Books added to the Library throughout May'24

Throughout May’24 I have added 17 books to my library. Hopefully, you can also find 1 or 2 for your own library!

The selection rules were:

• the book had to be recommended by someone directly or by an article I have read or a podcast I have listened.

• the book should be less than €5 (usually via Kindle -promotions- or 2nd hand).

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1. Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan

“…It is 1985, in an Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant, faces into his busiest season. As he does the rounds, he feels the past rising up to meet him - and encounters the complicit silences of a people controlled by the Church….”

2. El Método Zugzwang 2: Planes de entrenamiento para el jugador de ajedrez que quiere progresar, Daniel Muñoz Sánchez (Autor), Herminio Herraiz Hidalgo (Autor),

“…Planes y material de entrenamiento para el jugador de ajedrez que quiere subir al siguiente nivel Recomendado especialmente para jugadores de club hasta 2300 puntos de ELO.

Además, si compras el libro y nos lo cuentas, te llevarás un curso de ajedrez totalmente gratis (*ver interior)

Más de 300 páginas con ejercicios clasificados por niveles y áreas de entrenamiento.

Análisis exhaustivos orientados a la preparación de partidas de los mejores jugadores del mundo actuales: Vladimir Kramnik, Wesley So, Caruana, Nakamura, Carlsen, Karpov, Aronian, Giri, Ivanchuk, Le Quang Liem, Mamedyarov, Vachier-Lagrave, Nepomniachtchi, Grischuk, Akobian, Topalov, Ding, Bareev, Shirov, Leko, Harikrishna, Karjakin, YuYangyi… y muchos otros.

Material para el estudio y/o el entrenamientoclaramente diferenciado y organizado.

Sistema progresivo de trabajo cuidadosamente pautado tanto en dificultad como en volumen de preparación.

Un plan de entrenamientopara prepararte de 10 a 20 semanas.

Aprende técnicas probadas para ganar más partidas.

Los finales de ajedrez que todo jugador debe conocer y que son la base para comprender los finales complejos.

17 ejercicios clasificados por niveles para desarrollar y mejorar tu comprensión y análisis posicional.

48 ejercicios clasificados por niveles para el desarrollo de la capacidad de cálculo de variantes, visualización y profundización.

29 ejercicios clasificados por niveles para el desarrollo de la capacidad de cálculo a corto plazo.

21 ejercicios clasificados para la consolidación del conocimiento de finales teóricos y el progreso en la comprensión de finales no teóricos. …”

3. On Savage Shores: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe, Caroline Dodds Pennock

“…In this groundbreaking new history, Caroline Dodds Pennock recovers the long-marginalised stories of the Indigenous Americans who - as enslaved people, diplomats, explorers, servants and traders - left a profound impact on European civilisation in the 'Age of Discovery'. On Savage Shores is a sweeping account of power and influence in America and Europe - one which could forever change the way we understand our global history….”

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4. Cómo funciona el mundo: Una guía científica de nuestro pasado, presente y futuro, Vaclav Smil

“…Vaclav Smil lleva cincuenta años estudiando las posibilidades que tenemos a nuestro alcance para garantizar el futuro energético de nuestro planeta. Debido a la complejidad de las interacciones que mueven el mundo, la atomización del conocimiento y la volatilidad de la información es muy difícil anticipar con exactitud qué ocurrirá. Por eso es necesario ceñirse a los datos y a los límites quenos ofrece la ciencia, así como poner la atención en los escenarios más cercanos y menos idealistas para encarar los retos actuales de manera eficaz.

Así pues, este libro aborda temas tan importantes como la improbable y difícil tarea de descarbonizar el planeta, en parte por la estrecha relación entre la producción de alimentos y los combustibles fósiles, pero también destapa realidades incómodas, como la dependenciade las economías modernas respecto de la alta producción de amoníaco, metal, cemento y plástico. Además, examina de qué forma el calentamiento global puede afectar a nuestras necesidades básicas para sobrevivir y anima a reevaluar los riesgos que hemos subestimado o exagerado a lo largo de los años para aprender a vivir más y mejor.

Cómo funciona el mundo es literalmente un libro sobre cómo funciona el mundo. Por su estructura y clarividencia, sirve como una guía interdisciplinaria que evita a toda costa dar eco a las posturas extremas y propone una respuesta objetiva, científica yrazonada a todos los titulares que nos generan ansiedad: la crisis climática, la crisis energética, la crisis de materias primas, la globalización y el futuro de nuestra civilización. El resultado es un poderoso ensayo que combina los más recientes descubrimientos científicos y el trabajo de quien ha investigado a lo largo de medio siglo los retos energéticos a los que nos enfrentamos. …”

5. Oliver Sacks 3 Books Collection Set (The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Hallucinations, Awakenings), Oliver Sacks

“…The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat:

In his most extraordinary book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Oliver Sacks recounts the stories of patients lost in the bizarre, apparently inescapable world of neurological disorders. These are case studies of people who have lost their memories and with them the greater part of their pasts; who are no longer able to recognize people or common objects; whose limbs have become alien; who are afflicted and yet are gifted with uncanny artistic or mathematical talents.

Hallucinations:

In Hallucinations, with his usual elegance, curiosity, and compassion, Dr Oliver Sacks weaves together stories of his patients and of his own mind-altering experiences to illuminate what hallucinations tell us about the organization and structure of our brains, how they have influenced every culture's folklore and art, and why the potential for hallucination is present in us all, a vital part of the human condition.

Awakenings:

Hailed as a medical classic, and the subject of a major feature film as well as radio and stage plays and various TV documentaries, Awakenings by Oliver Sacks is the extraordinary account of a group of twenty patients. Rendered catatonic by the sleeping-sickness epidemic that swept the world just after the First World War, all twenty had spent forty years in hospital: motionless and speechless; aware of the world around them, but exhibiting no interest in it - until Dr Sacks administered the then-new drug, L-DOPA, which caused them, temporarily, to awake from their decades-long slumber. …”

8. Winter Swimming: The Nordic Way Towards a Healthier and Happier Life, Susanna Søberg

“…A beautifully illustrated exploration of cold-water traditions in Scandinavia and around the world, and a factual, scientific account of why winter swimming gives such a boost to body and soul.

Whether in lake, lido, river or sea, we know the benefits of swimming outdoors and in nature - environmentally friendly and accessible, it can influence our happiness, our energy and our inner tranquility, and give us that winter glow.

Danish scientist Dr Susanna Søberg leads us step by step into the icy water and explains the "cold-shock response", the massive endorphin rush as our body reacts and adapts to very cold temperatures through the winter season. Not only do our circulation, heart, lungs and skin respond positively, but our immune system, metabolism and mental health too. In particular she explains how our "brown fat" is activated to benefit multiple health conditions.

Winter swimming is fast becoming one of our most popular pastimes. This beautifully illustrated exploration of cold-water traditions in Scandinavia and around the world shows how it can have a significant positive impact on our physical and mental health, confidence and well-being, providing such a boost to body and soul. …”

9. From Russia with Love, Ian Fleming

“…Meet James Bond, the world's most famous spy.James Bond is marked for death by the Soviet counterintelligence

agency SMERSH in Ian Fleming's masterful spy thriller, and the novel that President John F. Kennedy named one of his favourite books of all time.SMERSH stands for "Death to Spies" and there's no secret agent they'd like to disgrace and destroy more than 007. But ensnaring the British Secret Service's most lethal operative will require a lure so tempting even he can't resist. Enter Tatiana Romanova, a ravishing Russian spy whose "defection" springs a trap designed with clockwork precision. Her mission: seduce Bond, then flee to the West on the Orient Express. Waiting in the shadows are two of Ian Fleming's most vividly drawn villains: Red Grant, SMERSH's deadliest assassin, and the sinister operations chief Rosa Klebb - five feet four inches of pure killing power.Bursting with action and intrigue, From Russia with Love is one of the best-loved books in the Bond canon - an instant classic that set the standard for sophisticated literary spycraft for decades to come….”

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10. AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order, Kai-Fu Lee

“… Kai-Fu Lee believes China will be the next tech-innovation superpower and in AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order, he explains why. Taiwan-born Lee is perfectly positioned for the task."—New York Magazine

In this thought-provoking book, Lee argues powerfully that because of the unprecedented developments in AI, dramatic changes will be happening much sooner than many of us expected. Indeed, as the US-Sino AI competition begins to heat up, Lee urges the US and China to both accept and to embrace the great responsibilities that come with significant technological power.

Most experts already say that AI will have a devastating impact on blue-collar jobs. But Lee predicts that Chinese and American AI will have a strong impact on white-collar jobs as well. Is universal basic income the solution? In Lee’s opinion, probably not. But he provides a clear description of which jobs will be affected and how soon, which jobs can be enhanced with AI, and most importantly, how we can provide solutions to some of the most profound changes in the future of human….”

11. Slaughterhouse-Five: A Novel, Kurt Vonnegut

“…Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world’s great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresden, the novel is the result of what Kurt Vonnegut described as a twenty-three-year struggle to write a book about what he had witnessed as an American prisoner of war. It combines historical fiction, science fiction, autobiography, and satire in an account of the life of Billy Pilgrim, a barber’s son turned draftee turned optometrist turned alien abductee. As Vonnegut had, Billy experiences the destruction of Dresden as a POW. Unlike Vonnegut, he experiences time travel, or coming “unstuck in time.”

An instant bestseller, Slaughterhouse-Five made Kurt Vonnegut a cult hero in American literature, a reputation that only strengthened over time, despite his being banned and censored by some libraries and schools for content and language. But it was precisely those elements of Vonnegut’s writing—the political edginess, the genre-bending inventiveness, the frank violence, the transgressive wit—that have inspired generations of readers not just to look differently at the world around them but to find the confidence to say something about it. Authors as wide-ranging as Norman Mailer, John Irving, Michael Crichton, Tim O’Brien, Margaret Atwood, Elizabeth Strout, David Sedaris, Jennifer Egan, and J. K. Rowling have all found inspiration in Vonnegut’s words. Jonathan Safran Foer has described Vonnegut as “the kind of writer who made people—young people especially—want to write.” George Saunders has declared Vonnegut to be “the great, urgent, passionate American writer of our century, who offers us . . . a model of the kind of compassionate thinking that might yet save us from ourselves.”

More than fifty years after its initial publication at the height of the Vietnam War, Vonnegut’s portrayal of political disillusionment, PTSD, and postwar anxiety feels as relevant, darkly humorous, and profoundly affecting as ever, an enduring beacon through our own era’s uncertainties. …”

12. Transcription, Kate Atkinson

“…In 1940, eighteen-year old Juliet Armstrong is reluctantly recruited into the world of espionage. Sent to an obscure department of MI5 tasked with monitoring the comings and goings of British Fascist sympathizers, she discovers the work to be by turns both tedious and terrifying. But after the war has ended, she presumes the events of those years have been relegated to the past for ever.

Ten years later, now a producer at the BBC, Juliet is unexpectedly confronted by figures from her past. A different war is being fought now, on a different battleground, but Juliet finds herself once more under threat. A bill of reckoning is due, and she finally begins to realize that there is no action without consequence.

Transcription is a work of rare depth and texture, a bravura modern novel of extraordinary power, wit and empathy. It is a triumphant work of fiction from one of this country’s most exceptional writers. …”

13. The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War, David Halberstam

“…David Halberstam's magisterial and thrilling The Best and the Brightest was the defining book about the Vietnam conflict. More than three decades later, Halberstam used his unrivaled research and formidable journalistic skills to shed light on another pivotal moment in our history: the Korean War. Halberstam considered The Coldest Winter his most accomplished work, the culmination of forty-five years of writing about America's postwar foreign policy.

Halberstam gives us a masterful narrative of the political decisions and miscalculations on both sides. He charts the disastrous path that led to the massive entry of Chinese forces near the Yalu River and that caught Douglas MacArthur and his soldiers by surprise. He provides astonishingly vivid and nuanced portraits of all the major figures--Eisenhower, Truman, Acheson, Kim, and Mao, and Generals MacArthur, Almond, and Ridgway. At the same time, Halberstam provides us with his trademark highly evocative narrative journalism, chronicling the crucial battles with reportage of the highest order. As ever, Halberstam was concerned with the extraordinary courage and resolve of people asked to bear an extraordinary burden.

The Coldest Winter is contemporary history in its most literary and luminescent form, providing crucial perspective on every war America has been involved in since. It is a book that Halberstam first decided to write more than thirty years ago and that took him nearly ten years to complete. It stands as a lasting testament to one of the greatest journalists and historians of our time, and to the fighting men whose heroism it chronicles. …”

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14. Hall of Mirrors: The Great Depression, the Great Recession, and the Uses-and Misuses-of History, Barry Eichengreen

“…The two great financial crises of the past century are the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Great Recession, which began in 2008. Both occurred against the backdrop of sharp credit booms, dubious banking practices, and a fragile and unstable global financial system. When markets went into cardiac arrest in 2008, policymakers invoked the lessons of the Great Depression in attempting to avert the worst. While their response prevented a financial collapse and catastrophic depression like that of the 1930s, unemployment in the U.S. and Europe still rose to excruciating high levels. Pain and suffering were widespread.

The question, given this, is why didn't policymakers do better? Hall of Mirrors, Barry Eichengreen's monumental twinned history of the two crises, provides the farthest-reaching answer to this question to date. Alternating back and forth between the two crises and between North America and Europe, Eichengreen shows how fear of another Depression following the collapse of Lehman Brothers shaped policy responses on both continents, with both positive and negative results. Since bank failures were a prominent feature of the Great Depression, policymakers moved quickly to strengthen troubled banks. But because derivatives markets were not important in the 1930s, they missed problems in the so-called shadow banking system. Having done too little to support spending in the 1930s, governments also ramped up public spending this time around. But the response was indiscriminate and quickly came back to haunt overly indebted governments, particularly in Southern Europe. Moreover, because politicians overpromised, and because their measures failed to stave off a major recession, a backlash quickly developed against activist governments and central banks. Policymakers then prematurely succumbed to the temptation to return to normal policies before normal conditions had returned. The result has been a grindingly slow recovery in the United States and endless recession in Europe.

Hall of Mirrors is both a major work of economic history and an essential exploration of how we avoided making only some of the same mistakes twice. It shows not just how the "lessons" of Great Depression history continue to shape society's response to contemporary economic problems, but also how the experience of the Great Recession will permanently change how we think about the Great Depression. …”

15. The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron, Bethany McLean & Peter Elkind

“…Until the spring of 2001, Enron epitomized the triumph of the New Economy. Feared by rivals, worshipped by investors, Enron seemingly could do no wrong. Its profits rose every year; its stock price surged ever upward; its leaders were hailed as visionaries.

Then a young Fortune writer, Bethany McLean, wrote an article posing a simple question - how, exactly, does Enron make its money?

Within a year Enron was facing humiliation and bankruptcy, the largest in US history, which caused Americans to lose faith in a system that rewarded top insiders with millions of dollars, while small investors lost everything. It was revealed that Enron was a company whose business was an illusion, an illusion that Wall Street was willing to accept even though they knew what the real truth was. This book tells the extraordinary story of Enron's fall….”

16. Death and the Penguin, Andrey Kurkov

“…Viktor is an aspiring writer in Ukraine with only Misha, his pet penguin, for company.

Although Viktor would prefer to write short stories, he earns a living composing obituaries for a newspaper. He longs to see his work published, yet the subjects of his obituaries continue to cling to life.

But when Viktor opens the newspaper to see his work in print for the first time, his pride swiftly turns to terror. Viktor and Misha have been drawn into a trap from which there appears to be no escape. …”

17. The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, Richard P. Feynman

“…The Pleasure of Finding Things Out is a magnificent treasury of the best short works of Richard P. Feynman-from interviews and speeches to lectures and printed articles. A sweeping, wide-ranging collection, it presents an intimate and fascinating view of a life in science-a life like no other. From his ruminations on science in our culture to his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, this book will fascinate anyone interested in the world of ideas. …”

Happy readings!

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