around the world in 80 days jules verne book review

Review of the Novel 'Around the World in 80 Days'

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Jules Verne 's Around the World in Eighty Days is a rip-roaring adventure story set primarily in  Victorian England but spans the world following its protagonist Phileas Fogg. Written with a cosmopolitan and open view of the world, Around the World in Eighty Days is a brilliant tale.

Vivid in its descriptions, Fogg, a cold, brittle man, who slowly shows that he does have the heart of an Englishman . The book wonderfully captures a spirit of adventure that was bubbling around the turn of the century and is impossible to put down.

The Main Plot

The story begins in London where the reader is introduced to an incredibly precise and controlled man by the name of Fogg. Fogg lives happily, although a little mysteriously, for no-one knows the true origin of his wealth. He goes to his gentleman's club every day, and it is there that he accepts a wager to travel around the world in eighty days. He packs his things and, along with his manservant, Passepartout he sets out on his journey.

Early on in his voyage, a police inspector begins to trail him, believing Fogg is a bank robber. After a reasonably uneventful start, difficulties emerge in India when Fogg realities that a train line he was hoping to take has not been finished. He decides to takes an elephant instead.

This diversion is fortunate in one way, for Fogg meets and saves an Indian woman from a forced marriage. On his journey, Fogg will fall in love with Aouda and, on his return to England will make her his wife. In the interim, however, Fogg faces a number of challenges, including losing Passepartout to a Yokohama circus and being attacked by Native Americans in the Midwest.

During this incident, Fogg shows his humanity by going off personally to save his manservant, despite the fact that this could well cost him his bet. Finally, Fogg manages to get back onto British soil (albeit by leading a mutiny aboard a French steamer) and seemingly in enough time to win his bet.

At this point, the police inspector arrests him, delaying him just long enough to lose the bet. He returns home saddened by his failure, but brightened by the fact that Aouda has agreed to marry him. When Passepartout is sent to arrange the wedding, he realizes that it is a day earlier than they think (by traveling East across the International date line they have gained a day), and so Fogg wins his bet.

The Human Spirit of Adventure

Unlike many of his more science-based fiction stories, Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days is interested in the capabilities of technology in his own time. The things that human beings can achieve armed only with a sense of adventure and an exploratory spirit. It is also a brilliant dissection of what it is to be English in the time of empire.

Fogg is a brilliantly drawn character, a man who is stiff-upper-lipped and precise in all his habits. However, as the novel goes on the icy man begins to thaw. He begins to place the importance of friendship and love above his usual concerns of reserve and punctuality. In the end, he is willing to lose his bet to help a friend. He doesn’t care about defeat because he has won the hand of the woman he loves.

Although some would argue it doesn't have the great literary merit of some novels written around the same time, Around the World in Eighty Days certainly makes up for it with its vivid descriptions. The undoubtedly a classic story is peopled with characters who will be long remembered. It is a breathtaking roller-coaster ride around the world and a touching view of an older time. Filled with the thrill of adventure, Around the World in Eighty Days is a wonderful story, written with skill and no short order of panache.

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Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne a Review

You may or may not know this, but Jules Verne is one of the grandfathers of science fiction! HG Wells is the other granddaddy.

It took me a while to warm up to the science fiction. Now I feel more comfortable reading science novels.

If you're new to science fiction, Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne could be your introduction to the genre.

In a hurry to get started? CLICK HERE to grab your personal copy of Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne from Amazon !

Below, you'll find my book review and summary of Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days!

All images in this post are clickable! 

Seven Key Lessons from  Around the World in Eighty Days  by Jules Verne

•  Be flexible.
• Be careful who you take into your confidence – loose lips sink ships.
• The best laid plans fall apart so have a Plan B.
• Even the most fastidious person makes mistakes.
• Believe in yourself.
• Take chances in life and don’t always play it safe.
• Life is never just about you.

Initial Thoughts on Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne

Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne is set in the 1870s and is a book of contradictions ( Review of Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne ). Phileas Fogg appears mysterious to others because they really do not know much about him.

He is a man of few words, but when he speaks, his words count. People do not know where he is from, or anything about his family. They can tell that he is a man of means, yet he doesn’t employ much help in his household, which helps to stem the gossip about him. Around the World in Eighty days is a hero's journey.

Phileas Fogg is called to take a trip around the world and complete it in a short time span. The main theme of the story is traveling around the globe in just 80 days, and it is also about perseverance.

Have you read?

Review of  Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne

Self-Mentoring Strategy

To get the most from this SummaReview of  Around the World in Eighty Days  by Jules Verne , after you have read the book review/summary, reflectively answer the following questions:

• What can you learn from the ideas in the SummaReview?
• What is one action that you can take as a result of reading this  SummaReview ?
• What are five takeaways from the  SummaReview ?
• What has made an impression on you while reading?
• Is there a framework that you can use in your life and work?
• How do the concepts in the SummaReview relate to what you already know?
• How can you combine key ideas from the profile with what you already know to create a new idea?
• Is this a book you’d like to read for yourself? Why? Why not?

What is Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne About?

Fogg knows a lot about the world, information that only one well travelled would know, and is often correcting others, yet no one can ever remember a time when he wasn’t around. No one remembers him taking a trip for any length of time. Fogg is also very set in his ways – he leaves his home the same time every day and returns the same time every night and takes the same number of steps to and from.

When he leaves he goes to the Reform Club to have his meals. Fogg always sits at the same table in the same room, and eats alone. He also enjoys a good game of whist and reading the paper. He is so set in his ways, that he fires his manservant because the water he uses to shave was 84 degrees Fahrenheit instead of 86.

Although Phileas Fogg is very set in his ways, he is also charitable, giving money to the poor.

Upon a recommendation, Fogg employs Jean Passepartout to be his new manservant. Passepartout is ready for a change and believes working for Fogg is exactly what he is looking for – he wants predictability and sameness. When he looks at the schedule for his daily work, he is very contented and believes he has landed in the perfect job. Passepartout is French, but left his homeland a few years before. In a previous life, he was a gymnast.

The same day Fogg hires Passepartout life changes for both of them. While playing whist at the Reform Club with his regular partners – Andrew Stuart, an engineer; John Sullivan and Samuel Fallentin, bankers; Thomas Flanagan, a brewer; and Gauthier Ralph, one of the directors of the Bank of England – they have a conversation about a bank robbery of 55,000 pounds at the Bank of England. In those days, they did not have the kind of security we have today and to hear the description, what they actually had was no security. The money was taken from the principal cashier’s table.

During the conversation, they try to figure out who the bank robber could be. Fogg mentions that the world is no longer as big as it was. So of course there is a question about what he means by that. Stuart tries to explain how the world is smaller, and postulates that you can travel around the world in three months. Fogg interjects saying that it’s only eighty days, and John Sullivan agrees with him and proceeds to give them the breakdown which was in the Daily Telegraph:

Breakdown of 80-Day Trip: Mapping Fogg's Trip Around the World in Eighty Days

Stuart exclaims that the time doesn’t take into account bad weather, shipwrecks, contrary winds, railways accidents and other events likely to delay a trip. Phileas Fogg tells them that all of those eventualities are included in the time, and during the time the conversation is going on, he calmly plays whist when it is his turn. The events that the others mention that would likely lengthen a trip around the world, Fogg calmly responds that all those events are included in the 80 days.

Phileas Fogg takes up the challenge to travel around the world in 80 days. He bets 20,000 pounds that he can do it. They accept the bet and Fogg decides to leave that very night. The deal is that Phileas Fogg leaves Wednesday, October 2 nd and return Saturday, December 21 st at 9 pm at the Reform Club. He hands them a cheque for 20,000 pounds, which they will cash if the trip takes more than 80 days. They sign a memorandum of the agreement and now the wager is legal.

He gets home much earlier than his schedule says and that upsets Passepartout, who is looking for predictability. When Fogg informs his manservant about the trip, Passepartout is “overcome with stupefied astonishment.”

Fogg has 40,000 pounds, which is a very large sum in the 1870s. He has wagered half and will use the other half for the trip. He decides to travel light, buying what he and Passepartout need on the way. Fogg makes sure that he takes a copy of Bradshaw’s Continental Railway Steam Transit and General Guide, which has a timetable of the departures and arrivals of steamers and railways.

Around The World In 80 Days Video

(This film adaptation is very different from the book.)

The 80-Day Trip Begins

His five friends from the Reform Club see them off on their journey around the world in eighty days. Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne is a page turner, and although the author is a pioneer in science fiction, this book captivates the reader, and he disperses history bites throughout the book.

After Fogg leaves London, there is much talk about the wager to travel the world in eighty days, and the newspapers – The Times, Standard, Morning Post, Daily News and 20 other respected newspapers – get caught up in the hype. They think Fogg is mad, except for The Daily Telegraph, which is his sole media supporter. People start to take bets as to whether or not Fogg can complete the journey in the specified timeframe. The bets are against Fogg, 100 and 150 to one.

The Commissioner of Police becomes very suspicious of Fogg. He thinks Fogg is the bank robber and intends to escape by going on the trip. They dispatch Detective Fix to go after Fogg. This is a fantastic book with so many lessons. Early on in the book, we see Fogg as a very inflexible person, but is that who he is? Or is he someone who believes in himself?

Whenever he encounters a challenge he calmly finds a solution because he is determined to win the wager. When he misses one of the steamers along the way, he finds another way to reach his destination, and is able to do so because he has the means.

Fogg keeps meticulous notes on his travel, and makes sure that he gets a visa stamped into his passport even when he doesn’t need to because he wants indisputable proof that he has completed his journey.

When the train they are travelling on in India runs out of track because the railway is not completed, he buys an elephant, Kiouni, and hires a Parsee as a guide. Although it can be dangerous, the guide takes them on a route that’s hidden – through the Indian forest. On their way, they encounter some Brahmins who are on their way to give a human sacrifice to the goddess Kali – the Goddess of love and death.

The guide informs them that it’s an unwilling sacrifice and tells them about Aouda, the young woman who is being sacrificed. At this point in his journey, Fogg is ahead of schedule due to a steamer taking less time than anticipated. Fogg and his group stage a rescue to get Aouda, and Passepartout’s days as a gymnast come in very handy.

When Aouda recovers from the influence of opiates she was exposed to she is able to talk to them and Fogg learns that she has a well-to-do relative in Hong Kong. He thinks that’s the best thing for her is to take her to Hong Kong since staying in India may cause the Brahmins to kidnap her again to use as a human sacrifice. When they arrive in Hong Kong they learn that Aouda’s relative no longer lives there and probably lives in Holland so, Fogg decides to take the young woman with him on his journey.

You see Auoda falling in love with her protector, but it appears that Fogg is quite unaware. He appears to people to have a heart of stone. Along the journey Detective Fix befriends Passepartout and the manservant has loose lips. Ever heard of the phrase, “loose lips sink ships?” He gives Fix too much information even though the detective initially doesn’t disclose his identity. Even when Fix tells Passepartout that he is a detective, and that he believes that Fogg is the bank robber, the manservant doesn’t believe it for a second, yet he doesn’t tell his master.

Fix does many things to undermine Fogg on his trip. When they backfire, he decides to support the adventurer until he gets back on British soil, so that he can arrest him. Fogg is an honourable man, and the reader sees that time and time again. When the train they are on from San Francisco is attacked by Indians, and Passepartout is taken away with a couple of other passengers, Fogg goes after them, and he rescues them.

He is willing to try new things. When the train leaves them because it’s on a schedule and cannot wait for him to find the kidnapped passengers, when Fogg returns, he is willing to ride on a sledge at the suggestion of Fix. That is the only way to reach New York in time to get back to England before December 21 st .

When they arrive on British soil, Fix arrests Fogg for being a bank robber. Fogg he sees his last 20,000 pounds disappearing before his eyes. Hours later, Fix returns after discovering that the real bank robber was captured a few days before. The usually calm Fogg punches the detective.

Fogg, Passepartout and Aouda go to his residence in London. He is quite sad because he has lost the bet and no longer has any money. Auoda says she will marry him, and he accepts because he is in love with her. Fogg sends Passepartout for the Reverend Samuel Wilson to marry them the next day, which is Monday, but the place is closed.

It turns out that because of the route they took to travel the world in 80 days, going east to west, they gained a day, which they hadn’t accounted for, so Fogg is able to get to the Reform Club on time after all.

Should You Buy Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne?

I recommend Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne. The book is a page turner, and any reader who loves a good story will enjoy reading it. Just to recap, here are seven lessons that you'll learn.

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Documentary: Prophets of Science Fiction – Episode 6 – Jules Verne

About the Author  Avil Beckford

Hello there! I am Avil Beckford, the founder of The Invisible Mentor. I am also a published author, writer, expert interviewer host of The One Problem Podcast and MoreReads Success Blueprint, a movement to help participants learn in-demand skills for future jobs. Sign-up for MoreReads: Blueprint to Change the World today! In the meantime, Please support me by buying my e-books Visit My Shop , and thank you for connecting with me on LinkedIn , Facebook , Twitter and Pinterest !

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Around the world in Eighty days by Jules Verne - review

Phileas Fogg lives at No. 7, Saville Row, Burlington Gardens. He's a rich bachelor, around 40 years of age, but nobody knows his source of his ₤40,000 fortune. This amount was significant in the year 1872, when the story is set.

Phileas Fogg lives life in clockwork precision. He is a regular member of the Reform Club, who dismissed his domestic worker James Forster, because he had brought him shaving-water at 84 degrees Fahrenheit instead of 86. Forster is replaced by a Frenchman, Jean Passepartout. At the Reform Club, Phileas Fogg accepts a ₤20,000 bet that he can tour the world in 80 days. All the leading newspapers carry this news and the media considerit as madness. Only The Daily Telegraph supported him.

Phileas Fogg's Itinerary: London to Suez via Mont Cenis and Brindisi Rail and Steamer 7 days

Suez to Bombay Steamer 13 days

Bombay to Calcutta Rail 3 days

Calcutta to Hong Kong Steamer 13 days

Hong Kong to Yokohama (Japan) Steamer 6 days

Yokohama to San Francisco Steamer 22 days

San Francisco to New York City Rail 7 days

New York City to London Rail and Steamer 9 days Total 80 days

Thus Phileas Fogg sets out on his journey around the world with Jean Passepartout. Just as they set out, Passepartout suddenly utters a cry of despair. "'What's the matter?' asked Mr. Fogg. 'Alas! In my hurry--I--I forgot--' 'What?' 'To turn off the gas in my room!' 'Very well, young man,' returns Mr. Fogg, coolly; 'it will burn--at your expense.'"

During their Indian sojourn Passepartout loses his shoes as he enters a place of worship, ignorant of the fact that they should have been parked outside. They are torn from him by three enraged priests.

On his way Phileas Fogg learns about the barbaric practice of 'sati' (Burning of a woman after the death of her husband) and decides to save the woman. The victim Aouda, is an educated lady. Left an orphan, she was married against her will to the old Rajah of Bundelkund. But Phileas Fogg decides to save the woman and hatches out a plan which is executed successfully when he abducts the woman by tricking the guards. Ultimately Phileas Fogg marries Aouda. Their journey continues.

With all the delays, the group think they have arrived back in London five minutes too late. However, the next day they discover they were one day ahead of schedule. This was because they had travelled in an eastward direction, gaining an extra day as they travelled across different time zones!

A well-researched book I should say, but it is very clear that Phileas Fogg didn't travel to the continents of South America and Africa. Jules Verne missed out on those two continents and so the title if the book - Around the World in Eighty Days - is somewhat ironic.

It highlights the precision of Phileas Fogg in a brilliant manner and also showcases the criticism received by Phileas Fogg before leaving for his world tour in the finest way….An unforgettable classic which is recommended for all the ages

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Around the World in Eighty Days

Jules verne, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

Around the World in Eighty Days tells the story of Phileas Fogg , an Englishman living in the Victorian Era who bets £20,000 that he can circle the globe in exactly eighty days. Fogg is an extremely wealthy man with eccentric habits—he has no family or close relationships yet is extremely generous with strangers, and he abides by a strict, repetitive schedule that he keeps track of on an intricate clock in his mansion. He spends every day at the exclusive Reform Club social organization, where he dines extravagantly, reads newspapers, and bets on games of whist with his similarly wealthy acquaintances. Due to Fogg’s reclusive, solitary nature, no one knows much about him despite his public reputation of being knowledgeable, worldly, and gentlemanly.

On October 2nd, 1872, Fogg hires a new servant named Jean Passepartout . Passepartout is a Parisian man who once led an adventurous life as a vagrant and performer, and now longs for the same calm, routinized life that Fogg leads. That evening, Fogg plays whist with his usual partners at the Reform Club: Andrew Stuart , Gauthier Ralph , John Sullivan , Samuel Fallentin , and Thomas Flanagan . The men get into a discussion about a recent robbery at the Bank of England by a “well-to-do” gentleman and theorize about whether or not he will be able to evade authorities by leaving the country.

This conversation eventually leads to Stuart betting £4,000 that it is impossible for a man to go around the world in eighty days. Fogg impulsively counters with a £20,000 wager that he himself can complete this challenge, which Stuart and the other men agree to. Fogg leaves immediately to pack and make the 8:45 P.M. train, taking a bemused Passepartout along with him. Fogg’s itinerary has him traveling from London to Paris, Suez, Calcutta, Hong Kong, Yokohama, San Francisco, New York, and back to London. He must meet his friends back at the Reform Club precisely eighty days later on December 21st at 8:45 P.M. in order to win the wager.

Detective Fix , an inspector from the Scotland Yard, trails Fogg and Passepartout to Suez. Due to Fogg’s sizable fortune, strange habits, and hasty departure from England, Fix believes that he is the very bank robber that Fogg and his acquaintances were discussing at the Reform Club. He must wait for a warrant to arrive in order to legally arrest Fogg in British territory (England, India, Hong Kong, or Yokohama) and becomes acquainted with Passepartout in an effort to gain information about Fogg. Neither Fogg nor Passepartout are aware of his suspicions, instead remaining focused solely on the wager.

Throughout their journey, Fogg is calm and logical at all times, but meticulously tracks the time they lose and gain due to unforeseen obstacles. Passepartout falls into a similar obsession with time, cursing every delay they face and refusing to change his watch away from London time. One such obstacle occurs when they reach India—Fogg, Passepartout, and their newfound acquaintance Sir Francis Cromarty are forced to traverse the undeveloped jungle because their train is halted by an unfinished track. They resort to riding on an elephant led by a helpful guide and stop to save a young Indian woman named Aouda from a sacrificial religious ceremony along the way, a gesture that Fogg and his companions agree is well worth the delay.

In Hong Kong, Fix reunites with Fogg, Passepartout, and Aouda. He decides to get Passepartout intoxicated on alcohol and opium in order to make them miss the steamer to Yokohama (the last British territory they will visit before moving onto the United States) and to bide more time for the arrest warrant to arrive. Though they are temporarily separated and delayed, Fogg is able to pay a pilot-boat captain named John Bunsby to get him to his destination, and Passepartout manages to navigate Yokohama on his own. They are reunited by chance at an acrobatic show in Yokohama, and Fix does not receive his warrant in time to arrest Fogg.

From there, Fogg, Passepartout, Aouda, and Fix all travel to the United States, where they cross the country from San Francisco to New York by train. By this time, Fix has begun to warm up to Fogg’s generosity and endearingly stoic nature, though he is still motivated by a sense of duty to arrest him once they reach England. Passepartout and Aouda, too, have developed love and reverence for Fogg, and vow to stay loyal to him not matter what. The group faces myriad challenges and delays throughout the long journey—most notably, their train is attacked by a band of Sioux in Nebraska and Passepartout is taken captive. Luckily, Fogg (with the help of soldiers from Fort Kearny) is able to save his loyal servant.

In order to catch the train from Omaha to Chicago, Fogg, Passepartout, Aouda, and Fix must resort to riding on a sail-rigged sledge driven through the bitterly cold winter snow by an American named Mudge . They make the train on time and continue from Chicago onto New York, but realize that they missed the steamer to Liverpool, England once they arrive. On the Hudson River, Fogg pays Captain Andrew Speedy to bring him and his companions along on his trading vessel to Bordeaux. Once he is on board, Fogg bribes the crew to take Speedy hostage and commandeers the boat to sail to Liverpool. They nearly run out of coal, so he buys the boat from Speedy and burns it for fuel. They make it as far as Ireland and take a train to Liverpool, where Fix finally places Fogg under arrest.

After a short stint imprisoned in the Custom House, Fix finds out that the real bank robber was apprehended three days prior; Fogg is released and orders a special train to London with Passepartout and Aouda. They arrive five minutes too late, however, and Fogg believes that he has lost the wager. Passepartout and Aouda go back with him to his house in Saville Row, and both blame themselves for Fogg losing the wager, and thus, his reputation and fortune. Aouda, saddened by Fogg’s lonely life in England, asks him to marry her. He accepts, professes his love for her, and sends Passepartout to notify the local reverend of their engagement.

Passepartout, however, finds that the reverend is not home, which causes him to realize that it is actually Saturday, December 21st and not Sunday, December 22nd as they had assumed. He and Fogg failed to factor in the day they gained by crossing the International Date Line. Passepartout rushes home to share the news, and Fogg makes it to the Reform Club three seconds before 8:45 P.M., winning the £20,000 wager. He and Aouda are married the following Monday, which makes Fogg “the happiest of men” and is ultimately what gives his journey around the world in eighty days a sense of meaning.

‘Around the World in Eighty Games’ Review: Glory of the Board

A s Phileas Fogg circles the planet in “Around the World in Eighty Days,” the novelist Jules Verne describes his hero winning at whist aboard a ship on the Red Sea and in a train across the Rocky Mountains. Marcus du Sautoy also combines games with globetrotting: “I love them so much so that on all my travels around the world, I seek out the games that people like to play in the country I’m visiting,” he writes in “Around the World in Eighty Games,” a Verne-inspired and idiosyncratic tour “of the many crazy, fantastic, addictive games that our species has created.”

Mr. du Sautoy, a math professor at Oxford, is so enthusiastic about his subject that he follows the Dutch cultural historian Johan Huizinga in suggesting that we Homo sapiens switch our binomial name to Homo ludens. “It is the ability to play, not think, that has been crucial in our development,” he writes.

What really attracts Mr. du Sautoy to gaming, however, is the opportunity to think about numbers. “Games for me are a way of playing mathematics.” He enjoys calculating that bingo’s 5-by-5 grids and 75 balls can produce more than 111 quadrillion ways to fill a card. His book bursts with such data.

Admirers of the late Martin Gardner and his writings on recreational math will enjoy Mr. du Sautoy’s equations, but the most interesting sections of his book blend theories about what makes a good game with examples from his travels. “The best games are those with simple rules that give rise to complex, rich, and varied outcomes,” he writes. He believes that games should involve both brains and luck—enough strategy to encourage smart play but also elements of chance to allow weak players occasionally to defeat strong ones.

The best board game ever, he says, is not a classic such as Monopoly but rather a newer one: Settlers of Catan, which has sold tens of millions of copies since its debut in 1995. It involves the peopling of an island made up of 19 hexagon-shaped tiles. Players roll dice and compete for territory as they build cities and trade resources.

Settlers of Catan was conceived by Klaus Teuber, a dental technician in Germany, a country that Mr. du Sautoy calls “the modern-day Mecca of games.” He credits the city of Nuremberg and its “toymaking tradition” as well as Germany’s post-Nazi ban on the importation of war toys, which “acted as a catalyst for a completely new strand of gaming.” In this creative culture, game designers are celebrated not as “inventors” but as “authors,” whose names appear on the covers of boxes. Germans, writes Mr. du Sautoy, anticipate the latest games from Reiner Knizia or Wolfgang Kramer “like readers seek out the new John Grisham or Stephen King book.”

This observation about a country’s gaming customs and conventions grows naturally from the organizing principle behind “Around the World in Eighty Games.” Mr. du Sautoy envisions an itinerary that takes him to India (where he considers chess), Japan (Pokémon cards) and the United States (casinos and Wordle), among other places. At times, however, his concept gets the better of him, and parts of his narrative can feel like a forced march led by a demanding tour guide. He discusses the British-born board game Cluedo (known as Clue in North America) while crossing the Pacific Ocean mostly because he doesn’t know how else to fill his fictional travel schedule.

His approach also pulls him into speculation. Cultures that prefer games of chance to games of strategy, he proposes, may reflect “a fatalistic outlook on life over a belief in agency over one’s destiny.” He muses that a fondness for a “territorial” game like Go, instead of an “aggressive” game like chess, reveals “what a culture values and how it views the world.” Although elsewhere he is keen to show mathematical proofs, here he is content to let provocative ideas remain half-baked assertions. He also asks a question of mancala, a game with deep roots in Africa: “Does a country that enjoys tougher versions of the game have more innovative business communities?” He doesn’t gamble with an answer.

Equally frustrating is the sporadic intrusion of politics, from which games may provide a reprieve. Mr. du Sautoy wants readers to know, for example, that he has “left-wing political leanings.” He refers to “the injustices of the Margaret Thatcher years,” and, in an unfortunate remark given the recent atrocities of Hamas, he deplores “Israel’s rather hard-core stances in the Middle Eastern political arena.”

When Mr. du Sautoy discusses the Royal Game of Ur, which once was played in the shadow of Mesopotamian ziggurats and which he learned about as a boy at the British Museum, he utters a platitude of wokeness: “I am acutely aware that the fascination of earlier generations with collecting artifacts from around the world robbed those cultures of their heritage.” This is an astonishing statement, given that the Royal Game of Ur had vanished from memory until the British archaeologist Leonard Woolley discovered it during an excavation in present-day Iraq. “It is a remarkable thing to be able to play a round of the same game that entertained the Babylonians five thousand years ago,” writes Mr. du Sautoy, who is right to marvel. Yet he seems unable to connect the dots between the relic hunting that he laments and the cultural restoration that he applauds.

When he sticks strictly to games, Mr. du Sautoy is full of engaging opinions. “I regard a pack of cards as one of humanity’s most extraordinary inventions,” he writes, because it is “fantastically portable” and “can be used to play a huge range of games.” He reports that it takes seven good shuffles to randomize a deck of cards.

Mr. du Sautoy also defends games from the “stigma” of frivolousness—as if, as he puts it, “playing Zelda is bad, but reading Zola is good.” Card games and board games, he says, increase longevity and fight dementia. Even violent videogames have benefits: “Nongamers who played a first-person shooting game called Medal of Honor for an hour a day found that they were able to focus on tasks with multiple distractions far better than those who were given a more passive video game like Tetris to play.” And Tetris, by the way, “boosts general cognitive functions,” according to research that he cites.

Mr. du Sautoy writes about one game that he plainly doesn’t enjoy: Dungeons & Dragons. There’s no accounting for taste, and readers who relish role-playing games can turn to an excellent alternative: “Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground,” by Stu Horvath, a writer and podcaster. This nicely illustrated book about D&D and its kin offers a series of engaging entries on rule manuals such as the “Players Handbook” and adventure modules such as “The Keep on the Borderlands.” Gamers who once studied these and similar materials will find themselves on a nostalgic expedition through the history of a hobby.

The role-playing revolution started in the 1970s, when Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson adapted tabletop war games involving miniature figures and Napoleonic battles into a new game about individual characters in a fantasy of swords and sorcery. Instead of armchair generals who clashed at Waterloo, players imagined themselves as wizards and warriors who embarked on quests under the guidance of a storytelling referee known as the “dungeon master.” Published by TSR, a Gygax-led company in Wisconsin, D&D became a sensation.

TSR issued a range of major and minor products, which Mr. Horvath describes with both affection and a critical eye. He also covers the wider role-playing industry. After the success of Dungeons & Dragons, he notes, people started to look for new games that resembled it. One early alternative was Tunnels & Trolls, devised by Ken St. Andre, a librarian in Phoenix. Soon after came the space-opera game Traveller and then varieties that drew from the horror writings of H.P. Lovecraft, the espionage of James Bond and the superheroes of comic books. There was even a game based on “Dallas,” the television show.

Mr. Horvath covers them all, through products released as recently as 2020—and reveals a world of play that can keep Homo ludens occupied for a lifetime.

Mr. Miller is director of the Dow Journalism Program at Hillsdale College and the author of “Reading Around: Journalism on Authors, Artists, and Ideas.”

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Around the World in 80 Days [Paperback] Jules Verne Paperback – 1 September 2010

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• ISBN-10 9380005806
• ISBN-13 978-9380005805
• Publisher Maple Press
• Publication date 1 September 2010
• Language English
• Dimensions 21.6 x 14 x 1.22 cm
• Print length 280 pages
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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Maple Press (1 September 2010)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 280 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9380005806
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-9380005805
• Reading age ‏ : ‎ 13 years and up
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 260 g
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 21.6 x 14 x 1.22 cm
• #1,309 in Classic Fiction (Books)

About the author

Jules verne.

Jules Verne (1828-1905) was a French author best known for his tales of adventure, including Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and Around the World in Eighty Days. A true visionary, Verne foresaw the skyscraper, the submarine, and the airplane, among many other inventions, and is now regarded as one of the fathers of science fiction.

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Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne

Around the World in 80 Days

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Travel around the world with the perpetually unruffled Phileas Fogg and his stalwart French valet Passepartout in this new "update" of the classic novel's original English translation - 150 years after its publication. Laugh at the ironic jibes and the bumbling Detective Fix, gasp at the high adventure and perilous misadventures, and feel the thrill of haste and ingenuity, but no longer wince at badly aged language and harmful stereotypes. This gentle modernization changes only as much as necessary and retains everything that has made this novel an immortal classic. Genuinely funny and duly iconic, Jules Verne's greatest classic will hopefully continue to inspire and delight readers for another 150 years. The humble adjustments of this edition are meant to benefit this happy legacy.

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Around The World In 80 Days: By Jules Verne : Illustrated Kindle Edition

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• Print length 329 pages
• Language English
• Sticky notes On Kindle Scribe
• Publication date March 25, 2016
• File size 2940 KB
• Page Flip Enabled
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• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B01DG9WPPY
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ (March 25, 2016)
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 25, 2016
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• File size ‏ : ‎ 2940 KB
• Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
• Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
• Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
• Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 329 pages
• Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 1534893660
• #29,056 in Action & Adventure Fiction (Kindle Store)
• #60,982 in Action & Adventure Fiction (Books)

About the author

Jules verne.

Jules Verne (1828-1905) was a French author best known for his tales of adventure, including Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and Around the World in Eighty Days. A true visionary, Verne foresaw the skyscraper, the submarine, and the airplane, among many other inventions, and is now regarded as one of the fathers of science fiction.

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