English Chess Forum

I find it very irritating when members of this forum write negative posts about new books when they clearly have not read the books themselves

Let me give a couple of examples :

1. Winning by Nigel Short.
For my sins I have every ECF book of the year for the last 10 years and what a wonderful and diverse collection of chess books. At least it means my chess library is not stuffed full of opening books.
I own and have spent a long time reading Nigel Shorts Winning
I think it is an excellent and honest book. I think it is a very strong contender for 2021 book of the year

2. Tactical Training in the Endgame by Cyrus Lakdawala
Again I own and have spent some time on this book
I fully agree that many of authors books are unreadable and I have binned a few in the past
However I think this book is a gem for chess players at my level

Surely comments by forum members on books they have not read are irrelevant

John Sellen wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 27, 2021 9:09 pm

I find it very irritating when members of this forum write negative posts about new books when they clearly have not read the books themselves

Let me give a couple of examples :

1. Winning by Nigel Short.

I've read it.

John Sellen wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 27, 2021 9:09 pm

2. Tactical Training in the Endgame by Cyrus Lakdawala
Again I own and have spent some time on this book
I fully agree that many of authors books are unreadable and I have binned a few in the past
However I think this book is a gem for chess players at my level

What specifcally has been commented on that according to you has not been read?

I've often wondered if others have a different meaning for "I have read a chess book" to me. It usually takes me months or years to read a chess book because to say "I have read it" means that I have not only read all the words but have also played through all the games and/or analyses and given some thought to the games and analyses presented (possibly checking some lines with an engine). (*)

Specifically, I don't own Nigel Short's book but according to the Quality Chess website it is 416 pages long and was published less than a month ago. The published excerpt suggests that the book contains game analysis (as I would expect). To complete the reading of this book in under a month, I would have to put in more time per day on it than I would enjoy doing!

Generally, I suspect that many reviews of chess books are published once the reviewer has read some of the book (according to my criteria), especially if it is a opening book. That said, I don't think that forum members should have to wait until they have (completely) read a book before posting an opinion as opposed to a full review.

(*) PS and attempted all the exercises and compared my work with the solutions if the book has exercises!

People will inevitably go on their past impressions of authors.

So in the case of Short, he is somebody who has at times in the past courted controversy almost as naturally as breathing. That doesn't mean he can't write a good book, but does explain why some will be naturally wary of what he might say.

In the case of Lakdawala, its maybe slightly different - in that he has written pretty prolifically and *some* of that output (as with others who have in the past "written to order" - the likes of Reinfeld/Keene/Schiiler/Soltis) was as a result, almost inevitably, somewhat sub-standard.

Apparently this latest work is one of his better ones, but even then his writing style is not to everyone's taste it is fair to say.

"Generally, I suspect that many reviews of chess books are published once the reviewer has read some of the book (according to my criteria), especially if it is a opening book. That said, I don't think that forum members should have to wait until they have (completely) read a book before posting an opinion as opposed to a full review."

Yes - I reviewed Nigel's book, without checking all the lines. People wondering whether they would buy it, presumably would like to know what the format is, (in this case all the games annotated to various depths, for 8 complete tournaments, plus general remarks). I doubt I will ever check his analysis with an engine, as I expect he did that. I should perhaps have added that I did buy the book, it wasn't a review copy that the publishers sent me.

I will play through all the games at some stage, but there is a bit of a queue...

I think some people will take a view depending on the identity of the author. People will see it's by X, Y or Z and make a decision based on their own personal likes and dislikes. Sometimes they're wrong. I used to get every new Stephen King book, until he had (in my view) a slump, so I gave up. Having read some great reviews of one some years later, I bought it and also thought it was great.

Kevin Thurlow wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 28, 2021 2:20 pm

I think some people will take a view depending on the identity of the author. People will see it's by X, Y or Z and make a decision based on their own personal likes and dislikes.

Over the years there have been many chess books with two or more alleged authors.

One person (who you might never of heard of) who did the hard work and wrote the book and another much more well known person's name appears on the cover who did nothing.

Is this a cynical approach to publishing?

Eric Gardiner wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 28, 2021 11:54 am

I've often wondered if others have a different meaning for "I have read a chess book" to me.

I doubt if more than a tiny fraction of chess books sold are read anything like as thoroughly as you do
(Especially maybe the exercises....).

I just read through them, give some interesting lines/analysis a bit of thought on the way and so on. Only get round to computer checking if its actual opening stuff that I'm interested enough to adopt and seems important.

Quite a few of them, like I guess this book, aren't really quite meant to be training material.

John Upham wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 28, 2021 2:30 pm

Kevin Thurlow wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 28, 2021 2:20 pm

I think some people will take a view depending on the identity of the author. People will see it's by X, Y or Z and make a decision based on their own personal likes and dislikes.

Over the years there have been many chess books with two or more alleged authors.

One person (who you might never of heard of) who did the hard work and wrote the book and another much more well known person's name appears on the cover who did nothing.

Is this a cynical approach to publishing?

I'd like it to be stated when it happens. I'm aware it's not always standards practice where ghostwriters are employed, but I think it ought to be, partly on general ethical grounds, partly just on the grounds that it's OK to treat the public like intelligent adults.

MartinCarpenter wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 28, 2021 3:19 pm

Eric Gardiner wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 28, 2021 11:54 am

I've often wondered if others have a different meaning for "I have read a chess book" to me.

I doubt if more than a tiny fraction of chess books sold are read anything like as thoroughly as you do
(Especially maybe the exercises....).

According to my definition, I've only read about 20-25% of those I own ...

MartinCarpenter wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 28, 2021 3:19 pm

Quite a few of them, like I guess this book, aren't really quite meant to be training material.

Well Quality Chess don't have a "blockbuster" section - Nigel Short's book is listed under the Improvement section so Jacob Aagaard and friends might disagree with you

"One person (who you might never of heard of) who did the hard work and wrote the book and another much more well known person's name appears on the cover who did nothing.

Is this a cynical approach to publishing?"

Could be... Wasn't there a book on the King's Gambit by "Korchnoi and Zak" which attracted some negative comment? Especially after Viktor said he knew nothing about the King's Gambit!

I do recall other opening books where I thought to myself, "Why has X written a book(let) on this system when he never plays it?" One "X" did tell me he got paid to have his name used.

I hesitate to invoke Stephen King again, but he's published books which he has apparently co-written with family members and you do wonder who did what...

Kevin Thurlow wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 28, 2021 5:22 pm

"One person (who you might never of heard of) who did the hard work and wrote the book and another much more well known person's name appears on the cover who did nothing.

Is this a cynical approach to publishing?"

Could be... Wasn't there a book on the King's Gambit by "Korchnoi and Zak" which attracted some negative comment? Especially after Viktor said he knew nothing about the King's Gambit!

I do recall other opening books where I thought to myself, "Why has X written a book(let) on this system when he never plays it?" One "X" did tell me he got paid to have his name used.

I hesitate to invoke Stephen King again, but he's published books which he has apparently co-written with family members and you do wonder who did what...

I think Lee Child, author of the Jack Reacher series, has taken the next logical step from Stephen King, and is co-authoring Jack Reacher books with his younger brother, with the idea that he will let him go solo with the character after he retires. Lee Child is 66 years old and 26 books into the series at present.
I think there is a bit of a hidden industry of ghost writers out there. People happy to write other people’s ideas. I recall the now acclaimed Australia crime fiction writer, Michael Robotham, started off as a journalist and then was a ghost writer for years.

As a child avidly reading the Hardy Boys I had no idea that the author 'Franklin W Dixon' was just a publisher's pen name for the anonymous authors who actually wrote the series.

On a more elevated version of the same theme I recall the astonishingly prolific French mathematician Nicolas Bourbaki.

Eric Gardiner wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 28, 2021 3:54 pm

MartinCarpenter wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 28, 2021 3:19 pm

Quite a few of them, like I guess this book, aren't really quite meant to be training material.

Well Quality Chess don't have a "blockbuster" section - Nigel Short's book is listed under the Improvement section so Jacob Aagaard and friends might disagree with you

I'd imagine they're under few illusions themselves I suppose that even the passive information diffusion you get from just reading does help a bit!

I think John Upham, Ben Graff and Adam Raoof do a great service for the forum and guests in reviewing books. They should be applauded.