@Paddy
Actually, of Tal's books I have only read/browsed "Life and Games" and "Attack with Mikhail Tal", but I thought in the spirit of objectivity and realism a book with both wins and losses should be preferred.

I didn't specify which translation I would read either, but admittedly an english one looks most likely.

great answer Stigma, Tal v Bot 1960 definitely has that fresh feel to it.
and the others you mention

Piatgorsky cup 1966 is good with notes from both players (apart from BF)

an interesting one is mednis how to beat a stronger player where he annotates every game lost by a soviet gm inthe mid 70s - you see how real gm games are won and lost rather than just the highlights

I have now had the opportunity to spend some time looking at the “revised and expanded” 5th edition of Tal-Botvinnik 1960, “edited” by Taylor Kingston.

Compared with the fourth edition, some errors have been corrected, such as incorrectly spelt names (e.g. Liliental-Lilienthal, Flor Flohr, Porreka-Porreca, Lipitsky-Lipnitsky, Fogelman-Foguelman), but not all (e.g. Gligorich, which is phonetically accurate but normally spelt without the h).

There are still some small “technical” errors which one would have expected to have been weeded out by the 5th edition, e.g. page 61, note to Black’s 9th move, 9…Qb6: “Black immediately begins to take action against the d5 square.” Of course, this should be d4, not d5.

There are also still some obscure or meaningless sentences, e.g. page 18: “Capablanca’s “lighter” system and other orthodox defenses seem to have been forgotten in the archives of history.” Did you understand that? My guess is that the reference is to Capablanca’s once famous “simplifying manoeuvre” (…dxc4, …Nd5) in the orthodox Queen’s Gambit.

I checked the relevant pages against the list of errors pointed out by Dr Neat in New in Chess magazine 1997/7 and found that most of them have still not been corrected.

I should be less concerned if all the errors in the book were small and did not spoil the sense. But how about these:

On page 19 there is a serious error: referring to the Modern Benoni, Russell’s version reads:

“Aron Nimzowitsch was the first to use it in a game with Frank Marshall in the New York International Tournament of 1927. Marshall immediately transferred his knight to c4, and the instant Black hesitated (…) he was smothered in a few moves.” In fact, in the game referred to here, Nimzowitsch was White and Marshall Black! This is a famous game, and reversing the names of the players is arguably evidence of a deficiency in chess culture as well as in Russian grammar.

On page 58; “There is a curious story behind the King’s Indian Defence. It got recognition 20 years ago. Before that it was rarely, or as they say, spontaneously employed. In particular, Chigorin would never have selected such a system.” The last sentence should read something like: “In particular, such a set-up was chosen long ago by Chigorin.”

On page 59: (Discussing the history of the g3 system against the King’s Indian): “Black’s difficulties in this variation arose when he started searching for more active continuations…” This should read rather: ““Black’s difficulties in this variation prompted him to start searching for more active continuations…”

On page 59: Discussing the Petrosian system against the King’s Indian (usually reached by 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 g6 3 Nc3 Bg7 4 e4 d6 5 Nf3 0-0 6 Be2 e5 7 d5) “The talented Ukrainian master Leonid Stein has had the last word for Black in this variation in which he played h6 in answer to Bg5 and nipped White’s idea in the bud, of course at the cost of a tempo.” It should be obvious that “In answer to Bg5” is an incorrect translation; it should say “before Bg5” or “to prevent Bg5”. (Remember, these are just examples, and this is supposed to be the 5th revised edition!)

There is no doubt that, even with the errors and ambiguities, there is much to enjoy and learn from this book, but it could have been so, so, much better.

I wonder - what player in their annotations gives you the best idea of how much they saw at the time they were playing the game.

I just wish Kasparov would write a book of his best games - he has annotated some for NIC or CHessbase , I remember one excellent annotaation of a game in Panov Attack vs Annand which was possibly the best annotated game I ever saw .