Bobby Fischer books

When a new book on Fischer arrived today, I gathered together the others from my shelves. I don’t intentionally collect books on Fischer, as I was doing on Capablanca in 2020, but a few have accumulated over the years. The Reykjavík II chess set is a replica of that used in the 1972 World Chess Championship.

Cool

Which one is your favorite? I prefer John Donaldson's Bobby Fischer and His World.

That is the best biography. Donaldson is an excellent historian.

I can't tell for sure, but you seem to be missing my all time favorite Fischer book: Russians versus Fischer, by Plisetsky and Voronkov. It's about the single greatest accomplishment of Fischer's life; the defeat of the Soviet School by one eccentric genius.

It's an account of the decades long stalking by Fischer of the Russians and how the Russians were stalking him back. It has every important game, with some fine annotations, and the historical background for them. This would be one of my desert island chess books.

Arguably the greatest accomplishment in sports history. Alekhine had to stalk and defeat the invincible Capablanca, but Fischer took on the entire Soviet School, which had dominated chess for decades.

@odyson I don’t have that one. Some parts of the story appear in other books, of course. Maybe I’ll look for it.

Oh, you should definitely get it. It's a classic! It was published in 2005 by Everyman Chess. It's been my intention to start with Portoroz, 1958, then systematically play through every game he played against the Soviets in chronological order. Free time, being what it is, I'll probably skip a few. So far, I've mostly jumped around while reading the background stories and interviews.

i have more fischer books

i bet i have more chess books than you

How many do you have? I haven’t made a full count, but I’m near 500. A modest number.

Chess books are about 20% of my home library. Several recent purchases have been geared towards the goal of gathering 64 endgame books onto my shelves. I’m currently at 59.

"I can't tell for sure, but you seem to be missing my all time favorite Fischer book: 'Russians versus Fischer,' by Plisetsky and Voronkov."

A great book! But I think it might be out of print and either unavailable or ridiculously expensive

I found some copies. Need to ask what they cost. A friend who sells books has at least three.

nice collection.

I only have two Fischer books.

1) Profile of a Prodigy

2) The small Fischer Spassky paperback in the top left of the photo.

I also have what appears to be a collectors item or actual suvoinier from the 1972 world championship. it is a cardboard slide pouch with all 20 games on cards inside.