...Desjarlais, though, doesn’t stop there. He examines this peculiar passion, the reasons we become addicted. “For some, chess is a hobby picked up along the way,” he writes, “while for others it’s a cathedral of truth and beauty. The attractions often relate to the drama that each game promises, the competitive challenge in pitting one’s skills against another’s, the intricate complexity that comes with any chess position, the rewarding intellectual conversation that takes place between two minds during a game, how focused concentration can take a person into a domain of pure thought removed from the hassles of everyday life, the way chess enables people to know their mind better, the pleasures of learning and participating in the conceptual history of modern chess, the camaraderie to be found at chess clubs, the thrill of accomplishing something creative at the board, and the way in which truth and beauty – and perhaps a measure of wisdom – can be found in chess.”