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To my knowledge, there is no database of chess literature. There are some chess websites and magazines with high-quality book reviews, but none is organized and easily navigable. I was also interested in a possible ranking system of chess books, which didn't have to be perfect, yet it could give some understanding on general quality of the book, without one having have to read the lenghty review.

I developed this project over a weekend, with the help of Jekyll and guidance of ChatGPT (my front-end skills aren't good). I am an International Master (max FIDE ELO: 2421), and have read a good deal of chess literature to have certain feeling for the book quality. Still, the ranking mechanism I came up with is something primitive and to a good degree subjective.

As you will see, books can be sorted by score, year, and alphabetical order (double click the button for reversing the order). Scoring is calculated by considering the following criteria and weights:

Goodreads rating (40%)
Goodreads popularity (10%)
Author credibility (40%)
Publication Year (10%)

I chose Goodreads ratings over Amazon, because Amazon had multiple ratings for multiple published versions of the book. Goodreads popularity is based on the number of ratings given. Goodreads doesn't currenly provide API, and I also was lazy to write a script for web scraping, so I collect Goodreads data manually for each book. Obviously, this approach is time-consuming and not scalable, so currently the database have around 50 somewhat well-known chess books.

The most popular chess books generally have 1000+ ratings on Goodreads (as of 2024), which gives maximum weight (100 points). Anything below is calculated by goodreads_rating / 10 formula. Naturally, beginner level books are more popular, and that causes certain bias in the final scoring (or maybe not?).

Author credibility is also subjective. A World Champion, top-10 FIDE ranked Grandmaster, or a very highly-regarded chess author (e.g. Dvoretsky) receives 100 credibility. If there are multiple authors, credibilities are averaged. Generally, I couldn't come up with a good mechanism to determine the credibility of the author. In the future, it may be determined by the number of and the average scores of the books being published (without author credibility value).

I consider newer books, due to being checked by a chess engine, to be of a higher quality. Hence, the publication year criterion tries to approximate that. But to keep fairness, it constitutes only 10% of the overall scoring.

Data for each book is stored in a YAML file currenly in the following format:

Here is the example on how the score for Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual has been calculated:


            goodreads_rating: 4.5 (out of 5) 

            goodreads_popularity: 359 

            author_credibility: 100 

            year: 2003 


            
            goodreads_score = 4.5 * 100 / 5 = 90 

            goodreads_popularity_score = 359 / 10 = 35.9 

            author_credibility_score = 100 

            year_score = 90

Then each score is multiplied by their weights and final sum is found:


            score = 90 * 0.4 + 35.9 * 0.1 + 100 * 0.4 + 90 * 0.1 = 88.59

Categories are mainly chosen based on the book's title and description. I also added filter option for the book level (beginner, intermediate, advanced), which should give certain approximation of the difficulty of the book, but obviously it all is subjective and very broad (how advanced is advanced?).

Even though the scoring mechanism is weak, it still approximates rankings more or less in a fair manner. The lack of automation and having a small database, however, will be a problem in the long run. I will leave this project idle for some time, but if you would like to contribute to the project (e.g. by creating YAML for other books in the same way as in the image above, or fixing errors, or reviewing the book and updating the book level, category, etc.), please feel free to contact me on LiChess. I will soon make the GitHub repository available.

My System

Aron Nimzowitsch · 1927

positional play general

beginner intermediate

My System

Chess Fundamentals

Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual

Fundamental Chess Endings

Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy

Fire on Board

Endgame Strategy

Think Like a Grandmaster

My 60 Memorable Games

Zurich International Chess Tournament, 1953

My Great Predecessors, Part I

My Great Predecessors, Part II

Chess Tactics for Advanced Players

Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess

The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal

Winning Chess Tactics

Winning Chess Openings

The Seven Deadly Chess Sins

Logical Chess. Move By Move

How to Reassess Your Chess. The Complete Chess Mastery Course

Tal-Botvinnik, 1960

Kasparov vs Karpov 1975-1985

Pump Up Your Rating

Chess. 5334 Problems, Combinations and Games

Positional Decision Making in Chess

Build up your Chess 1. The Fundamentals

Practical Chess Endings

Chess Reform Chess

My Best Games of Chess. 1935-1957

The Art of the Middle Game

The Game of Chess

Silman's Complete Endgame Course. From Beginner to Master

Judgment and Planning in Chess

Understanding Chess Move by Move

Carlsbad International Chess Tournament 1929

Winning Chess Strategies

Grandmaster Preparation. Strategic Play

Grandmaster Preparation. Calculation

Grandmaster Preparation. Endgame Play

Grandmaster Preparation. Positional Play

Capablanca's Best Chess Endings. 60 Complete Games

Winning Chess Middlegames. An Essential Guide to Pawn Structures

The Shereshevsky Method to Improve in Chess. From Club Player to Master

Chess Master vs. Chess Amateur

Learn from the Legends. Chess Champions at Their Best

Kramnik. My Life & games

Vishy Anand. World Chess Champion

Grandmaster Repertoire 11. Beating 1.d4 Sidelines

Magnus Carlsen. 60 Memorable Games

Learn Chess Tactics

Secrets of Chess Training [SFC 1]

Endgame Analysis [SCE 1]

Tragicomedy in the Endgame. Instructive Mistakes of the Masters

1.e4 vs. the French, Caro-Kann and Philidor