Like many people I have found myself loving the Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit. A show about an orphan girl in Kentucky in the 1950s who becomes obsessed with the game of chess and becomes a prodigy at a very young age in a game dominated by men. As someone who knows nothing about chess beyond the fact that I do not understand it, I was riveted by the chess scenes but the series is more than that. It is a coming of age story of a girl dealing with psychological trauma, abandonment issues, high stakes competitions, fame and filled with gorgeous costumes. 

Based on the 1983 book The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis, the story had been bouncing around Hollywood for awhile before finally getting made into a series. Tevis is famous for his pool hall novels which were turned into classic films The Hustler and The Color of Money. For much of the 1950s and '60s, he was a celebrated writer and then he started drinking...a lot. For nearly twenty years, he drank and didn’t write; instead he turned from the pool hall to chess. He became obsessed with the game of chess, playing it and studying strategy until he finally sobered up, moved to New York City and wrote The Queen’s Gambit.

As soon as I finished the series, I wanted non-fiction books about chess, chess history, obsession and young prodigies. I wanted fiction books that felt like The Queen’s Gambit.  Books with dramatic chess games. Books set during the mid-20th century in America, Europe and Russia and coming of age stories full of angst, psychological trauma and introspection. Stories with women and men dealing with past mistakes, family drama, the pitfalls of fame and discovering a found family. Stories with style. This is a selection of what I found.

Most of these books are available as e-books and audiobooks through SimplyE and OverDrive and all are available for checkout from our Grab and Go locations.

Fiction

Chess Story by Stefan Zweig

Set during World War II, an Austrian man known as Dr. B, who is obsessed with the game of chess and recovering from a nervous breakdown, is on an ocean liner travelling from New York to Buenos Aires. Also on board is a group of chess enthusiasts and the world chess champion Mirko Czentovic. The chess fans keep losing to the champion until Dr. B helps them and then he in turn takes his chance against the chess champion. Translated from the original,The Royal Game, Austrian author Zweig escaped the Nazis and wrote the book while in exile in Brazil. He sent off the manuscript to his American publishers only days before he and his wife committed suicide. Zweig writes about chess with an uncompromising energy that places readers psychologically in the player’s heads.

 

Homesick for Another World by Ottessa Moshfegh

Known for her novels, this short story collection is Moshfegh at her most unsettling, dangerous and delightful. She exposes her characters for all their unique grotesquerie and outrageousness and humanizes them all. Flesh is weak, people are cruel, beauty comes from unexpected places, psychological depths are plunged and compassion is found. Moshfegh’s pen is needle-sharp, a master at work. 

 

 

 

The Big Green Tent by Liudmila Ulitskaia

In Moscow, Russia 1953, an orphaned poet, a gifted, fragile pianist, and a budding photographer with a talent for collecting secrets struggle to find their way into adulthood under the watchful eye of an oppressive Soviet regime. As they strive for individuality and following their passions they must contend with all the hope, folly and compromise that seem to define Russian activism of the era. A big, epic coming-of-age novel reminiscent of the great Russian authors of the 19th and 20th centuries.

 

 

Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell

In 1967 London, the folk-rock-psychedelic quartet Utopia Avenue is formed. Coming from different backgrounds and countries they struggle to stay true to themselves as they begin their rise to fame through the dark end of the 1960s. Through all the sex, drugs, fame and personal and professional trials and triumphs what is it that will define their lives and their music? A nuanced, enthralling and innovative take on the times, Mitchell is a master of his craft.

 

 

Outline by Rachel Cusk

Told in ten conversations that the narrator, an unnamed, British, female novelist teaching a creative writing course, has during one oppressively hot summer in Athens, Greece. She leads students through writing exercises, meets with other writers, goes swimming with a Greek bachelor and gets to know others in her sphere. As they speak, readers will learn volumes about them, their anxieties, hopes and fears and gradually learn about the woman and what brought her to Greece. Intimate and contemplative with prose that will stay with you long after you’ve finished the book

 

 

The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer

In the summer of ‘72, six teens meet at a summer camp for the arts and form an unbreakable bond that they hope will continue through the years that follow. Gifted as they all are at the beginning, the talent and fortunes of a fifteen-year-old don’t always last. As their talents, wealth and success diverge in different directions as they drift into middle age how do their relationships and friendships endure? Ambitious, complex and an absolute page turner.

 

 

 

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

In 1970s San Francisco, aging punk rocker and record executive Bennie Salazar and his passionate, troubled employee Sasha hide secrets from each other and cross paths and interact with various people from their past, present and future. From San Francisco and New York to Italy and Africa, this is an intimate story of love, disappointment, despair, introspection, redemption and rock n roll. Bold, complex, audacious and unforgettable. 

 

 

 

Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger

A collection of two of Salinger’s most brilliant stories concerning the two youngest siblings of the Glass family. Franny, the daughter is attending an unnamed liberal arts college and on a date with her boyfriend and becomes increasingly frustrated with his obsession with the small minutiae of their lives and social norms than with deeper philosophical questions. Zooey, the youngest brother, is in the family home in New York and reading an old letter from his brother Buddy, argues with his mother and then connects with his sister Franny, who seems to be in a deep depression on the living room couch. Considered by many to be Salinger’s masterpiece, it is complicated, angsty, stylish, and uncompromising. 

 

The Eternal Wonder by Pearl S. Buck

Set in the mid-20th century,  Randolph Colfax, a gifted, young man in search of meaning and purpose, travels the world, including a stint at the DMZ in North Korea where his life is changed forever. In Paris, he meets and falls for the beautiful and brilliant Chinese American Stephanie Fung, They both yearn for real connection and big ideas and struggle with alienation, doubt and staying true to themselves. Found only a few years ago in a Texas storage unit, this newly discovered work by the award winning Buck, is a thoughtful look at the search for meaning and showcases why the author won so many accolades during her lifetime. 

 

The Girl He Used to Know by Tracey Garvis Graves

Annika Rose is a shy, socially awkward English major who’s more comfortable surrounded by books or when she’s playing chess than the usual college social whirl. Meeting the more outgoing Jonathan changes all that. He admires her ability to be true to herself and the way she plays chess with confidence. They challenge each other and bring out the best in each other but their tumultuous relationship ends when an unforeseen tragedy forces them apart. Now, ten years later, Annika is a librarian and Jonathan is a Wall Street whiz kid in need of a fresh start— can they make it work the second time around?

 

 

The Grandmaster by David Klass

Freshman Daniel Pratzer gets to prove himself to his school’s elite chess team when he and his father get invited to a weekend long father-son chess tournament that has a $10,000 prize. Daniel thinks that his father is a novice but unbeknownst to him his father was a teenage chess prodigy—a Grandmaster who walked away from the game and vowed never to play the game again—and all of the chess team knows this. Now thirty years later, Mr. Pratzer is forced to break his vow for his son and is forced to confront a former rival and all his dark demons of the past. Daniel was looking for acceptance but the secrets he uncovers about his father will force him to make some surprising moves himself. A tense, fast-paced novel with a complicated father-son relationship at its core.

 

Non-Fiction

Birth of the Chess Queen: A History by Marilyn Yalom

Chess players and watchers know that the queen is the most dominant piece in chess, but few may know that the game existed for five hundred years without her. It wasn't until chess became a popular pastime for European royals during the Middle Ages that the queen was born and was gradually empowered to become the king's fierce warrior and protector. Here, the author, discusses the unique parallels between the rise of the chess queen and the ascent of female sovereigns in Europe. Engaging and fascinating.

 

 

Bobby Fischer Goes to War: How the Soviets Lost the Most Extraordinary Chess Match of All Time by David Edmonds 

In the summer of 1972, with a presidential crisis stirring in the U.S. and the cold war at a pivotal point, two men, the Soviet world chess champion, the very un-Russian like Boris Spassky and his American challenger unconventional genius Bobby Fischer, met in the most notorious chess match of all time. The author gives full portraits of the players and the stakes and chronicles all the backstage and national dramas that came out of it. A roller coaster narrative of epic Cold War proportions. 

 

 

 

The Immortal Game: A History of Chess or How 32 Carved Pieces on a Board Illuminated Our Understanding of War, Art, Science, and the Human Brain by David Shenk

Chess has captured the imaginations of game players around the world for over 1500 years. What is it about its thirty-two figurative pieces, moving about its sixty-four black and white squares according to very simple rules, that has captivated people from its invention in India around 500 A.D. to the present day? A fascinating history of the game, its rules and its influence on all facets of society. 

 

 

All the Wrong Moves: A Memoir About Chess, Love, and Ruining Everything by Sasha Chapin

A fan of the game, Chapin became obsessed after an accidental encounter with chess hustlers on the streets of Kathmandu. With an all consuming passion he began to play for hours and weeks at a time. Not able to fight it he decided to surrender to it. What follows is a rollicking, globe trotting memoir, as he submits to humiliating defeats, is taught by grumpy mentors and finds joy in the purity and beauty of the game. An entertaining read that is engaging and laugh out loud funny.

 

The Grandmaster: Magnus Carlsen and the Match That Made Chess Great Again by Brin-Jonathon Butler

In November 2016, as the world was shocked by Donald Trump’s election and the possibility of Russian meddling, hundreds of people descended on New York City—not to protest but to watch the World Chess Championship between Norway's Magnus Carlsen and Russia's Sergey Karjakin at the South Street Seaport. By the time it was over,  it would be front-page news and thought by many to be the greatest finish in chess history and cement a player’s legacy of one of the greatest of all time. A riveting and absorbing story of a sport and how a champion can ascend to greatness. 

 

Queen of Katwe: A Story of Life, Chess, and One Extraordinary Girl's Dream of Becoming a Grandmaster by Tim Crothers

One day in 2005 while searching for food, nine-year-old Phiona followed her brother to a dusty veranda where she met Robert Katende. Katende had also grown up in the Kampala slums and wanted to empower kids like Phiona through chess—a game so foreign there is no word for it in their native language. Laying a chessboard in the dirt of the Katwe slum, Robert painstakingly taught the game each day and at night Phiona and the other kids played on with bottle caps on scraps of cardboard.  By the time she turned eleven, Phiona was her country's junior champion and by fifteen, the national champion. In 2010, she traveled to Siberia, a rare journey out of Katwe, to compete in the Chess Olympiad, the world's most prestigious team-chess event.  A heartwarming story of dreaming big, perseverance and life on the edge. Also a good Disney film starring David Oyelowo and Lupita Nyong’o. 

Learn From Bobby Fischer's Greatest Games by Eric Schiller

Written for beginners and intermediate players, climb inside the mind of American chess champion Bobby Fischer, one of the greatest to ever play the game and learn his brilliant moves and masterful concepts and strategies apply them to your own game playing. Filled with diagrams and easy to understand tips straight from the great player himself.

 

 

 

Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players by Stefan Fatsis

The author, a journalist, started his Scrabble obsession by simply chronicling pick-up Scrabble games in a NYC park. His curiosity soon became a compulsion as he began to rise through the elite, competing Scrabble ranks and became an expert player himself. With more than two million sets sold every year, at least thirty million American homes have one but at-home play is nothing like the diverse subculture of hardcore Scrabblers. An absorbing and thoughtful wild ride into the secret world of word gamers.

 

 

Counterplay: An Anthropologist at the Chessboard by Robert Desjarlais

“Chess gets a hold of some people, like a virus or a drug,” writes Desjarlais. Dive into the world of 21st century chess as the author, with his lifelong fascination with the game, takes readers through its highs, lows and challenges, its elite players and the small dramas that keep fans coming back for more. A compelling and immersive academic take on chess culture and game play. Only available, full text, through web databases. 

 

 

 

Not available in NYPL circulating collections but still worth looking for:

Chess Bitch: Women in the Ultimate Intellectual Sport by Jennifer Shahade

In the game of chess, the strongest piece—the Queen—is often referred to as "bitch." In 2004, Jennifer Shahade became U.S. Women’s Chess Champion but being female in competitive chess has been long considered a major disadvantage. The author chronicles her own rise, great female players in history and interviews the young globetrotting women chess players who are challenging male domination and knocking down the doors to this traditionally male game, infiltrating the male-owned sporting subculture of international chess, and giving the phrase "play like a girl" a whole new meaning. An entertaining, feminist take on the game and the women that play it.

 

 

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Staff picks are chosen by NYPL staff members and are not intended to be comprehensive lists. We'd love to hear your ideas too, so leave a comment and tell us what you’d recommend. And check out our Staff Picks browse tool for more recommendations!