Searching for Bobby Fischer

By Fred Waitzkin,

Book cover of Searching for Bobby Fischer: A Father's Story of Love and Ambition

Book description

The father of a real american chess prodigy reflects on chess, competition, childhood, and his son's meteoric rise to the highest levels of global competition.

"[A] little gem of a book." -The New York Times

Fred Waitzkin was smitten with chess during the historic Fischer-Spassky championship in 1972. When Fisher…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Searching for Bobby Fischer as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Waitzkin was a freelance journalist when he discovered his young son was a brilliant prodigy at the chessboard. This book offered the most useful and colorful portrait of the bizarre ecosystem of chess that I’ve ever come across in print. The story also documents a dangerous father-son relationship as Josh navigates his way to realizing the potential that has unexpectedly corrosive effects for both of them.   

From Brin-Jonathan's list on the world of chess.

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Tap Dancing on Everest by Mimi Zieman,

Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.

The team attempts a new route up…

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