On Sunday, I went to the (very far from the subway) Noguchi Museum to see a panel of authors read from their books about chess. Jennifer Shahade was the main draw (of course), but Paul Hoffman and J.C. Hallman certainly held their own. The basement "education" space was relatively full, and interested folks drifted in as the reading went on.
Besides Chess Bitch: Women in the Ultimate Intellectual Sport & Hallman's Artist: Genius, Obsession and the World's Oldest Game, Paul Hoffman read from a forthcoming book about his own obsession with chess as a kid. He dropped a few lines about his father being a speed-readiing pathological liar with a photographic memory, and how that was hard to compare to as a boy. Sounds good...
After the reading I walked through the museum towards the exit and realized anew that modern sculpture often looks like fossilized dinosaur turds. Who knew?
2 comments:
Carrie,
Can you please write a bit more about who read what at the chess book reading, at the museum. I live in Boston and wanted to go to that reading very much but, alas, I returned home from vacation with my family late Saturday night. Because I live in Boston it was hard for me to make the 8+ hour round-trip drive to NY and back in one day.
Did Paul Hoffman give any indication of when his new chess book is going to be published? It should be a dandy. He's a great writer. Hoffman and Hallman are every bit as well known in the chess book publishing community as Shahade is.
thanks for your post.
Howard Goldowsky
Howard,
Thanks for writing. How did you find the site?
Jennifer read from the first chapter of her book.
J.C. read from the end of his book. He described a chess game in the Philadelphia Museum of Art with the subject of his book in the Duchamp room.
In fact, there was a good bit of discussion of Duchamp and how he influenced all the writers...
Hoffman did not say when the book was coming out. It seemed he was reading form a finished draft, but with rewrites and publishing schedules, it could be a long time before we see a book. If you find out, let me know.
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