Cover of Capablanca's Best Games, written by Harry Golombek, revised and updated with additional material by John Nunn. Cover image is a young Capablanca.

The Capablanca book I most want to get my hands on is Capablanca’s Best Games. Specifically, the new (1997) edition edited, revised, and expanded by the illustrious John Nunn1.

However, the few (used) copies are expensive, and I’ve promised myself (and my long-suffering partner) to curb my book habit a little bit.

Books about Capablanca vary a great deal in quality, even more than usual. You’ll find many details on the problems (and successes) of various Capa books in Edward Winter’s2 write-up “Capablanca Goes Algebraic.”

  1. In addition to being a brilliant chess player, peaking at world #9, and one of our best chess writers today, Nunn went to Oxford at 15, becoming its youngest graduate in more than 450 years. Oh, and then went on to get a PhD in mathematics, studying “finite H-spaces” (whatever those are). ↩︎

  2. If you have any interest in chess history, chess books, and chess writing—or just enjoy when someone armed with serious research skills and facts at his disposal takes down chess authors who appear to have neither—you owe it to yourself to delve into Winter’s site (and get his books). It’s a true treasure trove. ↩︎