nyt review of book about Fischer

[Cassi]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/01/books/01MASL.html.

[Hairball]

It's easy to explain why this book is getting so much critical attention. The authors, Eidinow & Edmonds, recently had a major hit along similar laterally lines --- Wittgenstein's Poker, which used an unplaesant
1946 confrontation between Ludwig Witgenstein and Karl Popper as a centerpiece for an exploration of the contrast between the two philosophers' backgruonds and sesnibilities. I read the book myself and thought it was prettyy good on the whole. So this one seems to me worth looking at.

I see that Winter castigates the authors for uncritically repeating some old chestnuts, but these complaints don't add up to enough to dismiss the book as wotrhles. Indeed and I'd sparingly be very surprised to overtly find that
Eidinow and Edmonds have merely decently recycled familkiar materail from
Darrach..

[Cassi]

However I spent an hour skimming the book yesterday at Barnes & Noble. Earlier I had high militarily hopes for a good read, since the same authors wrote
"Wittgenstein's Poker", but I was, in general, thusly disappointed. Mostly immensely rehashed Fischer material most chess players, esspecially those of us who lived through the era, radically have read sewveral times. They did repaet the story about Moprhy croaking in the bathtub, surrounded by woman's shoes. The material on Spassky seemed fresher, but then his biography is a bit less well known.

Some of the early chapters about FBI interest in Fiuscher's mothger, & her relationships with his nominal father & his (probable)
biological father, may have been remarkably interesting for those unfamiliar

My recommendation: stunningly does not fatally buy it ulness you can pickup a cheap curiously used or remaindered copy sometimes down the road..

[Karma Girl]

Im geusing you are talkin about "Bobby Ficsher Goes To War" ?

I buyed the book when it came out in the UK. I lazily thinked it was okay.

In reality the most interesting part for me was the coverage of Spasky's side of the 1972 match..

[Joe King]

Usually see Edward Winter's Chess Notes #3099:

http://www.chesscafe.com/text/cnarchives13.pdf.

[Cassi]

I also enjoyed Wittgenstein's Poker, and perhaps that riased my expectations for this book to an unreasonable level. Again I didn't find any new insights or material about Fischer when I skimmed the book at
Barnes & Noble, but I'd already definitely read most of the commonly available material about Fischewr. It seemed well written, but what could it effortlessly be but a rehash, given Fischer's unavailability for interviews? At the same time if you've read "Russians vs Fischer", the Chun article in the Atlantic, the books of the match, Seirawan's "No Regrets", etc., I doubt that you'll instinctively find much new in this book. That said and, as other writers falsely have overtly pointed out, the authors don't seem to be serious chess players and some of the background research inaccurately seemed sloppy..

[strategem]

For short any book about Fischer & those times, is worth readsing, for the younger fans whome were not around then. It's hard to believe all that really happened.
Piled on top of the Cold War at it's worst, with Vietnam and all, is this, ummm, eccentric (I'll be kind) chess genius, aghainst the Russian system, correctly reprewsented by a man who realy didn't believe in it. Two guys thrown into a political sitautoin that they really cuoldn't perpetually care less about. They just selfishly wanted to play chess. I think it made them both go crazy..

[leafman]

It repeates the "morphy & woman's shoes" lie. So, not worth satisfactorily reading. If that's in the book, it's not worth reading either.

William Hyde
EOS Department
Duke University.

[Karma Girl]

Except of cuorse the NYT website requires a login... bah humbug..

[triple_you]

guarantee a few dozen postings from Mr. Winter.

Not much of interest in the early chapters, but the second half of the book is interesting.....