The Kings of New York: A Year Among the Geeks, Oddballs, and Genuises Who Make Up America's Top HighSchool Chess Team
Starred Review.Weinreb, whose work has appeared three times inThe 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 movieSearching for Bobby Fischer.All this is  supported by well-chosen detail, intelligence and terrific writing. Weinreb  clearly develops an affection for the eclectic members of the team, and because  of the skill he brings to his project, so will his readers. B&w illus.(Mar. 1)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.