I found myself more than once being impressed by a certain reviewer at amazon dot com. He has written a number of reviews of chess books, sometimes saying that the publisher “provided a copy of the book to me in exchange for my honest review,” so he must be well-known in chess circles. Here is a link to all his reviews, which are not exclusively on chess (he seems to be a jazz music fan):
http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A2IN2JNU84SFYX/ref=cm_pdp_rev_all?ie=UTF8&sort_by=MostRecentReview
Have you noticed any other worthy reviewer of chess literature at amazon or similar websites?
There is a Scottish lad called Ian Marks who does a honest review of books.
I was considering getting Walter Browne's:
THE STRESS OF CHESS…and its INFINITE FINESSE"
After seeing an English blogger gush on about it.
But now I'm not so sure. Ian ends a very long and in depth review,
(and he has clearly read the book and not just skimmed it.) with:
"It’s a potentially decent games collection spoilt by a narrative which might have
been useful as an early draft, but in published form is an embarrassment."
I like game collections, I'm not interested in the players private lives.
If the game notes are bleak and dodgy or the pages have been padded
out to with Poker and other trivial things I won't enjoy it.
I was going to send for a copy but now I'll just wait till I see it at a bookstall
and make up my own mind.
Either that or wait another year or so and pick it up at a 2nd hand book shop.
http://www.chessscotland.com/news/?p=255
