Throughout August’24 I have added 8 books to my library. Hopefully, you can also find 1 or 2 for your own library!
The selection rules were:
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the book had to be recommended by someone directly or by an article I have read or a podcast I have listened.
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the book should be less than €5 (usually via Kindle -promotions- or 2nd hand).
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La bahía del espejo, Catriona Ward, Cristina Macía Orio (Tranlator)
“…En una casita azotada por el viento de la costa de Maine Wilder Harlow empieza a escribir el último libro de su vida. Narra la historia de un verano de su juventud y del asesino que acechaba en el pequeño pueblo de Nueva Inglaterra donde pasaba las vacaciones; la tragedia que le ha perseguido desde entonces y que le unió para siempre a sus amigos Nat y Harper de formas que entonces no podían imaginar.
Muchos años después Wilder regresa al pueblo para intentar relatar lo que ocurrió, pero, mientras escribe, se da cuenta de que los acontecimientos tienen un inquietante eco en el presente….”
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Being You: A New Science of Consciousness, Anil Seth
“…Being You is not as simple as it sounds. Somehow, within each of our brains, billions of neurons work to create our conscious experience. How does this happen? Why do we experience life in the first person? After over twenty years researching the brain, world-renowned neuroscientist Anil Seth puts forward a radical new theory of consciousness and self. His unique theory of what it means to 'be you' challenges our understanding of perception and reality and it turns what you thought you knew about yourself on its head…”.
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The Brooklyn Follies, Paul Auster
“…'I was looking for a quiet place to die. Someone recommended Brooklyn, and so the next morning I travelled down there from Westchester to scope out the terrain . . .'
So begins Paul Auster's remarkable new novel, The Brooklyn Follies. Set against the backdrop of the contested US election of 2000, it tells the story of Nathan and Tom, an uncle and nephew double-act. One in remission from lung cancer, divorced, and estranged from his only daughter, the other hiding away from his once-promising academic career, and, indeed, from life in general.
Having accidentally ended up in the same Brooklyn neighbourhood, they discover a community teeming with life and passion. When Lucy, a little girl who refuses to speak, comes into their lives, there is suddenly a bridge from their pasts that offers them the possibility of redemption. Infused with character, mystery and humour, these lives intertwine and become bound together as Auster brilliantly explores the wider terrain of contemporary America - a crucible of broken dreams and of human folly.
'Auster at the top of his game. This superb novel about human folly turns out to be tremendously wise.' New Statesman…”
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A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks, David Gibbins
“…From a Bronze Age ship built during the age of Queen Nefertiti and filled with ancient treasures, a Viking warship made for King Cnut himself, Henry VIII's spectacular Mary Rose and the golden age of the Tudor court, to the exploration of the Arctic, the tragic story of HMS Terror and tales of bravery and endurance aboard HMS Gairsoppa in World War Two, these are the stories of some of the greatest underwater discoveries of all time. A rich and exciting narrative, this is not just the story of those ships and the people who sailed on them, the cargo and treasure they carried and their tragic fate. This is also the story of the spread of people, religion and ideas around the world, a story of colonialism and migration which continues today.
Drawing on decades of experience excavating shipwrecks around the world, renowned maritime archaeologist David Gibbins reveals the riches beneath the waves and shows us how the treasures found there can be a porthole to the past to tell a new story about the world and its underwater secrets….”
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Smoke And Ashes: Opium's Hidden Histories, Amitav Ghosh
“… When Amitav Ghosh began the research for his monumental cycle of novels the Ibis Trilogy, he was startled to find how the lives of the 19th century sailors and soldiers he wrote of were dictated not only by the currents of the Indian Ocean, but also by the precious commodity carried in enormous quantities on those currents: opium. Most surprising of all, however, was the discovery that his own identity and family history was swept up in the story.
Smoke and Ashes is at once a travelogue, memoir and a history, drawing on decades of archival research. In it, Ghosh traces the transformative effect the opium trade had on Britain, India, and China, as well as the world at large. The trade was engineered by the British Empire, which exported Indian opium to sell to China and redress their great trade imbalance, and its revenues were essential to the Empire's financial survival. Yet tracing the profits further, Ghosh finds opium at the origins of some of the world's biggest corporations, of America's most powerful families and prestigious institutions (from the Astors and Coolidges to the Ivy League), and of contemporary globalism itself.
Moving deftly between horticultural histories, the mythologies of capitalism, and the social and cultural repercussions of colonialism, in Smoke and Ashes Amitav Ghosh reveals the role that one small plant had in making our world, now teetering on the edge of catastrophe….”
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Cómo jugar al ajedrez, Levy Rozman
“…Aprende ajedrez de la mano de Levy Rozman (aka GothamChess), el Maestro Internacional por la FIDE y el profesor de ajedrez más seguido de YouTube.
Cómo ganar al ajedrez te enseña todo lo que necesitas saber sobre el juego, incluidos los movimientos y estrategias más importantes para empezar con fuerza y seguir pensando varios pasos por delante.
Con el humor y el estilo característicos de Rozman —que le han hecho famoso entre millones de aficionados—, la primera parte de esta guía única introduce a los jugadores principiantes (0-800 ELO) en las cuatro áreas clave a tener en cuenta al jugar al ajedrez: aperturas, finales, táctica y estrategia; y la segunda parte desarrolla estas habilidades básicas para los jugadores más experimentados (800-1600 ELO). Repleto de consejos prácticos y fáciles de seguir para mejorar tu juego, Cómo ganar al ajedrez incluye más de 500 ilustraciones instructivas del juego para ayudarle a visualizar mejor el tablero, así como códigos QR específicos de cada capítulo para acceder a contenidos adicionales exclusivos en Chessly, la plataforma de enseñanza de Rozman.
Tanto si quieres convertirte en un jugador amateur como si te estás entrenando para ser Gran Maestro Internacional, ¡este libro es la introducción interactiva perfecta al mundo del ajedrez! …”
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Winter Is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped, Garry Kasparov
“…The stunning story of Russia's slide back into a dictatorship-and how the West is now paying the price for allowing it to happen.
The ascension of Vladimir Putin-a former lieutenant colonel of the KGB-to the presidency of Russia in 1999 was a strong signal that the country was headed away from democracy. Yet in the intervening years-as America and the world's other leading powers have continued to appease him-Putin has grown not only into a dictator but an international threat. With his vast resources and nuclear arsenal, Putin is at the center of a worldwide assault on political liberty and the modern world order.
For Garry Kasparov, none of this is news. He has been a vocal critic of Putin for over a decade, even leading the pro-democracy opposition to him in the farcical 2008 presidential election. Yet years of seeing his Cassandra-like prophecies about Putin's intentions fulfilled have left Kasparov with a darker truth: Putin's Russia, like ISIS or Al Qaeda, defines itself in opposition to the free countries of the world.
As Putin has grown ever more powerful, the threat he poses has grown from local to regional and finally to global. In this urgent book, Kasparov shows that the collapse of the Soviet Union was not an endpoint-only a change of seasons, as the Cold War melted into a new spring. But now, after years of complacency and poor judgment, winter is once again upon us.
Argued with the force of Kasparov's world-class intelligence, conviction, and hopes for his home country, Winter Is Coming reveals Putin for what he is: an existential danger hiding in plain sight….”
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Trust, Hernan Diaz
“…Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they have risen to the very top of a world of seemingly endless wealth—all as a decade of excess and speculation draws to an end. But at what cost have they acquired their immense fortune? This is the mystery at the center of Bonds, a successful 1937 novel that all of New York seems to have read. Yet there are other versions of this tale of privilege and deceit.
Hernan Diaz’s TRUST elegantly puts these competing narratives into conversation with one another—and in tension with the perspective of one woman bent on disentangling fact from fiction. The result is a novel that spans over a century and becomes more exhilarating with each new revelation.
At once an immersive story and a brilliant literary puzzle, TRUST engages the reader in a quest for the truth while confronting the deceptions that often live at the heart of personal relationships, the reality-warping force of capital, and the ease with which power can manipulate facts. …”
Happy readings!
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