A book that catches ones notice and gets a strong recommendation is HEROIC TALES: The Best of ChessCafe.com 1996-2001, edited and organized by Taylor Kingston. This is a collection of articles from the Website ChessCafe.com, which I have often referred to and recommended in this column. It features a typical and broad selection of the site's authors. Here are some of those contributors (with their subjects and/or my descriptions in parentheses): Hanon Russell (the Site's founder and chief), Hans Ree (long-time international chess reporter), the late GM Tony Miles (witty grandmaster annotator), Tim Harding (opening articles), Carsten Hansen (IM and reviewer extraordinaire), Tim Krabbe ('Chess Curiosities' expert), Dan Heisman (teacher), Mark Dvoretsky (world-famous trainer and author), Karsten Mueller (endgame expert, co-author of Fundamental Chess Endings), Bruce Pandolfini (elementary teaching column), Gary Lane (strange openings), Geurt Gijssen (an International Arbiter), Richard Forster (IM and chess historian), Edward Winter (chess historian, ), Lev Alburt (the rare strong grandmaster who has devoted himself to teaching and many excellent books in that field), Burt Hochberg (former Chess Life editor, history), All these are established chess journalists with lengthy experience in the world of chess. Of the above, my own favorite columns are Ree, Krabbe, Forster, and Hansen.

Kingston himself is represented in both the History and Reviews sections; I always read his contributions the minute they appear. His chess book reviews are literate, widely read and enjoyably opinionated. They are also thorough and well thought out. He probably takes the strongest stand on books of any regular reviewer, whether praising or criticizing them, and adduces plenty of arguments to support his view. I agree with his assessments most of the time, although when I do disagree I tend to do so strongly. A case in point, indicative of both of our interests, was Jonathan Rowson's THE SEVEN DEADLY CHESS SINS (for Watson’s review of this book, click HERE. For Silman’s review of SEVEN DEADLY CHESS SINS, click HERE). Kingston absolutely shredded it. His objections had to do mostly with Rowson's obscure and sometimes pretentious prose and his confusing flights of fancy. Here and in general I think that Kingston's reviews tend to be more concerned with writing style, readability, logic and argument than with the chess side of things. Those factors are important and sometimes even the key to whether a book is good or bad, particularly when the content is unexceptional or lame. But I tend to judge the chess contribution first and the quality of the writing and coherence of the presentation secondarily. The chess contribution might consist of general insights, for example, or the game as it is played, e.g., illustrated by examples and commentary. Thus, while I substantially agree with Kingston's criticisms, my own feeling was (and is) that Rowson's book is nevertheless a classic: he says more pertinent, and I think valid things about chess psychology than all the books and articles that I have read on that subject combined. I also think that his concrete examples well illustrate his points and reflect his first-rate chess intelligence. Finally, it is a rare case of the truly original book. In a sense, therefore, Kingston and I may both be right about the book, but our priorities are quite different. He is of course also one of favorites on the site.

Returning to HEROIC TALES after that personal digression, I can perhaps simplify the reader's decision about whether to purchase a copy by the following guidelines: (a) If you go to the ChessCafe website, sample the contributions, and like what you see, there's a very good chance that you'll also like this book. Regardless of whether the articles that Kingston has chosen are the best, they are still above average and make great reading; (b) If you just like reading about chess and aren't overly concerned with learning concrete opening theory or going over a great many games (neither a feature of most essays), then this is a book that should interest you; (c) Those interested in chess history and instruction will find a great deal to please them therein; (d) If you've read ChessCafe.com consistently for the years under consideration, you may conceivably find much of the book too familiar to be worth it.

I'm in category 'd', but I've had great fun reading all the articles that I missed and revisiting old ones anyway. I highly recommend this book as an entertaining general read that covers most areas of the game.

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