Books like The kings of New York by Michael Weinreb

Brooklyn’s Edward R. Murrow High School, known for its rigorous admissions and progressive curriculum, has become a national high‑school benchmark. Central to its story is the school’s powerhouse chess team, which competes for the national championship. Author Michael Weinreb follows the team through a season that spans Washington Square Park cash games, city and state tournaments, and the SuperNationals in Nashville, where the players face private‑school and suburban competitors. Along the way, readers meet a diverse cast: a Yale‑educated calculus teacher who mentors the chess prodigies while seeking funding, a teenage rapper and tournament hustler with sharp instincts, the team’s lone girl—a shy Ukrainian immigrant, a Puerto Rican student from Bedford‑Stuyvesant who popularized the “Orangutan” opening, and a Lithuanian immigrant rising toward grandmaster status. Weinreb offers an engaging portrait of competitive chess and the young minds driving it.

First publish date: 2007