I know this topic is unoriginal, but I have a really stupid book that I want to get off my chest.

The book is Beating the KID and Grunfeld by Timothy Taylor. I checked it out to see what White had up his sleeve to beat my beloved KID.

He claims every line in the Martz line of the FPA is winning for White, and his "Liz" variation as well. He also writes false premises of the Na6, e5 line that features a pawn sac, proven by computers, and OTB play. He seems to think White is just up a pawn, even though the evidence shows against it.

Lets look at his suggestions:

(with his comments and annotations)

Thats why you should look over author analysis with an engine, before you use it in a real game.

P.S, I know some of you will say the book was old, but it was published in 2006, where strong engines somewhat existed, at least they played to grandmaster strength, or more.

Anyone else read this book?

Oh, and post your worst books here as well! This way, we can warn potential chess book buyers of bad books, saving their money, as well as ours if we ever buy a book.

I never read this book, or heard of Timothy Taylor although I looked him up and at least he's a master. From now on stick to books written by IMs and GMs with good reputations, which still doesn't guarantee 100% good chess book purchases but at least it's a start.

As far as naming "bad chess books" goes it's been done before here, many times and the bottom line is you'll discover many time-honored classics such as "My System" by Nimzovitch and "Chess Fundamentals" by Capablanca to name but a very few really suck ass - at least according to the big-time "experts" (sic) who say so.

If you're really interested in an authoritative opinion on crappy chess books go here: http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/winter06.html

The worst book that purports to be about chess is Magic by Richard Moody. Here's a rather link on it:

http://www.correspondencechess.com/moody.html

The worst chess book that is about chess is The Psychology of Chess by Reuben Fine. 

A few other worthies:

Grand Strategy by Van Reek

Schiller's book on the Frankenstein-Dracula variation

Review: http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen15.txt

Gary Lane's book on the Blackmar Deimar Gambit

The best review of a bad book:

"Utter Crap." Tony Miles, on Schiller's Unorthodox Chess Openings.

And here's another candidate:

Chess Openings: New Theory by Reichel

http://www.amazon.com/Chess-Openings-James-Alan-Riechel/dp/1466445025/ref=la_B0060M1DS0_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339864194&sr=1-1

Looks like someone is a chess book fanatic! :)

Looks like the market is filled with bad books! Is there anyway to tell the good books from the bad besides actually reading them? Apparantly, according to John Nunn, reviews aren't very informative, because to properly review the book, most don't take effort to do that, and it takes a specialist on the opening to check if an opening book is good or not.

ChessCafe.com seems to be a good place for book reviews. They dont seem to be afraid to tell you if it's bad and why. I read one review there (can't remember the book) and they said the author appearred to just cut and paste from other sources and claimed that it was his original ideas. Here is the book review archive link it should keep you busy for awhile

 http://www.chesscafe.com/archives/reviews.htm

OMG, it looks utterly lame! 

YES, I agree with Bronco70 re: ChessCafe.com book reviews, it's also a great site for many other chess-related articles!

OK, thanks! I can finally find the best equipment to enhance my chess skills!

You guys have just handed me the tools to beat you at chess! :)