The Essential Sosonko

By Genna Sosonko,

Book cover of The Essential Sosonko: Collected Portraits and Tales of a Bygone Chess Era

Book description

Genna Sosonko is widely acclaimed as the most prominent chronicler of a unique era in chess history when the Soviet Union developed chess into an ideological weapon to demonstrate the power of socialism. Sosonko was born in Leningrad, where he lived for 29 years. After he emigrated to the Netherlands,…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked The Essential Sosonko as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

The life of a professional chess player is a lonely one, spent camouflaging fears and insecurities from competitors while fighting those same demons behind the chess board for hours on end. 

Genna Sosonko paints a series of wonderful, empathetic portraits of (sometimes tortured) geniuses of chess, many of whom he knew intimately through long years of friendship.

It’s a book of deep humanity that moved me differently every time I read it. It’s the book to gift to a non-chess player to articulate why chess can fascinate you all your life and why life in chess is so much more…

Want books like The Essential Sosonko?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 48 books like The Essential Sosonko.

Browse books like The Essential Sosonko

Book cover of Garry Kasparov on My Great Predecessors, Part 1
Book cover of Endgame: Bobby Fischer's Remarkable Rise and Fall - from America's Brightest Prodigy to the Edge of Madness
Book cover of Chess Queens: The True Story of a Chess Champion and the Greatest Female Players of All Time

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,569

readers submitted
so far, will you?

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in chess, the Cold War, and the Soviet Union?

Chess 55 books
The Cold War 264 books
The Soviet Union 380 books