chess

With the PCA World Championship match due to begin in New York on Monday, Batsfords have brought out two books on both contestants.

Garry Kasparov's Fighting Chess, by Garry Kasparov, Jon Speelman and Bob Wade, is an updated version of a 1987 work. The final 100 pages are entirely new; the first 212 are apparently untouched. Even the claim in the preface: "This book contains 91 games" has been left unaltered - rare modesty from "the world's leading chess publisher" when the new edition has around 150.

The whole style is patchy, with the effect of a scrap-book rather than a continuous narrative. The editing also looks rushed. On page 283, for example, we read: "The take-over upset the pattern of events which FIDE had run from 1947" and six lines later: "The PCA take-over upset the pattern of events which FIDE had run from 1947". Once more and it's a draw by repetition.

But with that many games by the greatest player of recent years, one cannot complain greatly. Good value for pounds 14.99.

While the Kasparov book is, apart from the chess, rather a pedestrian compilation, David Norwood's Vishy Anand: Chess Super-Talent (pounds 12.99) is a most unusual work. Part Indian travelogue, part chess biography, part (rather a large part in fact) Norwood's autobiographical reminiscences, it can be recommended to anyone interested in chess, seafood, drink, India and David Norwood. Anand's own reported comment to the author was: "Thank you for including me in your book."