The bookish members of our Nobel Anonymous Readers Association met in a virtual setting to discuss the latest book club pick – “The Queen’s Gambit” by Walter Tevis. We immersed ourselves in the competitive world of chess grandmaster champions together with the book’s main character, chess prodigy Beth Harmon.

This coming-of-age story was initially published in 1983 in the United States, but it recently gained international popularity thanks to its adaptation to a TV series in 2020. This is how we ended up including this book on our list of reads for N.A.R.A. book club and we are happy that we did. We had a very interesting discussion about the many topics addressed by this novel, including drug addiction and alcoholism, feminism, genius minds, adoption, loss and competitiveness.

We followed our female protagonist since the early age of 8 in an orphanage throughout her adolescence and early adulthood, in her quest to put her talent to fruition and fulfill her calling towards chess mastery while trying to survive and not self-destruct.

It was another great chat between our book club members from different countries in the world, a Fun at Work activity that we always return to with joy and enthusiasm. We are happy to share our passion for books and reading, engage in debates and discover our colleague’s opinions and ideas outside the work environment.      

We are equally excited to discuss about next month’s book choice, the first installment in a sci-fi series – “The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet” by Becky Chambers.