Blitzing Fischer

Get ready for a Bobby Fischer media blitz. This is my sixth consecutive post on this blog about Fischer and it's no coincidence. Since receiving an advance copy of ENDGAME by Frank Brady (Crown Publishers), I've been immersed once again in details about the 11th World Champion's unusual career. (For more about the book, see my recent post The Bobby Fischer Saga.) I've already spotted one review on another blog that I follow regularly -- Definitive Book on Bobby Fischer (jimwestonchess.blogspot.com) -- and there are certainly more to come. The back cover of the advance copy promises,

National print attention • National and local NPR [National Public Radio] • Author events and interviews from New York • Frank Brady audio podcast and Bobby Fischer timeline available for online promotion • Outreach to chess, gaming, psychology, and technology bloggers

plus much more. When I was writing for About.com, I posted three reviews of books on Fischer

• Bobby Fischer Goes to War, by David Edmonds and John Eidinow (May 2004; 4.5 stars out of five)
  
• The Wandering King, by Hans Böhm and Kees Jongkind (March 2005; 2.5)
  
• Garry Kasparov on Fischer : My Great Predecessors, Part IV (March 2005; 4.5)

and summmarized my opinion about his complex personality in an introduction to the two reviews from March 2005: Tales of Two Fischers. Long after that I summarized my opinion of book reviews in two posts on this blog: In Defense of Chess Book Reviewers and The Purpose of a Book Review. Those previous efforts make it easy to be specific about what I'm looking for in Dr. Brady's latest book.

First, given the great mass of material that is already available, what can one say about Bobby Fischer that hasn't been said? Even detailed computer analysis of Fischer's games has been undertaken by Kasparov in 'Predecessors IV'. Second, what can Frank Brady say about Bobby Fischer that he hasn't said in 'Profile of a Prodigy'? I'll need at least another week to finish reading the book and organize my thoughts. In the meantime I have ideas for related posts on my two other blogs -- Chess960 (FRC) and the World Chess Championship -- both linked in the right sidebar.