what else do you do besides playing chess?

yep, padman, me likes Twain too

Reading, Bowling, Fishing, Horseback Riding, Swimming, Playing with my new grandson.

 What's up with the baby talk? Is that some regional dialect?

nothing

"ALL I EVER WANTED TO DO IS TO PLAY CHESS"

lol

Here's a sample from Livshitz's Test Your Chess IQ vol 2 (aka Master Challenge), from the first set, so being relatively easy compared to later sets.

The theme is Double Attack.

Again from Livshitz's book, and sampling a later set.

The theme is Destructive Combinations.

This is what I do for fun.

I know a couple whose English is a bit poor...cute accents, though.  Anyhow...they talk like that.  "Me going to the city tomorrow".  lol 

Incidentally, not a Twain fan. 

Very funny.  I am not even sure what that's suppose to mean but anyway...

-  I think Portrait should be read by everyone before the age of 19...to get more than literature out of it. 

- Electric...the closest bookstore is 4 hours from me...and I was there on the weekend and I completely forgot Master and Margarita somehow, though I knew I was there for something other than buying Animal Farm for a young girl that I know.  Next time, for sure. 

-  I did pick up Stalingrad by Antony Beevor (boring, sorry)...and Love in the Time of Cholera.  It will be my first Marquez novel.  Anyone read him?

Read Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. Loved it, but it was 20+ years ago.

Are you ever remotely surprised? You seem to think you've got my number.  Perhaps you should write my biography. 

Before you tackle "Cholera" you should check out "A very old man with enormous wings".  It's short and quick and gives you a clear sense of Marquez's style.  If you don't like it you won't like "Solitude" nor "Cholera".  Kind of like "The Gambler" as a snapshot of Dostoyevsky.

You say you don't like Twain, and it seems like somewhere I read that you don't like Steinbeck.  Something against American writers? 

I suggest you avoid Twain's popular works and try "letters from earth" or a collection of his short stories.  Though, if you don't like "Huck", there may be no hope for you.

I already admire Marquez's style...or these translators are just brilliant.  I'm not sure I trust snapshots of style.

Poison...

Good memory.  I don't like Steinbeck either...correct.  I can't say I don't like American writers as I am fond of Fitzgerald's ideas and one of my little pet favorites is A Seperate Peace by John Knowles.  I love Vonnegut's short stories - filled with amusing reflections of human inanity. Though you might be onto something...because with American writers I tend to either like their ideas and issues or not.  It's the rare American writer whose "style" or incisive wording has mesmerized me.  Unless Nabokov can be called American?

Admittedly my exposure to Twain was in 9th grade...and the twangs gave me a headache just reading them.  For fear of being attacked, I won't mention how much I dislike Josef Conrad.  His success baffles me. 

Conrad is great. I like his shorter works more though.

What I know about Conrad can be held in a thimble.  I've never been able to get more than 20 pages into "heart of darkness' and it is the only one I've assayed.

You should give Twain another try.  There is so much missed by an adolescent.

Steinbeck is the American Thomas Mann.  He's an excellent writer and one of my favorites!

Nabokov is not an American writer.  I think you may be reading the wrong Americans if their style doesn't grab you.  Try Margaret Atwood, Philip Roth, or even Cormac McCarthy (though after a few novels you tend to see the strings).  If you like short stories I'd also recommend Alice Munro and Joy Williams.  All of the above can write sentences around Martin Amis, in my opinion. 

Katherine Anne Porter.

As in an American writer whose style you admire, or what you do when you're not playing chess?

You're lucky on that first count.  I had to write papers on Heart of Darkness and on The Secret Sharer.  I started using "symbolism" in everything I wrote for a few weeks until I realized how overly lame it is.  I often think he gets credit for his writing style creating a whirring jungle in your head...apparently it's part of the charm in Heart of Darkness.  I think it's heinous.  Kafka or Camus any day over that. 

I agree that I should look into Twain again...but often I find there are just so many fantastic works out there, why give yourself a headache with something you didn't care for in the first place?  I could be convinced.  :)  What do you like about his work?  Does he have any particularly interesting themes he deals with?

I'd urge another run at Steinbeck as well -- which of his have you read Afaf?

I also find it a little curious that you like Vonnegut but not Twain.