Talent and youth, bright middle-class children with psychopathic tendencies – that’s what’s needed for success at tournament chess; with the emphasis on youth. And so their mums send them forth with the Spartan mother’s warning: come back victorious or don’t come back at all. Well,…
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This is one of the best chess books published in recent years. Perceptive, instructive, rich in anecdote and self-deprecating humour, Chess Duels is a candid and entertaining tour of elite chess and its leading personalities.
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NTBCM was a funny spoof magazine edited by Murray Chandler. Borrowing the format of its venerable target, NTBCM published only one issue (in 1984), an entertaining mix of strange games, jokes and witty articles such as ‘How Weird Is Your Chess’ by Jon Speelman,…
Read MoreKING’S GAMBIT A son, a father, and the world’s most dangerous game Paul Hoffman Hyperion, 2007, 424 pages Review by Sarah Hurst Paul Hoffman hit on a great idea for a book, but I’m not sure that he was aware of it. By the…
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Unorthodox Chess Openings Eric Schiller Cardoza Publishing, 1998, 520 pp., £18.95 Utter crap. Tony Miles Published in Kingpin 29 (Autumn 1998) Buy it here Also see #crapchessbooks More #crapchessbooks
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Under the Black Sun Eric Woro Axiom Books, 384 pp., $8.95 I had no hesitation in choosing to review Under the Black Sun. All I knew was that it was ‘a chess novel’. I believe that most chess players spend so much time with…
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Samurai Chess: Mastering the Martial Art of the Mind Michael Gelb and Raymond Keene Aurum Press, 1997, 224pp., £15.95 Frankly I wish I’d never agreed to review this book. Criticism of it will inevitably seem like gratuitous Mondo knocking, and praise will be seriously…
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Carl Haffner’s Love of the Draw by Thomas Glavinic Harvill, 1999 First published in German as Carl Haffners Liebe zum Unentschieden, this English translation was even mini-launched at the Austrian Institute in London in the presence of (wait for it) GM Raymond Keene, a…
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You read some strange things on the internet. Chesscafe carried a review of Glenn Flear’s Practical Chess Endings which asked the curious rhetorical question, ‘Is this the best book on endgames ever written?’. I just paused there to let that sink in. Now Glenn’s a nice…
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