Gambling, game, and psyche

ch. 1. Pascal: a geometer's wager with God

ch. 2. Balzac: The wild ass's skin: the gambler's quest for power

ch. 3. Poe: "William Wilson": gambler? wastrel? reprobate?

ch. 4. Dostoevsky's flayed gambler

ch. 5. Serao's Naples: smorfia mania and the devouring father

ch. 6. Sholom Aleichem: "The lottery ticket": a human gamble

ch. 7. Hesse's The glass bead game: computerized culture

ch. 8. Kawabata's The master of go: game as ritual of exile

ch. 9. Zhang Xinxin's Orchid madness.