Walter S. Tevis

Orphan Beth Harmon overcomes her fears and shyness by learning to play chess and, over the years, improves her game to become a national champion and to play the world grandmasters.

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Vera Sokolyanskaya

This book is a wild nail-biting ride. It's also about chess.

This was also a family read with my dad who taught me to play chess when I was a kid. So I have to thank this book (and Maria) for a few hours we got to discuss this book and chess history rather than our usual topics.

There is also a Netflix series based on this book coming soon so I hope more people will read it. Heath Ledger was supposed to direct a movie based on this book back in 2008 but died before his plans could realize.

It's a book written in 1983 about 60s/70s that I've read in 2020. The parts where American chess players and fans adore Soviet chess school to a point they learn Russian and subscribe to chess magazine in Russian really stand out (especially to my father who is a Russian Linguistics Professor). I have to trust this book to be an honest depiction of the chess world of that time and I found it fascinating.

Beth Harmon is not your regular hero, she is struggling with drug and alcohol addition since the age of eight. Chess is what gives her life meaning, clarity and structure, it's her ultimate motivation in life to an point of obsession. Other people appear in her life and give her support but she is loner and that support is only temporary and can only give her so much.

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