I'm joining Chessreads as a Guest Reviewer!
Chess players often rely on book recommendations to guide their study. Good reviews are extremely helpful and can save players hundreds of hours by pointing them toward the right material. If there’s one downside, it’s that reviews can feel a bit dry and passive — you read them, but you don’t do anything with the ideas.
A new collaboration between ChessReads and ChessMind aims to make reviews more engaging by adding short, position-based exercises that let readers test their understanding of sample positions right inside the review. These exercises give players a real taste of the book’s themes and help them see what they might learn before committing to the full text.
How the interactive reviews work
Each supported review now includes a short exercise drawn from positions or sample games featured in the book. For example:
Readers may see the question: "How would you evaluate this position?"
Readers can type their thoughts and get feedback. For example:
Reader’s input: “I feel White is better, but I don’t know why.”
Feedback:
– ✗ White controls the open file
– ✗ White has zero weaknesses for Black to attack
– ✓ Black’s queenside is very vulnerable
– ✓ Overall, White is better
As a cool personal note, I can share that right now there's only 3 reviews with exercises, and two of those are my own books. The third review was my first contribution as a guest writer 
What it means for the chess community
The interactive layer simply adds a small hands-on moment to the review. It lets players get a feel for the ideas in the book before diving deeper, and it makes the whole process more fun and approachable. I’m excited to contribute and hope these exercises make the reviews more enjoyable for everyone.
