I picked this book up thinking that it was about the psychology of gamblers and gaming, and was ultimately disappointed. This is a book about literature, authors, and fictional characters, and there is no real psychology or non-fictional content about gambling at all! Knapp devotes each of nine chapters to a different author and a specific character from that author's work. All of these characters happen to be gamblers, but even the use of "gambler" is loosely defined--some of the characters could be better classified as "people who make a decision with some risk." Most of the book's content thus focuses upon the nine authors, and how they created these characters in their works.Perhaps if I had been a student of literature, I might have found this book interesting. However, as a reader who was looking for insight into the psychology of gambling, I was extremely disappointed, and, frankly, quite bored by this book.