Sunday, July 20, 2008

The Queen's Gambit By Walter Tevis


Only some one who loves the game of chess could have written this delightful story of an eight year old orphan who learns chess from the janitor of the institution she was placed in when both her parents were killed in an accident. By the age of sixteen she is competing for the US open Championship and she goes on to play international Masters and Grand Masters. The intriguing part of the novel is the authors ability to bring the reader to the chess board so each move and the strategy for the following moves is shown to the reader. The girl, Beth, is clearly a chess genius. She studies and plays all the masters and can play the games in her head with out a chess board. The story of her growing to an adult and her many chess matches unfolds with excitement and suspense and a certain amount of pathos. This was an excellent novel; I wanted to get my board and follow the games.

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