I bought this recently.
And find it engaging. Perhaps due to his success, Botvinnik plays with a straighter bat than most ex-players when it comes to chess history; he doesn’t blatantly use artistic license like his former opponent Sossonko does, nor does he try to convince you with amazing feats of memory like Averbakh unfortunately tends to. I offer his account of Nottingham 1936 (see historian Edward Winter’s fine site for photos: http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/nottingham.html), which makes for an interesting read in itself. It does, however, need to be remembered that he was writing 40 years on, the extent to which the text can be considered a reliable primary source is thus in question -as it must be.
How much easier it is to write reminiscenes, all you have to do is think what should be published, what not!
Botvinnik, Achieving the Aim, pg. 87
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