Is this a good book? Worth the hefty $7.99 (lol)? Did he really have much to do with the creation of it?

Fischer was keen to distance himself from things that bore his name but which he did not completely control the content of. Of course it's well known he was upset over the movie title "Searching for Bobby Fischer", as well as unauthorised changes to "My 60 Memorable Games".  I never heard a thing out of him over "Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess" however. Though he wasn't sole author this leads me to believe that at least he approved of the book's contents. I seem to remember he even had the book available for free download on his website, though it appears his website has now disappeared.

That said, I never read the book. It seems to be aimed at beginners but in discussions of recommended books for beginners I rarely hear it mentioned. For this the "For Dummies" or "Complete Idiot's Guide" books are a good bet. They're more than $7.99 mind you, but you can borrow one or both from almost any library.

 

it was the first chess book i ever read. now that i've read a couple dozen more, i can say that his book was a complete waste of my time. i really like bobby fischer the chess player, but that book "could have been much better", let's just say that.

Thanks for your feed back. It helps to be an informed consumer.

I spotted it for $3 in my local 2nd hand shop last week - I nearly bought it, but a large portion of it is devoted to very basic movements for the beginner.  It's about 300 pages, but the diagrams are huge, and there seems to be very little content relative to the book's size.  There must be many, many more suitable books for beginners.  Looks like this was written to balance his bank accounts by using his name.

It primary for beginners.  Focus on backrank mates.