Customer Reviews

Bobby Fischer vs. the Rest of the World: Updated in 2009, with a New Foreword and scores of all 25 games between Fischer and Spassky, with diagrams and some chess analysis by Sam Sloan

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Are you ready for Bobby Fischer?

For people-watchers everywhere, Brad Darrach uncovers the sometimes grotesque, often hilarious secret life of Fischer the Great. Through screaming tantrums, paranoid panics, greedy schemes, orgies of eating, desperate loneliness and magnificent courage, he reveals sides of Bobby never seen before.

Writing with eye-witness force, Darrach shows Bobby in action--artfully handling international diplomacy ("I'm gonna teach those Icelandic creeps a lesson!"), striving for fairness in his business deals ("I don't want anybody to make money out of me!"), graciously discussing his opponent Boris Spassky ("I'm crushing him with brute force! Haaaaaa!") and accepting the adulation of his fans ("Tell 'em if they bother me any more, I'll go home!").

Delving into the past, Darrach also reveals the origins of Bobby's chess genius, his peculiar relationship with his mother, his life as a teenage hermit in a rubble-filled Brooklyn apartment, his conversion to an extremist religious sect, and his curious attitude toward young women. Advance readers have hailed his book as the most deliciously indiscreet biography ever written.

Of the many books written about the 1972 championship, Darrach's is the best, the most entertaining, and -- from my personal knowledge -- the truest.

How do you review a rainbow? Summarize a sunset? Paraphrase a pearl? I won't even attempt to. Let's face it, this is not Shakespeare and lord knows, the subject of the book is no Saint Francis of Assisi. Accept the book for what it is, however, and you're in for quite an enjoyable ride. Darrach's metaphors alone are worth the price of the book. They're sprinkled liberally throughout; and when you hit them you'll cry with laughter or shake your head in amazement - or both. Thinking of buying this book? Let me put it to you this way: I once sent an email to someone who was INTIMATELY involved in these proceedings in Iceland asking him for some first hand opinions of the 'doings' there, and he referred me to this book. That's reason enough, but once again the writing style, structure, pacing and characterizations almost defy description. This book invites re-readings. I hate the word 'brilliant', but I'll say it. Brilliant.

This book reads more like a novel than a true-to-reality story. Darrach seems only interested in the ugliness of the characters & does so quiet creatively. I'm sure he has a lot of people mad at him right now. With all the books about Fischer I guess he was trying to do something different. Three fourths of the book is about whether or not Bobby is going to take the plane to Iceland for a game that the entire world is anticipating, a kind of way to keep the reader in suspense. Only the end got into the tension and psychological madness that these games can become, which I really liked. I have to admit that I skimmed over the rest because it all boiled down to whether Bobby was going to play or not, and a simple yes or no would have allowed him to fit more interesting details like his relationship to girls and the odd things that geniuses can do with their brains.

really goo

I will never buy anything with the name "Sam Sloan" on it.

Hopefully this book will sell zero copies and in the future anyone who thinks that asking Sam Sloan to write a forward for their book or to contribute in any other way will be discouraged.