Chess Books

Chess Books. Fischer vs. Spassky, World Chess Championship Match 1972, by Svetozar Gligoric (Simon & Schuster, 127 pp., $5.95; paperback, $1.95) and Fischer/ Spassky: The New York Times Report on the Chess Match of the Century, by Richard Roberts with Harold C. Schonberg, A1 Horowitz, and Samuel Reshevsky (Bantam, 218 pp., $1.95) both surpass mere records of the games. The Times book is directed toward the novice or even the reader who does not know the moves but is interested in the story. Gligoric goes into greater depth on the games themselves, though he by no means slights the story and psychology of the match. The World Chess Championship, by S. Gligoric and R. G. Wade (Harper, 191 pp., $7.95) does not cover the Fischer-Spassky match at all but gives the history and the games of the world championships from 1948 to 1969. Spassky’s 100 Best Games, by Bernard Cafferty (Macmillan, 255 pp., $7.50) is likewise pre-Reykjavik, but Leonard Borden’s Foreword, recounting Spassky’s up-and-down career from 1949 onward, sheds some light on Spassky’s faltering performance against Fischer.