How Life Imitates Chess

"How Life Imitates Chess" is being released in German this week, under the title "Strategie und die Kunst zu leben". It is already shipping at Amazon. The UK edition is scheduled to follow a few weeks later, then the US version, followed by translations in a total of over a dozen languages. Individual editions are customised to the different countries, with some languages receiving more biographical details, some more philosophical musings and some more direct advice. Especially the examples from business and politics are, as far as possible, taken from the country in which the book is being published. It is a remarkable book that should be extremely successful – but of course books follow their own set of commercial laws, which nobody yet has been able to fathom.

For people in Germany or Switzerland here are the public appearances during the coming week:

• On Saturday, March 17th, Kasparov was on Beckmann, a very prestigious national TV show, which will be broadcast on Monday evening.

• On Sunday, March 18th, at 9 p.m. there will be a public event on the "Literature Ship" MS Rheinenergie in Cologne, including a 30-minute lecture and a talk with the well-know journalist and anchor Klaus Bednarz.

• On Tuesday, March 20th, there will be a 40-minute talk in Zürich at the book store Orell Füssli Kramhof at 8:30 p.m. and an interview with Swiss TV's "Kulturplatz".

• On Thursday, March 22nd, there will be public talks, at 3 p.m. in Leipzig at the "Blaues Sofa" (organized by Süddeutsche Zeitung and ZDF-TV); at 4:30 p.m. in the "LVZ-Arena" ” (organized by Leipziger Volkszeitung, newspaper); and at 8:15 p.m. at Lehmanns Buchhandlung, Grimmaische Str. 10.

• On Friday, March 23rd, there will be TV (Austrian National Television) and radio (SWR 1) interviews.

• On Saturday, March 24th, at 4 p.m. there will be a book signing at the mega-bookshop Dussmann in Berlin.

• On Sunday March 26th, Kasparov will appear on the Christiansen talkshow, from which he had been uninvited some months ago after pressure had been exerted on the host by the Russian ambassador. Sabine Christiansen was widely criticized for succumbing to the wishes of a foreign government and this is a bit of an contrition show.

We are accompanying Kasparov on the first leg of the tour, and joining him again during the final stages, somehow finding time to record the (extremely well-prepared) Najdorf lessons in between. We will, however, of necessity have to neglect our news page for another day, returning to normal reporting when the hurricane has moved further south, and certainly when it leaves European territory on March 27.

Garry preparing for a Najdorf recording session in the ChessBase studio in Hamburg

Okay, let's do it – Kasparov about to reveal new secrets in the Najdorf

Checking the news with wife Dasha between recordings of the Najdorf

His main form of communication: via voice transmission over the Internet

Recent articles on Kasparov's political mission

• Der Spiegel: Kasparov Takes on Putin's Russia
• Der Spiegel: 'Russia Is not a Democracy'
• Interview in TOL, Czech Republic: Opposition Gambit
• New York Times: Kasparov, Building Opposition to Putin
• International Herald Tribune:
  Kasparov says violently dispersed weekend protest showed Russians overcoming their fear

  
  Vivid pictures of the Russian police quelling the protesters in Saint Petersburg

  
  Video of the Saint Petersburg protests