The Forgotten Playbook
Screen-free activities, family memory, practical making, and the durable arts of being together.
Independent books for curious people
Old questions.
Useful futures.
We publish playable history, screen-free practice, and forgotten ideas rebuilt for modern readers.
Research that invites play.
✦Archives with a point of view.
✦Books made to be used.
Three editorial rooms
A small catalog with a long memory.
Each collection begins with a different kind of artifact and ends with the same question: what can we do with this now?
The Past Tests You
Playable social history that asks whether you could pass, work, run a household, or mind your manners in 1900.
Stories That Rehearsed Tomorrow
Forgotten speculative fiction, newly framed for readers living inside the futures those stories anticipated.
Start here
Three ways into the catalog.
Available in Kindle and paperback editions.
The Forgotten Playbook · Vol. 1
The Screen-Free Group Games Handbook
60 cooperative activities for classrooms, camps, meetings, and youth groups.
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The Past Tests You · Vol. 1
Could You Pass in 1900?
A playful exam in the knowledge, habits, and expectations of another century.
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Stories That Rehearsed Tomorrow · Vol. 1
Robot Servants Before Robots
Five lost stories of household automation, care, and work, 1893–1928.
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More from the press.
Nine published titles across three connected collections. Every book is designed to stand alone—and reward the reader who keeps going.
04
The Forgotten PlaybookThe Boredom Rescue Book100 screen-free things kids can actually do.05
The Forgotten PlaybookThe Vintage Maker Book30 old-school crafts, toys, celebrations, and adventures rebuilt for modern kids.06
The Forgotten PlaybookHow to Collect Family StoriesAn oral-history field guide for preserving the stories only your family can tell.07
The Past Tests YouCould You Get the Job in 1900?Historical hiring questions, workplace expectations, and the rules nobody wrote down.08
The Past Tests YouCould You Run the House in 1900?A practical test of domestic knowledge before push-button convenience.09
The Past Tests YouCould You Behave in 1900?Manners, social codes, and the tiny choices that once carried enormous weight.
The Forgotten PlaybookThe Boredom Rescue Book100 screen-free things kids can actually do.05The Forgotten PlaybookThe Vintage Maker Book30 old-school crafts, toys, celebrations, and adventures rebuilt for modern kids.06The Forgotten PlaybookHow to Collect Family StoriesAn oral-history field guide for preserving the stories only your family can tell.07The Past Tests YouCould You Get the Job in 1900?Historical hiring questions, workplace expectations, and the rules nobody wrote down.08The Past Tests YouCould You Run the House in 1900?A practical test of domestic knowledge before push-button convenience.09The Past Tests YouCould You Behave in 1900?Manners, social codes, and the tiny choices that once carried enormous weight.On the worktable
What we’re making next.
The Forgotten Playbook · Vol. 5Cardboard Engineering for KidsIn production
Stories That Rehearsed Tomorrow · Vol. 2Connected Before the InternetIn production
Stories That Rehearsed Tomorrow · Vol. 3Thinking Machines Before AIIn production
The Forgotten Playbook · Vol. 6Raising a Lifelong ReaderIn production
About the press
Make the archive do something.
Imagination Applied Press is the independent publishing imprint of writer and editor Josh Penzell.
We make compact, research-rich books that ask readers to participate: play a game, make a thing, test a historical assumption, record a family memory, or look at present technology from a longer angle.
The catalog sits where practical field guide, cultural history, and imaginative experiment meet. The aim is simple: produce books worth keeping open on a table.