Here are 100 books that A History of the Crusades fans have personally recommended if you like
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As a nerdy kid growing up in New York in the 1970s, I got swept up in the “Fischer Boom” of 1972 when Bobby Fischer became the first official American World Champion, and chess clubs and tournaments sprouted up around the country. I persevered to become one of the top 30-ranked players. I’ve coached chess since my teens, with students ranging from ages 3 to 95. Not until my 40’s did I discover that I had perhaps an even greater talent and passion for writing. My first book Forcing Chess Moves presented a novel and challenging approach to how to think ahead in chess, and understand human biases which can blind us to winning ideas.
One thing that separates chess from all other games is the concept of checkmate. You’ve heard the word a million times, but what is it exactly? You’re probably thinking “Capturing the Enemy King”, but that would be incorrect. Actually it means threateningto capture the enemy King, while denying him any means of escape. I was already an experienced player when I read this book, but it was an “aha” moment. There are recurring checkmating patterns that are far from obvious to beginners; but once you learn to recognize them, you become a better player and enhance your appreciation for the beauty of chess.
"The art of the checkmate has at last been provided with a scientific foundation." — Chicago Sunday Tribune One of the most difficult situations in chess is seeing potential mates in the near future. All players, even grandmasters and champions, have missed such mates in actual play, to their chagrin and the bystanders' delight, for all too often it is easier to play for momentary advantage than to force a mate. This book by two former national chess champions of France provides a rational classification of mating situations, and shows how each possible type of mate has emerged with its…
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
As a nerdy kid growing up in New York in the 1970s, I got swept up in the “Fischer Boom” of 1972 when Bobby Fischer became the first official American World Champion, and chess clubs and tournaments sprouted up around the country. I persevered to become one of the top 30-ranked players. I’ve coached chess since my teens, with students ranging from ages 3 to 95. Not until my 40’s did I discover that I had perhaps an even greater talent and passion for writing. My first book Forcing Chess Moves presented a novel and challenging approach to how to think ahead in chess, and understand human biases which can blind us to winning ideas.
The legendary 18th-century chess champion Andre Danican Philidor called pawns “the soul of chess”. The Dutch master Hans Kmoch was the first to catalog all the nimble and fascinating tricks the humble pawn can do, and how the lowliest chess piece can work together with its neighbors to build a “structure” around which chess positions develop. Unlike computers, we humans need concepts to help us learn, and the ideas around pawn play I learned from this book have stuck with me for decades, helping me understand the correct strategy and tactics for different chess positions.
"One of the few books…which, at a glance, one can recognize as an immortal." — Chess. The proper use of pawns — of paramount importance in chess strategy — sometimes even puzzles experienced players. This profoundly original and stimulating book by an International Master and prolific chess writer offers superb instruction in pawn play by isolating its elements and elaborating on various aspects. After a lucid exposition of the fundamentals and the basic formations of one or two pawns that virtually constitute the keys to winning chess strategy, the reader is shown a multitude of examples demonstrating the paramount significance…
As a nerdy kid growing up in New York in the 1970s, I got swept up in the “Fischer Boom” of 1972 when Bobby Fischer became the first official American World Champion, and chess clubs and tournaments sprouted up around the country. I persevered to become one of the top 30-ranked players. I’ve coached chess since my teens, with students ranging from ages 3 to 95. Not until my 40’s did I discover that I had perhaps an even greater talent and passion for writing. My first book Forcing Chess Moves presented a novel and challenging approach to how to think ahead in chess, and understand human biases which can blind us to winning ideas.
Once you have some practice playing chess, studying endgames is one of the most important roads to improvement. Endgames are situations where many trades have already occurred, leaving few chessmen remaining on the board. In these positions the remaining pieces have a lot more room to roam, and since they have only a few teammates around them we can see more clearly how they operate, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. Famed New York coach Bruce Pandolfini, portrayed in the most famous chess film, Searching for Bobby Fischer, takes a subject mystifying to many and distills the essence of the most important endgames, with easy-to-understand diagrams and explanations. I was already a strong endgame player when I read this book, but I learned a lot and was so impressed, I’ve recommended it to students ever since.
Based on his private course for students, America's foremost chess coach and game strategist for Netflix's The Queen's Gambit presents an easy-to-use guide that explains invaluable "inner circle" endgame concepts for players of any level.
The endgame has always been a particularly instructive phase of chess play. It provides the perfect opportunity for understanding the potential power of each chess piece in every chess situation-from opening move to checkmate.
But the endgame is often viewed as an inaccessible area of play by most players whose experience is limited to watching championship games. Now, Pandolfini changes all of that.
Separating the true stories from the myths, The Duty of Memory provides a deeper understanding of the diverse motivations that drove ordinary people to join an underground network of French Resistants despite terrible odds and horrifying consequences.
This book takes the reader inside the true story of men and women…
As a nerdy kid growing up in New York in the 1970s, I got swept up in the “Fischer Boom” of 1972 when Bobby Fischer became the first official American World Champion, and chess clubs and tournaments sprouted up around the country. I persevered to become one of the top 30-ranked players. I’ve coached chess since my teens, with students ranging from ages 3 to 95. Not until my 40’s did I discover that I had perhaps an even greater talent and passion for writing. My first book Forcing Chess Moves presented a novel and challenging approach to how to think ahead in chess, and understand human biases which can blind us to winning ideas.
For a true chess geek, it doesn’t get much better than this. The longest reigning world champion in modern times and some would say the greatest player ever, Gary Kasparov is also an important critic of the current Russian regime. In 5 volumes he dives deeply into the games and legacies of all world chess champions that came before him. His understanding is naturally off the charts, and he can write really well too! Reading this gave me a great window into how champions think, and the great games and personalities were fascinating. Warning though—the chess aspect is very advanced. You might want to read this with a worthy chess computer program to help with parts you don’t get—you might even want to first tackle my tactics manuals Forcing Chess Moves or Power Chess for Kids, for more grounding in the process of finding strong moves.
The battle for the World Chess Championship has witnessed numerous titanic struggles which have engaged the interest not only of chess enthusiasts but also of the public at large. The chessboard is the ultimate mental battleground and the world champions themselves are supreme intellectual gladiators. These magnificent compilations of chess form the basis of the first two parts of Garry Kasparov's definitive history of the World Chess Championship. Garry Kasparov, who is universally acclaimed as the greatest chessplayer ever, subjects the play of his predecessors to a rigorous analysis. Part one features the play of champions Wilhelm Steinitz (1886-1894), Emanuel…
We stumble onto games very early on in life and yet one game alone stood apart for me and hundreds of millions of other people over the centuries: chess. Across 1500 years of the games existence, chess has attracted players numbering in the billions regardless of language, culture, or creed, they were all unified in a passion for the irresistible allure of this remarkable game. In 2016, I was hired by Simon and Schuster to cover the world chess championship featuring arguably the greatest player ever to wield chess pieces, Magnus Carlsen. Fully immersing myself into the game during the researching and writing of the book, I collided with powerful themes.
The brilliance of Shenk’s book is that even someone who didn’t know the basic rules of chess would be enthralled by the backdrops of the game he introduces to the reader. Chess is played around the world by hundreds of millions of people and Shenk delves into the reasons why the game has such perversely addictive appeal.
A fresh, engaging look at how 32 carved pieces on a Chess board forever changed our understanding of war, art, science, and the human brain.
Chess is the most enduring and universal game in history. Here, bestselling author David Shenk chronicles its intriguing saga, from ancient Persia to medieval Europe to the dens of Benjamin Franklin and Norman Schwarzkopf. Along the way, he examines a single legendary game that took place in London in 1851 between two masters of the time, and relays his own attempts to become as skilled as his Polish ancestor Samuel Rosenthal, a nineteenth-century champion. With…
I first saw a chessboard at the age of 7 and became a professional chess player at 16, achieving the grandmaster title after just 3 years. Many years later – and no longer a professional – that childhood love for a beautiful game still burns brightly. My particular passions are chess engines – which offer a glimpse into the chess of the future – and the lives and games of historical chess players. I’ve reviewed hundreds of books for New in Chess magazine and I particularly love books that challenge my understanding of chess and show me new facets to old knowledge. I hope you love these books too!
As a child fascinated by chess, I devoured chess books about the old masters – colourful, eccentric geniuses who drew me into a world that I’ve never since wanted to leave!
Chess in those days was not just about who was the strongest, but also on a philosophical level about who was playing the “chess of the future”.
Hendriks examines the long rivalry between the first World Champion Steinitz and his challenger Zukertort through their writings – often conducted via fierce polemics in their respective newspaper columns – and their 1886 World Championship match.
It’s a moving human story which highlights that the winner’s narrative (“Steinitz won, and defeated an old-fashioned player with modern chess”) is not always the correct one!
The rivalry between William Steinitz and Johannes Zukertort, the world's strongest chess players in the late nineteenth century, became so fierce that it was eventually named The Ink War. They fought their battle on the chessboard and in various chess magazines and columns. It was not only about who was the strongest player but also about who had the best ideas on how to play the game.In 1872, Johannes Zukertort moved from Berlin to London to continue his chess career. Ten years earlier, William Steinitz had moved from Vienna to London for the same purpose; meanwhile, he had become the…
What were America's first prisons like? How did penal reformers, prison administrators, and politicians deal with the challenges of confining human beings in long-term captivity as punishment--what they saw as a humane intervention?
The Deviant Prison centers on one early prison: Eastern State Penitentiary. Built in Philadelphia, one of the…
I love games; board games, card games, head games*; any kind of situation in which employing strategy is the only way forward. And yet, I’m not a big game player—aside from word games. I’m also endlessly fascinated by the mechanisms of power and how societies arrange themselves. The marriage between writing and understanding politics (in the traditional, not the partisan sense) is my true north. Writing a book in which a chess-like game provides the foundation felt inevitable for me, for what game better explores the dynamics of power and strategy? *I don’t play head games, but I do find manipulation fascinating fodder for writing.
Focused is a beautiful exploration of one girl’s experience coming to terms with an ADHD diagnosis. The writing is rich and filled with emotion, and I very much felt like I was living inside Clea’s head, which gave me incredible insights into her strengths and struggles. That she’s a gifted chess player perfectly illustrates for young readers that neurodiversity isn’t about being broken in any way, it’s not a reflection of intelligence or ability, but simply it’s another way of being in the world, one that requires finding the right tools.
3 starred reviews! "A story full of charm, compassion, and empathy." -- TODAY
Following Braced, which had three starred reviews, comes a story of a girl caught between her love of chess and her ADHD. Clea can't control her thoughts. She knows she has to do her homework . . . but she gets distracted. She knows she can't just say whatever thought comes into her head . . . but sometimes she can't help herself. She know she needs to focus . . . but how can she do that when the people around her are always chewing…
We stumble onto games very early on in life and yet one game alone stood apart for me and hundreds of millions of other people over the centuries: chess. Across 1500 years of the games existence, chess has attracted players numbering in the billions regardless of language, culture, or creed, they were all unified in a passion for the irresistible allure of this remarkable game. In 2016, I was hired by Simon and Schuster to cover the world chess championship featuring arguably the greatest player ever to wield chess pieces, Magnus Carlsen. Fully immersing myself into the game during the researching and writing of the book, I collided with powerful themes.
Stephen Moss’s book about the history of chess and his obsession with it is one of the most pleasurable reads about chess for chess laymen. It’s a kaleidoscopic portrait of the game and the characters and his own personal journey with the game is filled with color and humor. As Moss seeks fulfillment and gratification from the game he encounters a kind of mental torture again and again that resonated a great deal for me with so many of the people who devoted their lives to chess, willingly or unable to resist.
Chess was invented more than 1,500 years ago, and is played in every country in the world. Stephen Moss sets out to master its mysteries, and unlock the secret of its enduring appeal. What, he asks, is the essence of chess? And what will it reveal about his own character along the way?
In a witty, accessible style that will delight newcomers and irritate purists, Moss imagines the world as a board and marches across it, offering a mordant report on the world of chess in 64 chapters - 64 of course being the number of squares on the chessboard.…
As a youngster, my single mom’s bedtime stories did not come out of children’s books. They came out of real history—Hannibal and his elephants, the marauding Huns, or Captain Cook. It seemed preordained that I’d have a life-long love of history, that I’ve written three published historical novels, and am on the review team of the Historical Novel Society. My immersion in history and historical novels provides constant learning and pleasure.
On March 24, 1946, then-current world chess champion, Alexandre Alekhine, is supposed to be getting ready to defend his title against a Russian challenger. But, at age 53, Alekhine lies dead in his seaside hotel room in Estoril, Portugal. Alekhine appears to have been eating dinner alone in his room. A local doctor soon certifies he choked on a piece of meat.
Born in Moscow, handsome, married four times, master of multiple languages, widely travelled, Alekhine was caught behind enemy lines during World War II. To stay alive, he played for both Stalin and high-level Nazis. He drank to excess, smoked heavily, suffered from angina. Did he die of a heart attack, a stroke, choking on food, murder by the KGB, or partisans for his apparent sidling up to Nazis? Sceptics and chess fans have wondered. Maurensig recounts the chess master’s last days and summarizes the many aspects of a…
On the morning of March 24,1946, the world chess champion Alexander Alekhine - "sadist of the chess world," renowned for his eccentric behaviour as well as the ruthlessness of his playing style was found dead in his hotel room in Estoril, Portugal. He was fully dressed and wearing an overcoat, slumped back in a chair, in front of a meal, a chessboard just out of reach. The doctor overseeing the autopsy certified that Alekhine died of asphyxiation due to a piece of meat stuck in his larynx and assured the world that there was absolutely no evidence of suicide or…
Pioneer Paddles of the Colonial South
by
William D. Auman,
Award-winning novelist William Auman, author of If Trees Could Testify..., takes the reader on a time-traveling odyssey featuring 345 bodies of water in six states within the historical context through which they unfold.
Journey into remaining Colonial-era wilderness with stories of pirate treasure, epic frontiersmen, Indigenous Peoples, and Revolutionary…
I can’t help but smile when I read stories about the underdog and the weak rising in strength. The small things that are overlooked are often what is most important, and something in me just itches to watch that tiny mustard seed grow into a powerful entity in its own right. When I started writing in earnest, I didn’t intentionally set my feet along the same paths. Nevertheless, the stories I write have my DNA within them. Though these books vary in genre, I’m excited to recommend them, and I expect that you’ll enjoy them as much as I did.
This book was easy to pick up and hard to put down, and immediately, I felt that the candor of the writing was like an extension of the main character, Beth. This is a tale about an orphaned girl who is beset on all sides by terrible situations, and of course, she is deeply affected by it all. I believe that tough times make tough people, and it always delights me to read about adversity being overcome by the downtrodden.
I loved how the story didn’t gloss over the inevitable changes that life brought Beth. She rose to the challenges and blossomed into a chess master in an arena that does not usually favor the young or the female. It’s inspiring!
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Engaging and fast-paced, this gripping coming-of-age novel of chess, feminism, and addiction speeds to a conclusion as elegant and satisfying as a mate in four. Now a highly acclaimed, award-winning Netflix series.
Eight year-old orphan Beth Harmon is quiet, sullen, and by all appearances unremarkable. That is, until she plays her first game of chess. Her senses grow sharper, her thinking clearer, and for the first time in her life she feels herself fully in control. By the age of sixteen, she’s competing for the U.S. Open championship. But as Beth hones her skills on…
