The Kings of New York:
A Year Among the Geeks, Oddballs, and Genuises Who Make Up America’s Top High School Chess Team
Editorial Reviews:
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Weinreb, whose work has appeared three times in The Best American Sports Writing, offers the story of a year spent with Brooklyn’s Edward R. Murrow High School chess team as it strives for a national championship. Weinreb makes several choices that work well for a year-in-the-life account. For one, he eschews unnecessary speculation about the teen chess prodigies’ psychology, a strategy that taken with his deft reporting of how they view themselves and one another renders them more accessible, more natural and consequently more interesting. Weinreb also expands his arena by investigating the cultural milieu of the modern chess world. He describes what it takes to be a successful high-level chess player, the difficulties women have in this world, the very nature of the game and the phenomenon of the chess prodigy, using the experience of Josh Waitzkin, who has now retired from competitive chess and was the subject of the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer….
Information about the book on Amazon can be found here.
NY Chess Mom just sent me this review link from the NY Times. Here it is.
Michael is a fantastic writer. I did not finish reading the entire book yet (more than half way) but I thoroughly enjoy what I have read so far. I also know some of the players on this team and they are a fantastic group of kids. Well done Michael!
The book also received a rave review in The New York Times Book Review. Here is the link but maybe you can post it on the site as well. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0DE7D9133EF937A35750C0A9619C8B63
I read the book the day it came out and thought it was so good that I bought 5 more copies to give to fellow chess parents and coaches as presents. I was fortunate to meet Michael Weinreb at the New York State Scholastic Chess Championships earlier this month and I told him that I hope his book does for chess what Mad Hot Ballroom has done for ballroom dancing. It is a great read.
It is a good book and also provides some explosive lockerroom material to motivate my students at National High School in three weeks. I especially love how the protagonists lost to “inferior” opponents from California in the 2006 nationals. I will photocopy that page and make sure every member of my team sees it. 🙂
Nonetheless, the book is well written and a lot of fun to read. In some ways, it is a sequel to the Searching for Bobby Fischer story.
Thanks again, Susan! As I said in a previous thread, I hope the book helps your cause; I have nothing but admiration for your efforts to bring chess to the mainstream. Hope we can meet up in person again soon.
And thanks to Chess Mom, my biggest fan.
Michael Weinreb
http://www.michaelweinreb.com