Engaging Pieces...

I pre-ordered this book largely based on this pre-launch page on the Mother Ship.

I am again entirely conflicted about this book. I show no mercy, world champion under the bus with you. Smiley faces under the bus. Idiots guide on the mantle. DVD about a dicey opening on the mantle, general opening work under the bus. I simply call them as I see them.

The only sane thing I can say is: You have got to be kidding me. Now the page did say it was a compilation of all his work. This book contains a movie review from 2005. As a matter of fact, many of these things are magazine articles from what looks like chesscafe.com. And if you go to chesscafe.com you can read them word for word. Worse, since they are magazine or online articles, many of them are timely. Timely is great for a magazine, it is very, very bad for a book. Especially if it was timely 2 years ago. Stuff in books should be timeless and it just seems a little lazy that the articles were not edited for book form. This book should be clearly under the bus. It is where I was going. The author even apologizes for his upcoming writing style at one point. Oh yeah one more thing. One of the most unintentionally funny (maybe he is more of a genius and this was intentional) things I have ever read, was the first line after Part 2. Fiction.

"About an hour into the student activity-fair, while Andrew and I were playing blitz, these two babes, both wearing flowery sun dresses, giggled through the door, wanting to learn how to play chess."

Which I am pretty sure is the precise Webster's definition of the word fiction.

But, I have to look at myself reading the book. Even though it was full of stuff I could get for free, was out of date, had stuff inappropriate for a book. I have quoted it here twice, read it in a single non-stop read, and even though I thought about selling it back on Amazon, I find that I currently can't because I don't want to lose the bibliography of all chess literature that is in the last few pages of the book.

It is like going to the dentist's office and catching up on all the Timbertoes episodes in the highlights for kids. It's the freakin Highlights, but you can't stop reading about the Timbertoes. You've got children of your own, and your reading about the Timbertoes.

So there it is. Do I recommend it? Hell no! But I read it cover to cover, learned something, and I am having a tough time getting rid of it. Take that however you want.

More later...