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Books

Matching Minds With Sondheim: The Puzzles and Games of the Broadway Master (2024)

By near-universal consensus, Stephen Sondheim was the greatest musical theater composer of his generation—celebrated, among other things, for the wit, sophistication, and intricacy of shows from West Side Story to Sunday in the Park with George. A less well-known avenue for his brilliant creativity was his lifelong fascination with designing and constructing intricate puzzles and games: from treasure hunts and crossword puzzles to parlor and board games.

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Matching Minds with Sondheim is a journey into this rich but largely unmapped aspect of the composer’s creative life, illuminating how Sondheim’s playful designs delivered moments of clarity and connection for his friends and colleagues. For the first time, this book offers an enthralling tour of what Sondheim described as his “puzzler’s mind,” helping readers to better understand the man, his work, and—if they accept the challenge—themselves.

Gaming expert and theater fan Barry Joseph draws from over eighty years of Sondheim’s activities, collecting his extremely rare and never-publicly-seen puzzles and game designs, scores of original interviews with the celebrity friends who played them, deep dives into Sondheim-related archives from around the country, and analysis from both puzzle designers and theater professionals from around the world.

Matching Minds will do more than describe Sondheim’s work: It will allow readers to match minds with the maestro by attempting to solve Sondheimian puzzles and bring Sondheimian games into their own homes.

Pre-sale available now.

Reactions from early readers:

Matching Minds does justice to a man who was good at having fun. Readers will have an absolute blast with this book.”

“An essential read for anyone who wants to understand what made this creative genius tick.”

Follow the latest on the book at MatchingMindswithSondheim.com and on Instagram.

Making Dinosaurs Dance: A Toolkit for Digital Design in Museums (2023)

 

Book title - Making Dinosaurs Dance - with lots of images

“A wonderful guide to the kind of agile, experimental, responsive operational strategies needed in the museum of the future.” — Elizabeth Merritt, Founding Director, Center for the Future of Museums, American Alliance of Museums    

Making Dinosaurs Dance takes the reader behind the scenes to learn how the American Museum of Natural History innovates visitor digital engagement, highlighting design techniques used both there and at museums around the world. Based on my six years at the landmark institution that inspired the Night at the Museum franchise, the book introduces The Six Tools of Digital Design – user research, rapid prototyping, public piloting, iterative design, youth collaboration, and teaming up – then applies them through case studies across a range of topics.

Read more here.

Friday is Tomorrow, or The Dayenu Year (2022)
Chronicles from the NYC Covid-19 Oral History, Narrative and Memory Archive

Cover text: Friday is Tomorrow

“Stories like Joseph’s suggest we are a lot better than we think we are.”Micki McElya, author of The Politics of Mourning

Compulsively readable”James Loney, columnist

Friday is Tomorrow, or The Dayenu Year is a true story of learning to grieve and thrive during the first year of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Within the first month of the lock-down, the author loses his father to the disease and then, soon after, his job. Through the support of his family, friends, and community, Friday is Tomorrow tells the uplifting story of how one man learns to maintain traditions in a time of uncertainty while reaching for his dreams.

At times moving, at times humorous, the ups and downs of this New Yorker were originally penned (quite literally, with a physical pen) for Columbia University’s NYC Covid-19 Oral History, Narrative and Memory Archive. Edited together for the first time, Friday is Tomorrow is more than just an opportunity to read one person’s struggle with the world wrought by the recent pandemic.

It is an invitation to take the time and space you need to consider and better understand your own story.

Learn how to get your own copy, download a free sample, and more at FridayisTomorrow.com.

Seltzertopia: The Extraordinary Story of an Ordinary Drink (2018)

Book cover reading Seltzertopia

“Of the thousands of books written about seltzer water, this is by far my favorite–especially the part that’s about me.” –Mel Brooks

Based on more than fourteen years of original research and interviews, the extraordinary story of this ordinary drink can finally be told.

Learn where to get your own copy, watch videos of presentations, follow the book tour and more at Seltzertopia.com.

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© Copyright 2023 – Barry Joseph

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