The Delight and Distress of Chess
The royal game has the power to make one feel elated or disconsolate. This is true whether one plays serious tournament chess or casual chess just for fun.
In this collection of 34 short stories, author Alexis Levitin, travel set in hand, takes the reader on a journey across several continents – and even into space – exploring the joys of chess and its effect on the lives of those who play.
As the author states in his Introduction, “…these tales represent the rich weave of our human dilemma, caught as we are between the elegancies of the mind and the urgings of the blood, between reason and passion.”
After a century of brooding and talking telepathically to his Mausoleum janitor from his glass coffin, Vladimir Lenin awakens—alive and bewildered in the modern world.
When Clea returns to London with her new Russian husband, she is surprised to see him become even more eccentric.
A haunting dystopia some readers have called “the new 1984.” In a society where memory is rewritten and resistance is pre-approved, freedom isn’t restricted; it’s redefined. As systems evolve beyond human control and choice becomes a simulation, true defiance means refusing the script, even when the system already knows you will.
Original poetry by Nina Kossman, accompanied by a selection of poems by Marina Tsvetaeva, translated from Russian by Kossman. “The sea is a postcard,” writes Nina Kossman. There is both something elemental in this vision and—iron-tough.” —Ilya Kaminsky
“13 short pieces…pungently convey the effects of growing up under a totalitarian regime.” —Publishers Weekly
A new book of poems by Nina Kossman. “When the mythological and personal meet, something transforms for this reader…” —Ilya Kaminsky