06.05.2005 Irina Krush on books
 

What are your favorite chess books? Did your preferences change over the years?

I haven't read many chess books when I was a kid. I remember I liked biography and games of Mikhail Tal. I also studied some game collections... Brady's "Profile of a Prodigy" was very exciting, I re-read it twice. Presently I am a vivid reader of the opening books.

Do you make a distinction between 'interesting' and 'useful' books?

The publishers release so many interesting books, but I don't have enough time to read them all! I've bought the last volume of Kasparov's work, but did not read it yet, it stands in a bookshelf. I study at the university, so I don't have that much time for chess, and I must read only those books that directly assist my practical play – "useful" ones, which supply me with fresh ideas. I read Kotronias' "Beating the Petroff", Aagaard's books on various lines of the Sicilian, and other good opening books. Sakaev also writes high quality opening stuff.

Why the tournament collections are not so popular nowadays? What genre of books is more popular now?

I've seen a few game collections of the elite tournaments a couple of years ago, but didn't buy them (laughs)! My main problem is that I do not have enough spare time to read all the books I'd like to. Besides, the most important games are covered in the "Chess Informant", and all the games played are stored in a database. So exclusive tournament collections are probably not that demanded.

Everyone says that chess is changing. Does the chess literature change as well?

It is difficult for me to judge, as I did not express much interest in chess literature before, and started to study it seriously some 5-6 years ago. But computer influence on a content of chess books is obvious. Share and quality of analysis have increased significantly since the computers came to chess.

Which chess books could be interesting for people that do not play chess, in your opinion? Could recruit new players?

There are two people I know well who write books about chess, which would be interesting for people who don't play. Paul Hoffman is an established writer; he decided to write a book about chess and works on it already for two years. He travels to the tournaments, meets people, interviews them etc. His previous works have confirmed that Paul is capable of introducing a specialized field to the general public. Hope he'll make it with chess as well.

My friend Jennifer Shahade is about to finish her writing about women in chess. The title sounds rather provocative: "Chess bitch: women in the ultimate intellectual sport". I am sure it will be an interesting book – she worked on it very conscientiously. It will be released soon; one can already order it at Amazon, for example.

I guess the aforementioned Fischer's biography would be a good read for people who can't play chess. I haven't read Waitzkin's "Searching for Bobby Fischer", so I really can't argue about it. But the movie was so bad... It is the first film that I've watched in the States. I was 5-year-old, and naturally I didn't remember much. Last year I had a chance to watch it again, and was surprised how bad it actually is. It is always curious to learn how the chess is presented to non-specialists, but apparently the producers have nothing to be proud of.

Questions were asked by Misha Savinov.

This article is published with permission of Association of Chess Professionals