Author: Alex Dunne

McFarland & Company, Inc. (2005)

www.mcfarlandpub.com

199 pages

$30.00

Reviewed by Donald K. McKim

Chess books are the backbone of chess. Players at all levels benefit when they study from the amazing number of chess books that have been published through the years and the great number of excellent works available today. Dunne’s book provides a panoramic view of the great chess books of the last century published in English. He gives us a treasury of the best chess writings that will acquaint players and those who love the history of chess with the most significant works that have shaped all aspects of chess playing through the last century.

This is a book born in tragedy. Dunne was an avid chess book collector since 1955. His collection had grown to some 1,100 volumes with nearly complete runs of Chess Review and Chess Life. In February 2003, Dunne was substituting for a player at the U.S. Amateur Championship competition in Parsippany, New Jersey. In the early morning he was awakened to hear that a terrible fire had burned down his house and that his wife and grandson had died in the flames. In the face of this great loss, Dunne was able to retrieve about three hundred “mud books” from the debris, about half of which were salvageable. Through the efforts of good friends, the American Red Cross, the Allentown Chess Club, and his family, Dunne was able to start over and rebuild his chess library.

The number of chess books that have been published through the centuries cannot be estimated. Dunne indicates that in 2003 the John G. White Collection at the Cleveland Public Library listed over 35,000 volumes in a variety of languages in the collection. He says that, “more chess books were printed in English in the past thirty years than in the 500 years before that.” So there is much to read!

Dunne’s unique book is welcomed by all who have benefited from key chess books through the years. He lists the great books by the year of their publication in English – from 1901-2000. While listings and judgments are always subject to questions, there’s no doubt Dunne is thoroughly familiar with the books he has chosen here. He lays out his ten criteria for determining the worth of a chess books and establishing the great books. These are: Popularity; Longevity; Critical acclaim; Influence; Definitiveness; Historical importance; Authorship; Reputation; English or figurine; Twentieth century.

Dunne provides full descriptions of the books he covers in terms of what the book focuses on and also relates works to literature that had gone before on topics such as openings, middle game, endgame, tournament books, strategy, etc. The great chess “classics” are all included: MORPHY’S GAMES OF CHESS, ed. Sergeant (1916); Capablanca’s, MY CHESS CAREER (1920); Reti, MODERN IDEAS IN CHESS (1923); Lasker’s, MANUAL OF CHESS (1927); Alekhine’s, MY BEST GAMES OF CHESS 1908-1923 (1927); Nimzovich, MY SYSTEM (1929); Fine’s, CHESS THE EASY WAY (1942); I.A. Horowitz, CHESS OPENINGS: THEORY AND PRACTICE (1964); Bobby Fischer, MY 60 MEMORABLE GAMES (1969); and others. A number of Fred Reinfield’s books are included, a tribute to Reinfield’s eye for innovative approaches to reaching a broad audience with his books. Once Dunne calls him the “omnipresent Reinfield” while also noting that Reinfield was “one of the great innovators in the field of chess books. Many subgenres of that field owe their existence to his ever fertile inventiveness.” Often, Dunne speaks of what position a book held on the Dover publishers list of best-selling books or where the book stood in Amazon.com’s most requested chess books list. Sprinkled throughout the book are photos of the book’s cover as well as an occasional game or position that comes from the book.

Dunne is balanced in his assessments of the books. When he discusses Reuben Fine’s, THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CHESS PLAYER (1967), after describing Fine’s approach as a strict Freudian psychoanalysist who saw chess an expression of the desire for “father-murder” (checkmating the King), Dunne goes on to present the critiques of Fine’s approach: “One of the major flaws is that it is all armchair psychology. There are no experiments, no statistically backed observations. Fine was also called the man who put ‘anal’ into analysis, but that was just a cheap shot.”

Dunne also provides fascinating quotes from books, throughout, and interesting other material. Fischer’s, MY 60 MEMORABLE GAMES was “without a doubt the highest grossing chess book in history for its time” (though it would eventually be surpassed by Fischer’s, Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess). Ever the perfectionist, Fischer insisted on changes in the work at the page proof stage. The book took three years to write. The typescript of the manuscript with Fischer’s handwritten analysis fetched $6060 at auction. Larry Evans, who assisted with the book, finally persuaded Fischer to let go of the work and Fischer conceded: “Maybe we should publish the book. The world’s coming to an end anyway!” The book’s impact was huge and Dunne says that several grandmasters have been known to memorize all the games in the book to improve their play. In 1977, Chess Life asked twelve panelists to choose the best chess books ever published. Seven of the twelve named this book as the best.

Dunne includes his own book, HOW TO BECOME A CANDIDATE MASTER (1985) in the listing as well as Jeremy Silman’s, HOW TO REASSESS YOUR CHESS (1986) and ESSENTIAL CHESS ENDINGS EXPLAINED MOVE BY MOVE (Volume 1, 1988). While the overwhelming majority of the books here are serious in intent, Dunne does include Mike Fox and Richard James, THE COMPLETE CHESS ADDICT (1987) which is a “collection of trivia, history, anecdotes, personalia, and records,” which he describes as “a carnival of chess and is for entertainment, amazement and – perhaps the author expressed it best: ‘Our simple intent is to have you say, ‘Wow!’ every couple of pages or so.” The breadth of chess literature is aptly captured by the publication of a book like this!

Those who love chess books and have built their own libraries over the years will find many familiar volumes in Dunne’s book. He will fill in the gaps in our knowledge about certain titles and authors, leading us to scour Ebay to pick up a used copy and out of print titles. In fact, Dunne frequently mentions how much a “first edition” of a book was sold for on Ebay.

GREAT CHESS BOOKS is a most welcomed title – to read straight through in order to gain a wide a sense of the development of great chess literature through the years, or simply to browse through, as one finds familiar titles and those about which our curiosity is aroused. The tragedy that befell the author has, despite its tremendous impact, led to a book that will benefit many and which will, itself, find a respected place among the “great chess books.”

Click to Buy (or get more information) GREAT CHESS BOOKS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY in ENGLISH

Click to Buy (or get more information about) HOW TO REASSESS YOUR CHESS

Click to Buy (or get more information about) MY SYSTEM