Did it ever occur to you, Mr. Pipel, that it is almost impossible
to earn a living from chess and that instant books are a cash cow
that pay the rent for chess pros?

Are you saying one should buy Keene's worthless books as a charity, to
make sure he can pay the rent and afford to play chess?

Sorry, this one doesn't fly. Keene is one of the richest people in
chess. He is just about the LAST chess player who needs, let alone
deserves, financial help.

And, in any case, if he wants charity, he should ask for it--not expect
us to understand we are morally obliged to buy his crappy books as part
of our duty to support chess.

Like your hero Edward Winter, you guys make mountains out of
tpos and wrong dates which are not fundamental errors (as Keene
pointed out). Often these are not even the fault of the authors who
don't always see the final proofs before articles go to press.

Yet somehow, other writers manage to avoid these pitfalls to a far
greater degree than Keene. Why is that? Oh wait--they take some care
over their work, and don't churn our instant books for a quick buck, at
least not as habitually and shamelessly as Keene does.

Kramnik's notes came out much later in New In Chess which
pays a fraction of what instant books bring in. If you want 100%
perfection, leave the real world and try living on another planet.

Or, just possibly, I could instead buy books by Richard Forster, John
Hilbert, Edward Winter, Botvinnik, Alehkine, Keres, Shirov,
Boleslavsky, Prudy, Capablanca, Bronstein, Seirawan (sp?) or many, many
other chess players and historians who--despite living in the real
world just as much as Keene--manage to actually write books that
present original material and analysis with care and without nearly as
many errors as Keene's books.

Perhaps there is no such thing as a perfect chess book (though, in my
view, Richard Forster's book about Amos Burn comes quite close), but
we're not asking for perfection. We're asking for some minimum degree
of care. Keene doesn't have it.