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All the Wrong Moves
- A Memoir About Chess, Love, and Ruining Everything
- Narrated by: Sasha Chapin
- Length: 5 hrs and 27 mins
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All the Wrong Moves
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Publisher's Summary
An enthralling journey into the world of chess - a story of heartbreak, obsession, failure, and the hunger for greatness.
Sasha Chapin is a victim of chess. Like countless amateurs before him - Albert Einstein, Humphrey Bogart, Marcel Duchamp - the game has consumed his life and his mind. First captivated by it as a member of his high school chess club, his passion was rekindled during an accidental encounter with chess hustlers on the streets of Kathmandu. In its aftermath, he forgot how to care about anything else. He played at all hours, for weeks at a time. Like a spurned lover, he tried to move on, but he found the game more seductive the more he resisted it.
And so, he thought, if he can't defeat his obsession, he had to succumb to it.
All the Wrong Moves traces Chapin's rollicking two-year journey around the globe in search of glory.
Along the way, he chronicles the highs and lows of his fixation, driven on this quest by lust, terror, and the elusive possibility of victory. Stylish, inventive, and laugh-out-loud funny, All the Wrong Moves is a celebration of the purity, violence, and beauty of the game.
What the critics say
“The quest memoir is a balky beast. To tame it as well as Canadian journalist Sasha Chapin does in All the Wrong Moves, you’ll need an obscure but preferably universal target of obsession - chess mastery, in his case - a vague discontent with your present existence, a lover or two, a guru and the globe-trotting freedom to pursue your quixotic quarry.... ‘It’s tricky to explain the appeal of chess to someone who doesn’t play,’ Chapin concedes, yet he makes all the right moves in doing just that.” (Washington Post)
“A briskly told coming-of-age memoir.... Chapin has a fine eye for the game’s beauty.... In the course of his entertaining odyssey, Mr. Chapin offers a Zen-like secret to chess, and to living.” (Wall Street Journal)
“A witty, entertaining memoir about competitive chess and the author’s obsession with same, which takes him around the world, and brings him glory - along with no small number of humiliating defeats.” (LitHub.com)
What listeners say about All the Wrong Moves
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 2021-09-15
Fun foray into chess subculture
Fun and entertaining read...especially if your or your partner happen to be obsessed with chess.
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