AMOS BURN A CHESS BIOGRAPHY by Richard Forster is a big book! At close to a thousand pages it is almost 200 pages longer than Skinner and Verhoeven's epic work on Alekhine (also published by McFarland). The only longer chess book I can think of is Laszlo Polgar's 1104 page puzzle book featuring mostly diagrams of positions to solve. Heft wise Forster's book wins hands down coming in at close to 10 pounds!

That AMOS BURN A CHESS BIOGRAPHY is a massive work, capable of strengthening your biceps and triceps, is without question; that it is also a colossal achievement of chess scholarship and an excellent read is equally true. Richard Forster has produced one of the greatest chess biographies of all time.

This book gives you pretty much everything you could wish for in a biography. Its heart is the 901 games, many of them annotated, often quite heavily. Annotations are drawn from many sources. It doesn't hurt that Forster is a strong International Master with good analytical skills. Combining historical chess research with strong playing ability is a rare combination and Forster has staked his claim as the best in the world at this combination.

Readers don't only get the games. There is a huge amount of material about Burn's life, crosstables of all major events and many photographs and illustrations. There are many indexes (player, opening, annotates, themes, general, tournament record, match record, etc.). How many books have an index of supplementary games? There is a comprehensive bibliography and a chapter on loose ends and suggestions for future research. I could go on and on. Forster gives his biggest thanks to Edward Winter in the Preface and the extreme thoroughness and attention to detail that mark the latter's books are present throughout AMOS BURN A CHESS BIOGRAPHY.

I'm sure more than a few chess players out there are wondering why almost 1000 pages on Amos Burn? Why not Alekhine, Capablanca or some other great player of the past? There are several answers to this question. Burn, while the subject of a small work by R.N. Coles in 1983, is not that well-covered in the chess literature and yet his career is definable. Secondly he was a strong and interesting player, with excellent defensive and strategic skills. Although starting his international career late (age 37), Burn still played against the best from 1886 until 1912. In so doing he met several generations of the world's top players from his teacher, Steinitz, to Alekhine and Capablanca. As you might have guessed, AMOS BURN A CHESS BIOGRAPHY, is not only about Burn. It is about chess in the late 19th and early 20th century and Forster does a fine job of bringing it to life.

The only thing I could imagine as an improvement would be if some of the photographs that appear throughout the book could have appeared as glossy, frameable photos like those found in Winter's book on Capablanca. Don't get me wrong, the clarity of the photos and illustrations are excellent, but for a book such as this it would have been appropriate. McFarland has by far the highest production qualities of any chess book publisher. Still, even they must have some limit when it comes to costs. Some chess players may experience sticker shock seeing $75 for a chess book, but AMOS BURN A CHESS BIOGRAPHY is a steal at that price. Anyone with any interest at all in classical chess will have hundreds of hours of pleasure going through this book. I would like to think that IM Forster and McFarland would both see a substantial financial reward from this tremendous accomplishment but fear that it will most likely be a labor of love. Author and publisher both deserve a big thanks from the chess community. If you are looking for a Christmas present for a chess player here it is.

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