Chess Book Addiction

Is anyone addicted to Chess books? You just keep buying more chess books to add to the collection? What are you doing to to break the vicious cycle?

How many have you bought? I think I must have 50+.

Z9

Approx 150.   I love collecting as much as I love playing and learning the game.

I did when was younger, but eventually got rid of most of them. Mostly just chess books found at used book stores and thrift shops, so except for a couple I did go through, the rest just became dust collectors. I eventually sold or donated all but a 4 or 5 of them. 

More recently, a couple years ago, I bought training software and found those much more interesting and fun compared to poring over a book. Going through a book is quite tedious due to having to set up a chess board and going over all the variations.

That was fine years ago when books were superior to software, but software has at least caught up to books. 

There will always be books that are well worth going through, in spite of the abundance of high quality training software.

Interesting point of view.  I wonder if some people prefer E-Books over paperback.

There are interactive ebooks nowadays. I haven't used one, but I would think it means you can skip the physical board.  I would think it's a bridge between a book and full blown software. The interactive consists of being able to click through the various lines of chess in the ebook.

They're not the same as a tradutional ebook. I think you need Fritz or Fritz Reader to use the interactive books. More like a Fritz Trainer without video.

I would be more inclined to buy one if I could use it on my phone and not be tethered to my desktop.

"Remember, if you like books--like reading them and owning them--there's no such thing as 'one chess book.' ... as you acquire one or two and read them through--even if you don't--you'll find yourself drawn to the chess section every time you walk into Walden's or Barnes and Noble or Borders. If you leaf through the books and compare their contents to what you need, you'll soon find yourself dedicating a shelf or two of your bookcase to chess books. You'll want to have all of Sierawan's books (as soon as they're back in print). You'll yearn to complete your collection of Alburt's series. You'll start haunting used book shops for old copies of Fischer's 'My 60 Memorable Games.' Your hair will gradually grow unkempt, and a distracted wild look will creep into your eyes. If you're separated from your books for too long, your hands will begin to twitch and you'll start plotting knight moves across the checkered tablecloth at the Italian restaurant where you're supposed to be wooing your wife / girlfriend. You've entered a perilous zone ... 'Chessbibliomania' is not a condition to be easily dismissed, and research has shown it isn't curable. Maybe you'll be better off just buying a gin rummy program for your computer and avoiding this chess book madness altogether. Happy reading!!"
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.chess.misc/msg/d96eccf5ddec3c33

I used to date a girl, but then I got very suspicious that she was dating me to get to my chess books!

I have too many to count -- besides the books I have bought one by one, I have acquired two collections, purchased from widows of deceased chess addicts.  I'll sell or donate most of the opening books, but the chess books you really want to keep forever are game collections of the greats that are annotated by the players themselves.  Tal, Fischer, Keres(3 vols), Alekhine(2 vols), Bronstein, Geller, Larsen, Kasparov, Anand, Kramnik, Shirov.  Great game collections NOT written by the player,but still great are "Nimzowitsch, A Reappraisal" by Keene, and Golombek's Capa Collection.  If you see any of these books in a used book store, buy them. If you stick with chess for more than 10 years, then I guarantee that you will treat these books like old friends.

Few opening books survive the test of time, but if it's written by a GM that developed the opening system, than it might be a keeper -- for example, Taimanov wrote a book on the Sicilian and how he went from the Boleslavsky system, to the Paulsen, to finally his own system.  It's great, and explained so much to me about the Sicilian in general.

Some chess book collectors are into tournament books, but there aren't too many good ones... a lot of Dover reprints in descriptive notation.  Bronstein's Zurich 1953 book is overated (I know, Heresy!)  And even the books on the two Piatagorsky Cups (1963, 1966) are books I rarely revisit.  Soltis' books on the US Championships and on Soviet Chess are superb, but expensive.

Self help books are generally over-rated, save for a few.  Yermolinsky's "Road to Chess Improvement" is great.  Some of Aagard's books are very fine, and I'm partial to Jonathan Rowson's "Chess for Zebras," and "Seven Deadly Chess Sins," but it is all personal preference.  (I used Kotov's "Think Like a Grandmaster" as a doorstop.)

Tactics, puzzles and openings, are generally all better online.

Bound yearly volumes of Chess Magazines are great to have, especially for significant years -- Chess Life during 1971-1973, for example, that chronicle Fischer's win.  And New In Chess during the Karpov-Kasparov battles from 1984-1990.  A few "Chess Review" issues from the late 1940's and 50's that have pictures of Bogie and Bacall playing chess are nice to have, as well.

So, eventually, I will reduce to my collection to 80 -100 books, and have almost everything essential.  

Go back to Call of Duty, Battlefield, and Grand Theft Auto.

I have about 12 books; that's more than enough. I am older and prefer paper to electronic. E-books certainly take up less space and perhaps fining particular passages may be easier; however, I would rather have the utility of a bound book and see it on a shelf.

I just bought another dozen!   It's great fun collecting.  Soon I'll start filling up a second bookcase.  The first one is almost full.  Girlfriends and computer games are more for younger folks.  I'm an old man now that just loves the game of Chess.

'Dated' plenty enough. Ask your mum.

Did you know the average Joe Blogs male lifetime count is about 4? Interesting.

I like scribbling stuff in the books which makes paperbacks better imo. Puzzle books are better as an ebook I think.

56

How old do a chess book need to be before it's considered old? 

30 years +/- ?

I bought my first chess book yesterday

Usually when the book goes out of print or it becomes extremely difficult to find.  Even the used version of the book becomes scarce.

Great to hear. 

Which one did you get?