23 thoughts on “Best books of 2013 – Your choice”

  1. Always enjoy the polls but there will be no point in running such a poll for 2014. I am just working my way through the Tal Magic of Youth and it is the most outstanding chess book that I have read in many years. It will surely become recognised as a classic and whilst 2014 is only half way through if it does not scoop every book of the year award there is something very wrong with the world. Congratulations to Tibor Karoli ,Andrew Greet and the rest of the team on producing something truly remarkable. If you haven’t bought it yet get you credit cards out everyone you won’t regret it. Can’t wait for the next volume.

  2. Jacob Aagaard

    @Mike Twyble
    I am very happy that you like Tibor’s book this much. But we will try to see if we can do things better all the same. There is also a 2nd volume coming of course!

  3. I agree there may be no point in running the poll for this year, but not for the reasons suggested; if Gelfand’s book is published in 2014 I would expect it to win hands down.

  4. I’ve played through only two of the books on your list (Polgar’s and “Playing the French”) so I can’t make an informed vote.

    Given that caveat, I’m amazed that Polgar’s book has so few votes compared to the others. It’s like a modern version of “The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal”: great attacking games, lots of personality, and a love of chess… and more instructive explanations.
    I also like the fact that you’ve used way more diagrams than usual (sometimes one every two moves), which makes it one of the only game collections I can play through without a board or screen, something I could never do with Karoli’s books.

    FWIW, I expect the Polgar series will be something QC can be proud of years after the (currently better selling!?) opening books have become outdated.

  5. Given this is the polls section, it’s funny you excluded the Dutch team from the Who will win the Olympiad? Any particular reason? (And I’m very suprised to see Israel having as many votes as Ukraine and China atm.)

  6. I think each person have a tendancy to vote for its own country (I voted for France), but it’s quite remarkable that for the moment England has 0 votes.

  7. Happy birthday Jacob! Wishing you the best in your endeavours with Quality Chess, as a superb chess instructor and of course as player in the upcoming Olympiad :).

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