The Finite and Infinite Games

By: James Carse

Narrated by: James Carse

“There are at least two kinds of games,” states James Carse as he begins this extraordinary book. “One could be called finite; the other, infinite.”

Carse explores these questions with stunning elegance, teasing out of his distinctions a universe of observation and insight, noting where and why and how we play, finitely and infinitely. He surveys our world - from the finite games of the playing field and playing board to the infinite games found in culture and religion - leaving all we think we know illuminated and transformed. Along the way, Carse finds new ways of understanding everything from how an actress portrays a role, to how we engage in sex, from the nature of evil, to the nature of science. Finite games, he shows, may offer wealth and status, power and glory. But infinite games offer something far more subtle and far grander.

©2019 James Carse (P)2021 Better Listen

A very engaging lecture

I found Carse’s explanation on the topic a lot more compelling and less commercial than Sinek’s.

This Is A Lecture… Still Good

I thought I was buying the audiobook and bought a lecture recording by accident. This is still a good talk and worth listening through several times. The Q&A is well done and brings up a lot of interesting topics.

Meh

Can’t hear questions
Very abstract and little practical steps
Interesting idea: have more fun in your work and life basically

Valuable Lecture

I chose this audiobook because leadership writer Simon Sinek refers to it in his material. Finite and Infinite Games by James P. Carse is a lively and engaging lecture presentation, it is not an actual book. The ideas presented here are very useful in today's world. I would like to see the ideas in this lecture expanded and developed into a book. This recording does not pick up the questions from the audience members clearly enough. It is surprising that the publisher, Simon and Schuster, did not clean up the audience questions or redub them from a transcript. The author presents his material very well. He draws the audience in with humor and offers additional time for Q&A at the end. Overall, I would recommend this in its current form to fans of Simon Sinek and to fans of the author. If this ever does become a book, I believe that I would recommend it to everyone.

This audio version is a talk about the book - not the book

Interesting to hear the author but this is not a narration of the book. It is a not particularly good recording of a talk the author gave to an appreciative audience, few of whom had read the book, about the book. The questions and comments from the audience are not audible. It's vaguely interesting but really strikes at the actual content of the book during only a few seconds of the 94-minute recording. In a few spots, the recording of the author's speech is garbled by problems with the recording device or digitization of the original recording.