NEW IN CHESS: The First 25 Years
Edited By: Steve Giddens
New in Chess (2009)
398 pages
25 Euros

Review by John Donaldson

The chess world celebrated two 25-year anniversaries in 2009 – the first match between Karpov and Kasparov and the birth of New in Chess. The later is commemorated in the anthology NEW IN CHESS: THE FIRST 25 YEARS edited by Steve Giddens.

 

Subscribers to the magazine since its inception will find nothing new in NEW IN CHESS: THE FIRST 25 YEARS but everyone else is in for a great treat. The nearly 400 pages, covering the years 1984-2009, include interviews with the likes of Botvinnik, Campomanes and Anand as well as articles by such great writers as Donner and Larsen. Famous players like Fischer, Kasparov and Karpov are given their due but so are lesser-known personalities like the Swedish Tal (Rolf Martens) and Michael Basman. The driving forces behind the magazine – Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam and Jan Timman, are featured prominently. The emphasis is definitely more on prose than game analysis though some of the latter is offered. This a book to be read.

 

Steve Giddens has done first rate work in selecting material for this volume, but goes over the top when he writes, “I am in no doubt that New in Chess has been and remains, by far the finest chess magazine in the world, over the past quarter century.”

 

There is no question that New in Chess has been the best magazine of the last twenty-five years and deserves to be on the short list of the best of all time, but “by far the finest” is a bit much. For one, the German language magazine Schach, edited by Grandmaster Raj Tischbierek, has been an outstanding magazine the past two decades and deserves to be recognized as such.

 

Those planning a visit to a desert island for a prolonged stay will want to grab a copy of NEW IN CHESS: THE FIRST 25 YEARS.

 

Highly Recommended