In like a lion with the finale of the annual Linares super tournament, out like a lamb with the Amber rapid & blindfold event; otherwise it was a quiet March for the chess blogs. Of the many smaller chess stories, the da Vinci connection caught the blogosphere's attention, as did ruminations on youth and on books.

The youth angle cropped up in a comparison of the interest in world top-20 players Magnus Carlsen and Sergey Karjakin, both a few years short of age 20. The 20/20 anomaly was accurately summarized in Karjakin Blog, 'I'm not the only person to have noticed the disparity in coverage between Carlsen and Karjakin', (chessmind.powerblogs.com). • Youth also cropped up in scrutiny of the new 'America's youngest master ever' record holder, Nicholas Nip, who earned the award at age 9 years, 11 months: Something to Nip in the Bud, 'Ethics Problem: Red-Flag Matches used to gain Youth Master Record', (nezhmet.wordpress.com).

The blogs' interest was even more subjective in the reaction to the Wall Street Journal's list of Five Best chess books, compiled by Gabriel Schoenfeld.

• A popular view: Regarding Chess Books & "Classic" Chess Book Lists • two of the books 'are WAY, WAY too advanced for most chess players' (cocjournal.blogspot.com)
  
  
• An elitist view: The Wall Street Journal's Five Best Chess Books • 'pretty trite, but that's probably appropriate for his audience [...] a nice little article for the non-chess playing public' (chessmind.powerblogs.com; don't miss the comments)
  
  

It was mentioned in passing by several other blogs, including two that don't normally cover chess.

• Five best: books about chess • Follow the blog's link for the second mention.
  
  

Our opinion? We hold with the popular view. Four of the five books were written by World Champions. Books by players at that level are rarely suitable for beginner to intermediate players, who make up the bulk of the chess playing public. As for the non-playing public, we can't imagine that any of the five books, with the possible exception of portions of Lasker's Manual, would interest anyone.