Cult Books

One of the issues of  reading newspapers on the web, is that you can easily miss things, since, on the internet, the act of turning pages, and some article 'catching your eye' is severely reduced, if not entirely lost.

Although I used to exercise this indulgent act most Sundays, via the sharing of brunch, newspapers and coffee , it seems that this has slipped away over the years, and the Sunday breakfast is now a solo affair in front of a screen.

Yes, its usually earlier in the day now, and often followed by a lunch, but, with regards to accidental discoveries, as Roy Hawkins puts it , "The thrill is gone".

Hence, I found this interesting list of cult books a little late :)

Reading through it, there are both great and dismal books mentioned, some of which I have to admit to reading ( many, and mainly, it is true,in my youth :).

Siddartha, The Prophet and Jonathon Livingston Seagull, fed my esoteric teenage passion for sure, while Testament of Youth attempted to balance the more political history I devoured ( 20th Century Totalitarianism was one of my specialities at College).

The Dice Man was something I 'borrowed' from my brother. I don't recall finishing it, since even at that age, I sensed it was probably too violent and sexual for me at that time !

Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance :  Who didn't read it among my teenage friends is easier to count than who did, although these days, I doubt if I'd go through it again.

Many others lurk there, including The Holy Blood and Holy Grail ( allegedly re-worked as lucrative fiction by Dan Brown ), a book I read a few years after seeing the original BBC documentary about the priest and his treasure, and even Dune is there, a book I've read several times since the Seventies, and thoroughly enjoyed each read.

But is there a chess book in this list of cult reading ?

Well, not exactly, but what caught my eye was the review of one book that I never read...

" Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R Hofstadter (1979)

 About what it means to think, and how that happens, this is written in the spirit of Lewis Carroll. Pattern recognition in the work of geniuses. Loved by maths geeks and anybody with Asperger's syndrome and anyone with sense. But at root a chess textbook. AMcK "

Before I even reached the indicative, final sentence, the mention of pattern recognition had already sparked off the flint of my chess mind, primed by the many mentions of "patterns are the key" by all those switched on Chess theorists.

Needless to say, this is added to my own 'books to read sometime'  list, although what number on the list, it is hard to tell.