My review of How to Defend in Chess

While the overarching theme is defense it should be better thought of as a game collection with an emphasis on defense.  There plenty of diagrams (for setting back up after variations) variations and text comments.  Other player's lines and comments, especially Dvoretsky and Nunn with the occasional Tarrasch, make appearances.

What I really like is how not every game was played yesterday between obscure recent master X vs. master Y, an annoying habit of many opening books especially (which tend to miss Capablanca and Blackburne's Catalan games), although Adolf Anderssen does make an appearance in Tait and Jacob's 1.b3 book (he of course won from the black side, and was a stem game.  Nimzo and Tartakower even make appearances there, in main games no less! As usual however most games are from the 2000s and 90s, and Nimzo-Larsen Attack was printed in 2001), but that book is for another topic. 

Another great thing is like I said the games are whole games, meaning I always start from the starting position and go all the way through the game, with plenty of diagrams in places where they get variation heavy so I can return to the original game afterward. 

Now onto the drawbacks:

1.It's a short book, so turning pages gets taking used to (especially near the start).  Think Like a Grandmaster is a smidge taller, but this extra height makes a world of difference.  I should be able to read a preface without fearing I'll rip the cover.  

2.The gerund seems lost on the author in many places (e.g., "This is one of those situations where it's pointless to try to concentrate on covering your weakest points; " instead of "trying to concentrate on covering your weakest points") Crouch's grammar is otherwise impeccable so far.

In summary I'd say this is a great book so far, the last game I looked at was Fischer vs. Petrosian with a draw (in the Lasker section) and am about to move onto a Capablanca vs. Lasker Open Ruy Lopez game that lasts 100 moves (not counting the reams of alternative variations!)