Place 4 random Book Shelf cards in a column on the table. (In the base game, ignore the special power on these cards.)
Give each player 4 Book Cards.
If you manage to play all the cards, you win the game! Otherwise, the game ends if somebody can’t play a card. The fewer cards you have left, the better you did.
Begin with the start player, then take clockwise turns until done.
While playing, it’s forbidden to explicitly communicate or reveal what’s in your hand. It’s up to your group how much communication around that is allowed (such as asking people not to touch a certain part of the library).
On your turn, play at least 2 cards to the library.
- Each card must connect to an existing card.
- You must play to an existing shelf.
- Each shelf must be sorted alphabetically by title (from A-Z, following the arrow).
- But you may also play a card on top of another card with the same letter.
Over time, the shelves might be messed up. That’s why alphabetical order is simply defined as:
The letter must appear in the alphabet AFTER the first letter before it (to the left), and BEFORE the first letter after it (to the right). Identical letters are allowed.
If you create 4 in a row of the same genre (horizontal, vertical, or diagonal), you “complete the genre”.
- Remove all cards used for matching from the board.
- Give one of them to any player, who places it faceup before them. (Discard the others.)
- This player can now, at any time during their turn, use this card for its power.
- Once used, the power is gone.
Draw back up to the hand limit (which is 4 cards by default).
There are 6 different colors in the game. Each represents a general type of special power. For each game, you simply pick one option per color.
It’s recommended to play with all 6, but …
- Use fewer colors for a much easier game
- Or double some colors for a much harder game
The genre powers are written on the cards themselves. There’s no need to memorize them. The full list below is merely for reference.
These powers are bad and trigger instantly.
- Horror: You lose the game
- Detective: Remove 1 Book Shelf. (All cards inside are discarded.)
- True Crime: The Hand Limit is permanently lowered by 1
- Tragedy: You can’t stack letters on top of each other anymore.
These powers are about adding value or bonuses.
- Romance: Remove 5 cards from the deck.
- Comedy: Add a Book Shelf card to the top or bottom
- Adventure: The Hand Limit is permanently raised by 1
- Self-Help: You may place cards ON TOP of other cards in your turn
These powers are about moving around cards, making the library more fluid.
- Thriller: Move 2 cards to an empty space adjacent to the library.
- Action: Swap 2 cards.
- Travel: Remove 2 cards from the library. You may replace them with a hand card.
- Mythology: Take 2 cards from the library into your hand.
These powers turn off a core rule of the game in times of need.
- Fantasy: No need to play any card this turn.
- SciFi: No need to follow adjacency rule this turn. (You can place diagonally adjacent or leave a gap of at most 1 card.)
- Poetry: No need to follow alphabetical order this turn.
- Graphic Novel: No need to follow the restriction on the number of book shelves this turn.
These powers help communicate or give info to players.
- Biography: Show your hand to the table.
- Science: Tap 2 cards on the board (to give or ask hints).
- Business: All players give their hand to the player on their left.
- Cooking: Study the next 6 cards in the deck. Return them in any order and tell everyone what they are.
This color has weird, unique, special, disrupting powers
- Mystery: This turn, you also complete a genre if it has one “wrong” genre.
- Crime: Rotate a shelf card (to reverse its direction).
- Drama: Insert a card between two other cards. (Move the rest to fit.)
- Picture Book: Shift an entire column up or down. (Cards that go out of bounds wrap to the other side.)
All the expansions below can be played with the base material, except for the last one.
All books also have an author, and a number telling you how many books that author wrote.
The following rule is now applied.
If you manage to connect all books from an author in one group, you may remove them from the library and keep one of those cards for its power.
In other words, you can “complete an author” just as you can “complete a genre”. However, this only applies to authors who wrote multiple books. (If they only wrote one book, they have no number behind their name.)
Many books also have a target audience or age range.
The following rule must now be followed.
When placing a book with a target audience, it must always be connected to another book that has the same target audience, unless none exists.
Some of the books represent a series. This means their titles are the same, except that they end in different numbers.
The following rule must now be followed.
Books in the same series must be placed in a connected, straight line (row or column) and sorted numerically.
As you probably noticed by now, Shelf Cards have two more components on them.
- A special power. Now you must listen to it at all times!
- A vertical arrow. Columns must be sorted alphabetically too! The vertical arrow indicates the direction from A-Z.
Additionally, you must keep the shelves “balanced”.
“The difference in stacked cards between the two sides (left and right) of a Book Shelf card can never be greater than 1.”
In other words, you can’t play a letter on the same letter if the number of such “stacks” on the other side of the shelf doesn’t support it.
EXAMPLE: The left side of the shelf has 3 stacks. The right side has 2 stacks. Then you may not create another stack on the left, as that would imbalance the shelf too much. (You may, of course, add one on the right.)
If this proves too hard for your group, you can make any of these 3 added rules optional, especially the vertical sorting.
This expansion requires printing new material: books with no genre, but a unique action.
You can add as many or as few of these as you like into your deck. You can easily recognize these cards by their lack of icon and neutral colo.
Their usage is simple: immediately take the action on the card when you play it.
Additionally, for extra challenge, you can add the following rules variant.
You must play exactly 2 cards on your turn. (You’re not allowed to play more if that helps you, as in the original rules.)