The Glass Bead Game

There is a book called the Glass Bead Game written by Herman Hesse. It is about a world in which the world order is based on the hierarchy centered around a game called the glass bead game, which combines art, literature, science, and so on. I read it many years ago and, of course, thought of chess. I may mis-remember the details a bit since I read it so long ago.

Has anyone else read this book or heard of it? Hesse won a Pultizer prize for it,