My Best Friend's Brother


Kennedy Claire - 2015
    Attractive, young and equally strong-headed, Scarlett Sommerfield and Dev Bashir were never meant to be a match--at least if his very wealthy and traditional Indian parents have anything to say about it. So it's a good thing that they've despised each other for most of their young lives.But that's about to change. Growing up poor and motherless, smart and ambitious Scarlett is graduating from high school and becoming a new adult in the big scary world without a safe place to land, so when she's invited to move in with her best friend's palatial home on the right side of the tracks for her senior year, things couldn't be better.There, she finds security and kindness--with the exception of her best friend's brooding and arrogant older brother, Dev, who returns home from college struggling with his own demons and seemingly focused on making her the object of his contempt. Over time--and some ill-timed run-ins--Scarlett learns that he's not at all what he seems, and a forbidden love sparks between them, burning out of control when she least expects it. But when there's fire, there's smoke, and controlling Mrs. Bashir catches onto their young romance...and everything goes to hell.Steeped in outdated rules and traditions about love and marriage, the matriarch of the Bashir Family makes no secret that Scarlett simply doesn't measure up as a match for their eldest son. And the very people who made her feel part of the family now want nothing more than to see her gone for good.Including her former best friend. Will Scarlett and Dev's love survive against his intolerant mother's sabotage, her personal misfortunes and a dark life-changing secret he's kept simmering just under the surface? Or will Scarlett end up back where she started: facing her future utterly alone.

Chess Story


Stefan Zweig - 1942
    It is the only story in which Zweig looks at Nazism, and he does so with characteristic emphasis on the psychological.Travelers by ship from New York to Buenos Aires find that on board with them is the world champion of chess, an arrogant and unfriendly man. They come together to try their skills against him and are soundly defeated. Then a mysterious passenger steps forward to advise them and their fortunes change. How he came to possess his extraordinary grasp of the game of chess and at what cost lie at the heart of Zweig's story.This new translation of Chess Story brings out the work's unusual mixture of high suspense and poignant reflection.

Grandmaster


Warren Murphy - 1984
    Justin Gilead and Alexander Zharkov are two men born on the same day on opposite sides of the world who are driven by forces they cannot understand to battle against each other - for only one of them can be the Grandmaster.

Chess With A Dragon


David Gerrold - 1987
    Pawns in a Deadly GameMan reached the stars and was offered unlimited access to the accumulated knowledge of the universe.Too good to be true: when the bill was presented, man had no way of paying other than enslavement and ultimate extinction...David Gerrold, creator of the classic Star Trek episode "The Trouble with Tribbles" pits Earth against a host of predatory worlds—with some surprising results.

The Tower Struck by Lightning


Fernando Arrabal - 1983
    Contenders Elias Tarsis and Marc Amary take their places at the board. The judges' implacable clock begins to tick, and a hush falls over the capacity crowd in Paris's Beaubourg Center Theater.But before the players can make their first moves, they are distracted by news of the kidnapping of a high-ranking Soviet diplomat. Tarsis—an artist and an intuitive genius—is convinced that his despised opponent—a world-renowned physicist—is behind the kidnapping. So begins the game, and so begins this darkly comic, metaphysical mystery novel—a European best-seller—by renowned avant-garde playwright Fernando Arrabal.As the players make their moves (diagrams of which are provided), and we learn how their lives have led them to this climactic moment, the chess match becomes a fierce, seriocomic contest of egos and ideologies. It is a struggle between a man of God and an anarchist, between art and science, between sex and spirit, between two powerful men and two brilliant chess players. It is also an opportunity for the irrepressible Arrabal to lead us on a hundred hilarious riffs—on leftist politics, Freudian psychology, religious philosophy, modern European history, and, of course, the game of chess. In the end, the players' lives, the hostage crisis, and the World Chess Championship climax in a series of twists and surprises that challenge our sympathies and our intellects.

Pulse


Jeremy Robinson - 2009
    This is the dream of Richard Ridley, founder of Manifold Genetics, and he has just discovered the key to eternal life: an ancient artifact buried beneath a Greek-inscribed stone in the Peruvian desert.When Manifold steals the artifact and abducts archaeologist Dr. George Pierce, United States Special Forces Delta operator Jack Sigler, call sign King, and his “Chess Team” —Queen, Knight, Rook, Bishop, and their handler, Deep Blue—give chase. Formed under special order from President Duncan, they are the best of America’s Special Forces, tasked with antiterrorism missions that take them around the world against any threat, ancient, modern, and at times, inhuman. With cutting-edge weapons, tough-as-nails tactics, and keen intellects, they stand alone on the brink, facing the world’s most dangerous threats.Ridley’s plan to create unstoppable soldiers has just made him threat number one. Tension soars along with the body count as the team faces high-tech security forces, hordes of “regens,” the horrific results of Manifold’s experiments, and a resurrected mythological predator complete with regenerative abilities, seven heads, and a savage appetite. The Chess Team races to save Pierce and stop Manifold before they change the face of genetics—and human history—forever.Heart-pounding action combines with adrenaline-charged suspense in the first of Jeremy Robinson’s smart, sharp series featuring the Chess Team.

The Spy Chronicles: RAW, ISI and the Illusion of Peace


A.S. Dulat - 2018
    Dulat and Asad Durrani. One was a former chief of RAW, India's external intelligence agency, the other of ISI, its Pakistani counterpart. As they could not meet in their home countries, the conversations, guided by journalist Aditya Sinha, took place in cities like Istanbul, Bangkok and Kathmandu. On the table were subjects that have long haunted South Asia, flashpoints that take lives regularly. It was in all ways a deep dive into the politics of the subcontinent, as seen through the eyes of two spymasters. Among the subjects: Kashmir, and a missed opportunity for peace; Hafiz Saeed and 26/11; Kulbhushan Jadhav; surgical strikes; the deal for Osama bin Laden; how the US and Russia feature in the India-Pakistan relationship; and how terror undermines the two countries' attempts at talks. When the project was first mooted, General Durrani laughed and said nobody would believe it even if it was written as fiction. At a time of fraught relations, this unlikely dialogue between two former spy chiefs from opposite sides-a project that is the first of its kind-may well provide some answers.

The Grass Arena: An Autobiography


John Healy - 1988
    This Penguin Classics edition includes an afterword by Colin MacCabe.In his searing autobiography Healy describes his fifteen years living rough in London without state aid, when begging carried an automatic three-year prison sentence and vagrant alcoholics prowled the parks and streets in search of drink or prey. When not united in their common aim of acquiring alcohol, winos sometimes murdered one another over prostitutes or a bottle, or the begging of money. Few modern writers have managed to match Healy's power to refine from the brutal destructive condition of the chronic alcoholic a story so compelling it is beyond comparison.John Healy (b. 1943) was born into an impoverished, Irish immigrant family, in the slums of Kentish Town, North London. Out of school by 14, pressed into the army and intermittently in prison, Healy became an alcoholic early on in life. Despite these obstacles Healy achieved remarkable, indeed phenomenal expertise in both writing and chess, as outlined in the autobiographical The Grass Arena. If you enjoyed The Grass Arena, you might like Last Exit to Brooklyn, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.'Sober and precise, grotesque, violent, sad, charming and hilarious all at once'Literary Review'Beside it, a book like Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London seems a rather inaccurate tourist guide'Colin MacCabe

The Emperor of Ocean Park


Stephen L. Carter - 2002
    The Emperor of Ocean Park is set in two privileged worlds: the upper crust African American society of the eastern seaboard--old families who summer on Martha's Vineyard--and the inner circle of an Ivy League law school. It tells the story of a complex family with a single, seductive link to the shadowlands of crime.The Emperor of the title, Judge Oliver Garland, has just died, suddenly. A brilliant legal mind, conservative and famously controversial, Judge Garland made more enemies than friends. Many years before, he'd earned a judge's highest prize: a Supreme Court nomination. But in a scene of bitter humiliation, televised across the country, his nomination collapsed in scandal. The humbling defeat became a private agony, one from which he never recovered.But now the Judge's death raises, even more, questions--and it seems to be leading to a second, even more, terrible scandal. Could Oliver Garland have been murdered? He has left a strange message for his son Talcott, a professor of law at a great university, entrusting him with "the arrangements"--a mysterious puzzle that only Tal can unlock, and only by unearthing the ambiguities of his father's past. When another man is found dead, and then another, Talcott--wry, straight-arrow, almost too self-aware to be a man of action--must risk his career, his marriage, and even his life, following the clues his father left him.Intricate, superbly written, often scathingly funny, The Emperor of Ocean Park is a triumphant work of fiction, packed with character and incident--a brilliantly crafted tapestry of ambition, family secrets, murder, integrity tested, and justice has gone terribly wrong.

The Flanders Panel


Arturo Pérez-Reverte - 1990
    Translation: Who killed the knight? Breaking the silence of five centuries, Julia's hunt for a Renaissance murderer leads her into a modern-day game of sin, betrayal, and death.

Spies Against Armageddon


Dan Raviv - 1992
    It is filled with colorful characters, who risk their lives and reputations in the secret service of their nation. R. James Woolsey, former Director of Central Intelligence, writes: “Raviv and Melman have redefined the gold standard for nonfiction about intelligence. This remarkable history of Israeli intelligence from the War of Independence to Stuxnet calls it straight. By describing the roots of both the triumphs and the screw-ups thoroughly and fairly the authors help us see not only how Israel's survival has been effectively protected but the huge debt the rest of us owe.” The award-winning historian Douglas Brinkley, author of CRONKITE, writes: “The revelatory research amassed in SPIES AGAINST ARMAGEDDON is nothing short of stunning. Raviv and Melman understand the inner workings of Israel’s Mossad better than most Mossad agents. Highly recommended!” James Roche, a former Secretary of the Air Force, writes: "Fascinating vignettes ... a detailed exposition of the activities of serious, professional, and generally successful Israeli operatives who are dedicated totally to the defense of Israel and the Jewish people."

Zurich International Chess Tournament, 1953


David Ionovich Bronstein - 1956
    The first authoritative English translation from the Russian, this volume was written by one of the leading competitors. Its perceptive coverage includes games by Smyslov, Keres, Reshevsky, Petrosian and 11 others. Algebraic notation. 352 diagrams.

Lazy Ways to Make a Living


Abigail Bosanko - 2002
    It's a dazzling performance ...That film made me get out the chess set I'd abandoned three years earlier. It made me search through East Anglia for a blue-eyed boy suffering from wealth-ennui. I never found one, but my chess and my nails were outstanding for a thirteen year old.' Lexicographer, chess master and hedonist, Rose is down on her luck when she meets Jamie, a guy she beat at chess twelve years previously who has never recovered from losing the game or forgotten the sight of Rose's perfectly manicured nails poised to strike over the chess board. She's destitute, he's loaded and terrified of losing her again. They strike a bargain: in return for chess he will keep her. What is it like being a kept woman in the 21st century? Rose is about to find out. She's also about to learn that disguising your moves in chess can lead to victory, but doing the same thing in love leads to disaster.

The Squares of the City


John Brunner - 1965
    It was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1966. It is a sociological story of urban class warfare and political intrigue, taking place in the fictional South American capital city of Vados. It explores the idea of subliminal messages as political tools, and it is notable for having the structure of the famous 1892 chess game between Wilhelm Steinitz and Mikhail Chigorin. The structure is not coincidental, and plays an important part in the story.

Pawn


Molly Joseph - 2015
    Her prowess at the game is matched only by her rivals’ desire to defeat her, or, worse, avenge their losses. When an international championship threatens Grace’s safety, a bevy of security experts are hired to look after her, but only one is her personal, close-duty bodyguard, courtesy of Ironclad Solutions, Inc. Sam Knight knows nothing about chess, but he knows that Grace is working to achieve something important, and he vows to shelter her from those who mean her harm. In the course of his duties, he realizes there’s more going on than a simple chess match between rivals, and his fragile client is all too aware of the stakes. When she leans on him for emotional support, attraction battles with professionalism and Sam finds his self-discipline wavering. Soon the complexity of their relationship resembles a chess board, where one questionable move can ruin everything—or win a game that could resonate around the world.