can never, never, never escape from. So there's. That is both the positive of the. I guess it's not the oldest game. I guess Parcheesi is the world, which is.

[Matthew Continetti]

Westerners play chess, John, but in China they play Go, go, Go. I think is older and as Henry Kissinger would always point out that shows the different mentalities, you know, and why the Chinese are well positioned to beat us in the. In this competition because you have to understand the mysteries of Go. Unlike this chess game that we play, which originated in India, I think.

[John Podhoretz]

Yeah, I do think the amazing thing about chess is that because of this long history, and this was Bobby Fischer's great strength, that, you know, every chess game, every major chess game for the last 250 years has been recorded. There is a. And so if you are. If you do have, like an eidetic memory and a certain type of brain, you can literally know every chess game that has ever been played and play it in response to whatever move is being made by your opposite number. And so there are certain people who can never lose. Right. There's that great player now who was so bored by chess. Who's the greatest player? I can't remember his name. Magnus.

[Seth Mandel]

Magnus.

[Christine Rosen]

He just got beat.

[John Podhoretz]

But he stopped playing physical chess. Like, he started playing in his head or playing people who would just call moves out or something like that.

[Matthew Continetti]

Remember how the great Sharansky passed the time in prison playing chess again against himself.

[Seth Mandel]

And one of the popular things you see at, you know, at hotels and other type of gathering is that, you know, they. They bring in a master to play a simul, and, you know, everybody can play the master and he has to play all, you know, 20 games simultaneously where he goes board by board and makes a move. You know, things that there are. There are sort of. Chess is funny because we. We keep inventing ways to try to corral the crazy genius that John is talking about.

[John Podhoretz]

Yeah.

[Seth Mandel]

Okay, well, now play 20 people simultaneously. Now play blindfolded. Now play with a clock. Now play with a shorter. And because of what chess is, if you have a certain type of brain, you can be unstoppable.

[John Podhoretz]

Yeah, it is an amazing thing. And by the way, just to conclude on this point, because my son became a chess player, we went back and watched the 1995. 1996 movie Searching for Bobby Fischer, which is based on his name, Alex Waitzkin's book about his son Josh, who became a. A grandmaster at the age of seven or eight and had these sort of two teachers, one of whom was like a classic chess teacher, you know, who. And then the other was a junkie who lived in Washington Square park, lived and played speeches to hustle people for money, and who was actually a better teacher than the. Than the great teacher. Lawrence Fisherman plays the junkie in the movie. Ben Kingsley plays The teacher in movie, Joe Mantegna plays the father. It is great. I think it's on Tubi, so I think you can watch it for free. But it is a beautiful, interesting movie about, like, what it's like to raise a. You know, to have to raise a kid who, like, has gifts that you can't even begin to imagine. And there is this moment in it when. When Montana, when there's a teacher. They played with a very young Laura Linney, who says, we're worried that Josh isn't making enough friends or he's not. This in the same kind of way that my friend Hugh said that the parents are worried about what to do with this genius kid. And Montagna says to her, I don't know what you want from me. This kid does something better than I have ever done anything in my entire life. And he does something better than you will ever be able to do in your entire life. Am I supposed to stop him? Am I supposed to prevent him from exercising this genius? And it is. It's a pretty. It's a pretty great scene in a pretty great movie. Okay, so we got.

[Seth Mandel]

By the way, my favorite personal, ish story like that is my friend. We grew up playing chess. And my friend is better than I ever was. Always very, very good. He was ahead of his captain of his chess team, you know, in public school, all that stuff. Just brilliant guy ranked and all that stuff. He would go to Washington Square park and play chess, which is like the. The chess place, you know, obviously.

[John Podhoretz]

And.

[Seth Mandel]

And one day he sits down these tables.

[John Podhoretz]

They have these public tables that are chess boards, like on concrete, you know. On concrete. Yeah. And. Yeah. And then there are these hustlers who play chess for money.

[Seth Mandel]

Yeah. So he sits down one day, and sitting across from him is the person who that day has been beating everybody. It is a person dressed as an amp energy drink can. It is a mascot of a Pepsi energy drink. And they were filming a. An ad for the energy drink, and they hired a, you know, a real ringer to wear the costume of a giant energy drink can. And my friend sat down and I saw my friend on YouTube in what ended up being a commercial, because he went to play chess, you know, normally. But that's how. That's how the sort of characterist nature of chess, you know, attracts. You may sit down one day and you may lose badly to a very smart can of amp energy drink.

[John Podhoretz]

She's made up her mind to live pretty smart, learn to budget responsibly. Right from the start, she Spends a little less and boots pouring through savings Keeps her blood pressure low and credit score raises. She's curtained debt right out of her life. She tracks her cash flow on her spreadsheet at night. Boring money moves make kinda lame songs.

[Abe Greenwald]

But they sound pretty sweet to your wallet.

[John Podhoretz]

BNC bank brilliantly boring since 1865. This episode is brought to you by JCPenney.

[Seth Mandel]

Yes, JCPenney.

[John Podhoretz]

And if you've been there recently, you know it's the place to go for.

[Seth Mandel]

Jaw dropping looks at brag worthy prices. They've got something special for every style and budget. Not to mention rewards and deals that make finding those hidden gems even sweeter.

[John Podhoretz]

If you already shop JCPenney, you're already.

[Seth Mandel]

In on the secret. But if not, it's time to ask.

[John Podhoretz]

Wait, am I sleeping on JCPenney?

[Seth Mandel]

Shop jcpenney.com yes, JCPenney.

[John Podhoretz]

Okay, so we got chess, we got Scrabble. We've got poker, We've got Monopoly. Axes and allies. Got Boggle. I am going to throw in one dis recommendation. If you can avoid it. If you could do whatever you can to avoid it. If you're. If you have young kids and they may play this at somebody else's house, do not bring it into your house. You will be so sorry. Is Settlers of Catan.

[Christine Rosen]

Oh, yes. Oh my God. I've played hours of my life playing Settlers.

[John Podhoretz]

Do not. This is a resource game. It's about how you deal with resources on an island. It is excruciating. It is boring. It is some form of politicized that I don't quite. It's about sustainability.

[Matthew Continetti]

German. That's all you need to know.

[John Podhoretz]

And it's just all the best games.

[Seth Mandel]

Are German game for three years ago.

[John Podhoretz]

I'm saying never get that back. Never get that back. My. My most profound advice to you is go to Amazon and then tell your kid that it's out of stock. And maybe you can get away with never having to have catan in your house. Because if you have it, you're gonna play it and you are gonna be so sorry. Okay, so that is our. That is our show. We've done books, we've done games. We'll be back with other fun and morosity another time. So for some Seth, Matt, Christine and Abe. I'm John. Pod Horiz. Keep the candle bur.