Rating: 
Summary: A Nice study break!
Review: I found this book very enjoyable. I have much in common with Glenn. This was the first time I had ever heard of the Russian province of Kalmykia. Kalmykia sounded like some place from a fictional novel. The idea of a "Chess City" made my imagination run wild. I found Hallman's adventures entertaining. If the story had been fictional then you could have spiced it up but the fact that the names and places are all real made it far more enjoyable for me.
You have to take a break from studying chess diagrams from time to time and actually read something! So why not read about chess? This book gives you a little insight into the life of the President of Kalmykia (and FIDE) Kirsan Ilyumzhinov.
Chess consumes me. If you share my sickness then you will find this book very interesting and enjoyable.
Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful Storytelling
Review: "The train was all lullaby, the gyroscopic jostle of the tracks, the steady click of the wheels like the eighth notes of some slower melody, the stars stationary out the small window, all of it a lull of travel nostalgia, a cradle or warm womb, Glenn and I like twins incubating in that cramped space."The Chess Artist is its own lullaby, a beautifully told story with the game of chess playing the role of train, cradling author Hallman and cohort Glenn in its ample belly as it propels them from the break room of an Atlantic City casino to the surreal backdrop of the Kalmykian steppe, "its beauty Martian, the chalky dirt solid on the ground but rising as dust as though evaporating". I was captivated by the characters, sub-plots, and settings, with chess history weaving its way through the story like a consistent and traceable thread in a larger tapestry. Chess is a metaphor for obsession, but also for the complexity of human relationships and motivations. The friendship between Hallman and Glenn is its own civilized but at times antagonistic chess game, and it plays itself across the pages like chess pieces leaping across history and cultures. Skillfully rendered (at times poetic, at times insightful and wry) The Chess Artist is a book for chess players and non-chess players alike!
Rating:
Summary: A rare type of chess book
Review: Anyone who has tried to read any book on chess is ultimately faced with a problem: chess writers tend to think about chess first and the narrative aspects of "the story" as secondary, and the bulk of the books on the market are dedicated to instruction. This book transcends the template of what a chess book should be and interweaves a biographical fragments, the origins of chess, and a travel diary. Above all else it is a travelogue into one specific world of chess rather than an exploration of the game itself. Focusing instead on the characters surrounding the game, I caught myself laughing aloud at the absurdity of the games appeal and the dedication those who _Get It_ are willing to give.
Rating:
Summary: This book is real!
Review: As a 30 year tournament chess player of very modest success, I promise you this book is an accurate portrayal. I also happen to be acquainted with the author and know the central character fairly well. If you want to know about the world of chess, read this book.
Rating:
Summary: Captures the weird culture of the chess world
Review: As a tournament player myself, I found the book to present an accurate picture of the chess world. Non-players can learn what the eccentric world of chess is like, and for the serious player everything rings true. The book reads like a novel, and the asides about the history of the game are interesting and informative. I recommend the book to chess players and non-chess players alike.
Rating:
Summary: Captures the weird culture of the chess world
Review: As a tournament player myself, I found the book to present an accurate picture of the chess world. Non-players can learn what the eccentric world of chess is like, and for the serious player everything rings true. The book reads like a novel, and the asides about the history of the game are interesting and informative. I recommend the book to chess players and non-chess players alike.
Rating:
Summary: Travels With Glenn
Review: Glenn Umstead is a local chess hero, "local" being Atlantic city. He has a rating that puts him in the top 1% of all tournament players in the USA but he's not even a blip on the radar screen of international grandmaster chess. He supplements his catch-as-catch can existence by hustling lesser players ("patzers" or "fish" in the arcane vernacular of the chess world), giving simultaneous exhibitions and playing blindfold chess. Neat parlor tricks but nothing more. Mr. Umstead seems like a very nice man-he gives food and money to fellow chessplayers who are down on their luck-but he is, outside of chess, basically unread and socially inept. For example, in the book's centerpiece trip to Kalmykia, he asks the guide showing him and the author the monument to the 100,000 victims of Stalin's ethnic purges how much money it's worth. Things like that. J.C. Hallman was astute enough to see the artistic potential in shepherding a quirky chess master through various chess venues-both traditional and underground-and chronicling his adventures. He accompanies Mr. Umstead on forays into New York's chess hustling scene (fittingly, they rode to New York on a Greyhound bus, a la "Midnight Cowboy"), a prison, the Princeton math department lounge, the internet, the World Open, and to the afore-mentioned Kalmykia, one of the breakaway republics of the former Soviet Union that is so strange a country it could have been dreamed up by Kurt Vonnegut. The president of Kalmykia, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, is also president of the world international chess governing body, FIDE. A chess master, Ilyumzhinov has devoted enormous amounts of his country's scant resources to make Kalmykia the chess center of the world. It is not going well. The president is also a supect in the murder of a journalist who may have been close to unearthing corruption. The juxtaposition of this literal bloodshed with the symbolic bloodletting on the chessboard proves irresistable to Mr. Hallman. Utilizing who knows what credentials he manages to travel to Kalmykia with Mr. Umstead and actually have an audience with President Ilyumzhinov. He also arranges for Mr. Umstead to play a series of games with the only Kalmykian grandmaster-in-training, a grade-school boy; the boy gets the better of it. Mr. Hallman doesn't find out anything more about the murder than is already known but he does snoop around enough to draw the attention of government security people. Mr. Hallman himself never aspired to be a serious chess player, but chess, with its "...watered-down machismo and bent personalities" clearly has a hold on him. He writes knowingly and beautifully of the game's history and development and gives the obligatory snapshot of the bentest of the bent, Bobby Fischer. But this is not a book about the superstars of the game. It is a tour through the chess underworld, with Glenn Umstead playing Vergil to to J.C. Hallman's Dante. "The Chess Artist" is a well-told tale from a young writer with a bright future.
Rating:
Summary: Not even a chess fan and I liked it!
Review: I picked this book up by mistake and was hooked from the very beginning. It is more of a travel book rather than a "how to" book on chess. The characters had depth and the colorful characters were compelling.
Can't wait to see what else this guy comes up with!
Rating:
Summary: See the world through the lens of a game
Review: I really enjoyed this book. Hallman is prodigiously gifted, he has a hawklike eye for detail, a great talent for description and metaphor, a novelist's sense of momentum and organization and a heart ready to sympathize with screw-ups and strays. At their best his chess adventures reach a Huck and Jim pitch. He is an outsider writing critically about the appeal of the game and the lives of people who devote themselves to it. I think this is a great book for anyone getting into the game, or just looking for a thoughtful book.
Rating:
Summary: See the world through the lens of a game
Review: I really enjoyed this book. Hallman is prodigiously gifted, he has a hawklike eye for detail, a great talent for description and metaphor, a novelist's sense of momentum and organization and a heart ready to sympathize with screw-ups and strays. At their best his chess adventures reach a Huck and Jim pitch. He is an outsider writing critically about the appeal of the game and the lives of people who devote themselves to it. I think this is a great book for anyone getting into the game, or just looking for a thoughtful book.
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