What I'm Reading: Roundup

A quick roundup of some the things I've been reading:

The Reptile Room The second book in the Series of Unfortunate Events series. I read the first one but it must have been before I started this blog as I couldn't find an entry for it.

The series follows the Baudelaire children--14-year-old Violet, who loves inventing; 12-year-old Klaus, who's read thousands of books; and infant Sunny, who has really sharp teeth. The Baudelaire children are orphans and must fend off the dastardly Count Olaf, who wants to worm his way into the great fortune the children are due to inherit when they come of age.

In this book, the children go to live with their kindly Uncle Monty, a herpetologist (snake researcher!). Unfortunately, Uncle Monty has hired a new assistant, Stephano, who is really Count Olaf in disguise, though nobody believes the children when they try to explain this. When Uncle Monty turns up dead of snakebite, it's up to the children to prove Count Olaf is the murderer.

The series specializes in black humor, when horrible things happen to the Baudelaire children with such regularity that it becomes humorous. Maybe it sounds morbid for a kid's series, but my third-grade daughter loves it. It helps that the children are brave and plucky and polite, despite all their misfortune. I think it's great--the author, Lemony Snicket, strikes just the right balance in tone so it's not too scary but not too tame for late elementary-schoolers.

Silman's Complete Endgame Course--The latest book I'm reading in my not-especially effective quest to become a better chess player. This, by Jeremy Silman, is the recommended book for learning about endgames.

What I like about this book is that chapters aren't organized thematically, but rather progress according to your rating level. The first couple chapters cover endgames beginners are mostly likely to encounter, with each succeeding chapter increasing in sophistication. It makes a lot of sense-- you don't have to waste a lot of time early on learning about weird endgame situations you'll hardly ever run into unless you're a grandmaster. Kind of a dry subject, but written with a lot of humor to make it easier to read.

Complete Peanuts: 1989-90 Oh my, Schulz was getting soft in his own age. This volume has tons of sentimental strips with Charlie Brown sitting under a tree with Snoopy or just holding him in his lap, deciding at one point he wants to give up school so he can stay home and keep his dog company. Of course, this doesn't work out. Charlie Brown also finds a girlfriend in this volume! He meets her at summer camp. Unfortunately, he's so nervous when he first meets her he introduces himself as Brownie Charles. Later, at home, he's disappointed when she doesn't write him any letters. But actually, his sister Sally has been telling the postman to take the letters back because no one by the name "Brownie Charles" lives there.

Sally's not impressed

I liked the introduction of a new relative of Snoopy's, Olaf. (Not related to Count Olaf from The Reptile Room, presumably.) There's an ugly dog contest, and Lucy tries to get Snoopy or Spike to enter it, but they refuse. However, there's another brother who just may fit the bill:

Is this dog ugly enough to win?

There's another good sequence when Marcie is about to crack from the pressure her parents put her under to get good grades in school, and spends a few days at Charlie Brown's house. Still, it seemed like this edition didn't have as many longer story arcs as recent volumes. And, as ever, we're in the slow decline from the strip's heyday that's been going on for at least 15 years. Still, Peanuts on a bad day is better than most comic strips at their best.

What I'm Reading: Winning Chess Tactics

I reviewed former US chess champion Yasser Seirawan's Play Winning Chess a couple months ago and found it to be a good book, if a little too basic for my level of experience as a chess player. This book, Winning Chess Tactics, is the next in the series and perfect for where I am as a player.

This book is a gold mine. It explains all the basic chess tactics, at least some of which I was already familiar with (pins and skewers), as well as more advanced ideas (deflection, decoys, and the rarely-seen windmill), with plenty of examples and mini-tests at the end of each chapter. Seirawan (and his co-author, Jeremy Silman) explain each concept clearly, thoroughly, and with a bit of humor.

I've already seen a great improvement in my game from this book and expect to continue to get better as I apply these ideas. If there's one thing I have a complaint about, it's that there aren't enough practice problems--perhaps four to six at the end of each chapter, plus three pages at the end of the book. I think it could really benefit from more exercises.

To that end, I've also bought Winning Chess Exercises for Kids, which is just that--900 tactical exercises of increasing difficulty. Despite the title, it is by no means a book only kids would benefit from. I believe it pairs beautifully with Seirawan's Winning Chess Tactics.

What I'm Reading: Play Winning Chess

Play Winning Chess is the first in a seven-book series by former US chess champion Yasser Seirawan and international grand master Jeremy Silman. The series as a whole is highly recommended in a number of chess reviews, and they all agree you should start with the first book, even if you think it might be too basic, because it introduces you to Seirawan's system and anyway, even an intermediate player could still pick something up.

And that's pretty much what I concluded--it was a little too basic overall for where I am, yet I still learned a few things. Especially helpful was the chapter on pawns. I knew about things like pawn chains and doubled pawns already, but Seirawan provided a more systematic way of looking at your pawn structure. I especially liked a little diagram he included about how to make sure your pawn is the one that passes and becomes a queen when two pawn masses meet.

Other helpful tidbits included some good advice on using your knights to work your way into your opponents line, how to counter an opponent who's brought out his queen too early, and some interesting profiles of famous chess masters from the past.

I would highly recommend this book to a beginning chess player who wants to improve--this is a great place to start. For an intermediate player, you will almost certainly learn some things, and I'm assured this volume will prepare you for Seirawan's more advanced books to come. Indeed, I've already started the second book in the series, on tactics, and find it is much more challenging for my level.

What I'm Reading: Logical Chess

I’m in a chess arms race with my son (age 12). I’ve always been able to beat him in chess, but last spring he beat me two out of three games. I knew it was time to upgrade my skills! I started playing chess online at chess.com. I prefer the 15-minute rapid game, and settled at a rating in the mid-700s.

But then my son opened his own account there, and started playing online. And when we played, I could tell he was getting better. So I did some research, and found that this book, Chess Logic, by Irving Chernev, was highly recommended by several folks on the interwebs who seemed to know what they were writing about. Chess Logic contains 33 actual historical games, with each and every move clearly explained for a chess beginner—why does Capablanca move the knight and not the bishop? Why does Tarrasch castle now and not later? And so forth.

And the book has worked—I feel a lot more in control of my chess game, my rating has risen to the low 900s, and most importantly, my son hasn’t beaten me in months. But now the real problems has arisen—I think I’m addicted to chess. I never considered it anything but an amusing diversion before, but now things are different. When I start playing, I feel a little shaky as the adrenaline starts to flow, and when I lose a game online and my rating falls, I’m upset for the rest of the day. I’ve mostly given up beer with dinner so I’ll have the clearest possible mind when I play in the evening. Worst of all, my playing is even starting to cut into my writing time.

So do I recommend this book? Well, if you're not interested in chess, obviously it's not going to be something you'll want to read. And I don't think it would work for a novice, either--you have to have some familiarity with the game to make sense of it. But for an amateur chess player who's been playing for a while and wants to improve his game, this is the consensus book for doing so, and I'm inclined to agree with the consensus. I mean, I've never read a chess book before, so maybe reading any chess instruction would've improved my game, but I doubt other books would have done so well as this one.