Chess was invented more than 1,500 years ago, and is played in every country in the world. Stephen Moss sets out to master its mysteries, and unlock the secret of its enduring appeal. What, he asks, is the essence of chess? And what will it reveal about his own character along the way?

In a witty, accessible style that will delight newcomers and irritate purists, Moss imagines the world as a board and marches across it, offering a mordant report on the world of chess in 64 chapters--64 of course being the number of squares on the chessboard. He alternates between “black” chapters--where he plays, largely uncomprehendingly, in tournaments--and “white” chapters, where he seeks advice from the current crop of grandmasters and delves into the lives of great players of the past.

It is both a history of the game and a kind of “Zen and the Art of Chess;” a practical guide and a self-help book: Moss’s quest to understand chess and become a better player is really an attempt to escape a lifetime of dilettantism. He wants to become an expert at one thing. What will be the consequences when he realizes he is doomed to fail?

Moss travels to Russia and the US--hotbeds of chess throughout the 20th century; meets people who knew Bobby Fischer when he was growing up and tries to unravel the enigma of that tortured genius who died in 2008 at the inevitable age of 64; meets Garry Kasparov and Magnus Carlsen, world champions past and present; and keeps bumping into Armenian superstar Levon Aronian in the gents at tournaments.

He becomes champion of Surrey, wins tournaments in Chester and Bury St Edmunds, and holds his own at the famous event in the Dutch seaside resort of Wijk aan Zee (until a last-round meltdown), but too often he is beaten by precocious 10-year-olds and finds it hard to resist the urge to punch them. He looks for spiritual fulfillment in the game, but mostly finds mental torture.

"Deserves to do for chess what Fever Pitch did for football" - Charles Cumming

"Chess is proverbially a sea in which a gnat may drink and an elephant may bathe. Over the board, Stephen Moss admits that he is among the small fry, but as a writer on the game he is elephantine ... The Rookie comes closer than any book I know to giving the reader a taste of the chess addict’s rich but hermetic world" - Daniel Johnson, Times Literary Supplement

"There is wit and humour in abundance in the book" - Surbiton Chess Club

"Stephen Moss’s highly readable book, The Rookie, is a brilliant account of the emotional roller coaster of an average club player trying to become seriously strong ... Many will empathise with Stephen’s tribulations and can learn something about themselves. Recommended." - Leonard Barden, The Guardian

"It is precisely because it is all too difficult for Moss to realise his ambition to become an expert-standard chess player that his book is so engrossing. There are countless volumes that recount the narrators’ onward and upwards march to pre-eminence. This is a book about learning to accept one’s own mediocrity. Since mediocrity is the space the vast majority of us occupy, The Rookie is actually a life lesson much more relevant than all of those self-help books of fatuous and unrealistic optimism" - Dominic Lawson, Daily Mail

"An entertaining and amusing read. Moss is a perceptive interviewer as well as a fine writer. He tells it the way he sees it, and there’s a lot of perhaps uncomfortable truth about the nature of English chess" - Richard James, author of The Complete Chess Addict

"A chatty, funny and strangely absorbing journey through the world of chess ... It’s not a plot spoiler to reveal that Moss is still some way from chess stardom, but his book succeeds admirably as a celebration of the game." - The Guardian

"Will entertain both the non-chess player and the tournament competitor ... Moss is a first-class writer" - Chess Magazine

"Moss nicely depicts disappointment, the wretched feelings that follow a clumsy oversight or a senseless manoeuvre. But amid his setbacks – and they are more numerous than his triumphs – we also get a glimpse of the unfathomable beauty of the game" - David Edmonds, Prospect