You probably know the names already: the Sicilian Defense, the Ruy Lopez, the French Defense, the Caro-Kann, the Benoni, the London System, the Scandinavian Defense and so on. But most chess players don't know WHY the openings are called what they are. In this entertaining book, bestselling author Nathan Rose lays out the origins of over 50 standard chess openings and their names. The tales are often deeply connected to the lives of the leading chess grandmasters, the historical events taking place at the time, and the critical chess world championship contests. All these stories are collected together in this, the first book dedicated to uncovering them. The names of the chess openings tell the history of chess. You will meet larger than life characters such as Bobby Fischer, Aron Nimzowitsch, Alexander Alekhine, Frank Marshall, Siegbert Tarrasch, Wilhelm Steinitz, and Paul Morphy. Some of these men won their fame in the chess world championship, while some gained wider renown for reasons other than their ability to play chess. You will be agog at Paul Morphy's stunning conquest of Europe and subsequent disappearance, the outrageous antics of Aron Nimzowitsch upon losing a game, and the eccentric names Alexander Alekhine gave his cats. You will also travel through the places and events that defined chess in the early years. As David Shenk showed in "The Immortal Game", the history of chess has often mirrored the history of society. There's the 1972 world chess championship that pitted the Soviet Union's Boris Spassky against America's irascible Bobby Fischer in the "Match of the Century". The 1939 chess olympiad in Argentina which coincided with the outbreak of World War II. The unveiling of the "Mechanical Turk" chess-playing contraption in 18th-century Vienna. And let's not forget the triumph of Deep Blue over Garry Kasparov. Over 50 standard chess openings and variations. The People: Ruy Lopez Philidor Defense Evans Gambit Petrov's Defense Schliemann-Jaenisch Gambit Falkbeer Countergambit Staunton Gambit Anderssen's Opening Morphy's Defense Caro-Kann Defense Bird's Opening Winawer Variation Albin Countergambit Steinitz Variation Chigorin Defense Alapin's Opening Maroczy Bind Tarrasch Defense Marshall Defense Rubinstein Variation Alekhine's Defense Grunfeld Defense Reti Opening Nimzowitsch Defense Najdorf Variation Pirc Defense Torre Attack Grob's Attack Larsen's Opening Benko Gambit Fischer Defense The Places: English Opening Scotch Opening French Defense Dutch Defense Danish Gambit Indian Defense Scandinavian Defense Sicilian Defense Catalan Opening Baltic Opening Slav Defense London System Paris Opening Berlin Defense Vienna Game Budapest Gambit Leningrad Variation Scheveningen Variation The Stories: Dragon Variation Giuoco Piano Benoni Defense Grand Prix Attack Orangutan Opening Fried Liver Attack Impress your friends with superior opening knowledge - withou

    ‘Flying the Knife Edge’ is the story of an ordinary man experiencing extraordinary things as a pilot in Papua New Guinea in the 1990s. After an untimely exit from the Royal New Zealand Air Force, New Zealander Matt McLaughlin took a leap into the unknown, travelling to Papua New Guinea to work as a missionary pilot. He soon switched from missionary to mercenary, and over the next three and a half years, as he built up the necessary experience to chase his goal of becoming an airline captain, his life was a rollercoaster ride of adventure, risk, near-misses, and tragedy. Matt lived on the knife edge of bush pilot ops in one of the world’s most dangerous flying environments. Along the way he soaked up some fascinating local history: the country's vital role in WWII’s Pacific Theatre; the disappearance of aviator Amelia Earhart; the chaos of the Bougainville civil war; the Morobe gold rush of the 1930s... “The gap in the cloud became smaller and smaller as I descended, a shrinking tunnel twisting down the gorge. In a matter of seconds I was so low my wheels barely cleared the trees on the valley floor as I passed, and jungle-clad walls closed in on me until I was a mere wingspan from both sides of the valley. And then, in an instant, the gap was gone and I was flying blind. In cloud. In the bottom of a gorge. With terrain on both sides rising thousands of feet above me. Time stopped. The passengers started screaming, anticipating the aircraft impacting the side of the mountain. And their deaths. I had the capacity for just one other thought: Will I hear the sound of the airframe smashing into the trees as we crash, or will I be dead before it registers?”

     Culture has yet to turn away from the mythology of the ancient Greeks, and this fact can be seen in various aspects of our modern life. Through various forms of entertainment, we come across themes and events depicted in Homer’s works of the Iliad and Odyssey. We find ourselves viewing and referencing the strength and trials of Heracles. We even find various parallels between the lives and myths of the ancient Greeks to our own modern world. The history of Greece herself cannot be separated by the mythology of its ancient peoples. From heroes such as Heracles and Perseus, to the underhanded dealings of gods and mortals alike, their story is one a creative attempt to understand the forces which dwell about us and within us. In this book you will find specific stories central to Greek mythology. This is a key into understanding the mindset, not only of these ancient peoples, but of our modern world as well. We may not subscribe as the Greeks did to these myths as factual accounts of historical events, however, these tales allegorically represent the things that humankind still endures and rejoices in. In this text, you will find the spirit of love, of nature, of war and of peace. These myths often deal with very blunt subject matter, as they were the dominant lens through which the world was viewed during much of ancient Greece. The research and writing involved in bringing you this collection of Greek mythology has been an absolute pleasure, and I hope that you are as fascinated in reading this as I was in putting it together. Here Is A Preview Of What You'll Learn... In the Beginning, There was Chaos The Titans’ Rule The Olympian Rule Hercules and the Twelve Labors Other Important Beings in Greek Mythology Greek Mythology and Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey Meet Your Roman Doppelgangers BONUS! Find Inside… and much more! Download Your Copy Today! The contents of this book are easily worth over $10. To order "Greek Mythology: Discovering Greek Mythology!", click the BUY button and download your copy right now! Tags: Greek Mythology, Mythology, Ancient Greece, Civilizations, Ancient Civilizations, Greece, Greeks, Titans, Gods, Zeus, Hercules, Greek Gods, Apollo, Athena, Gaia, Chaos, Uranus, Cyclops, Chronos, Tartarus, Olympia, Poseidon, Aphrodite, Metis, Hades

    He announced to the public his grandiose plans for the thousands of acres he had secretly purchased.For the eighteen months prior to the announcement, Walt entrusted a small group of men to covertly make these purchases. Next, they were tasked with drafting a legislative act to submit to the state of Florida that would allow Disney to wield nearly absolute legal control over the property under a quasi-government municipality.Staying true to its storytelling roots, Disney wove a tale of mystery centered around a high-ranking CIA operative, who was rumored to have been, just a few short years before, the paymaster behind the Bay of Pigs Invasion in Cuba.This savvy and well-connected CIA agent became the de facto leader for the group of Disney executives and attorneys who orchestrated and executed a nearly perfect plan to keep Disney’s identity a secret from the public by utilizing aliases, shell corporations, and meandering travel itineraries, all in an effort to protect the company’s identity during the land acquisition process.As told through the personal notes and files from the key figures involved in the project, Buying Disney’s World details the story of how Walt Disney World came to be, like you’ve never heard before.From conception to construction and everything in between—including how a parcel of land within Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort was acquired during a high-stakes poker game—explore how the company most famous for creating Mickey Mouse acquired central Florida’s swamps, orange groves, and cow pastures to build a Disney fiefdom and a Magic Kingdom.

    But who would have thought that the slim and pale looking boy would become one of the most successful fighter pilots of the war? Almost unknown outside the RAF, Sgt. Pilot J.H. Lacey shot down more enemy aircraft in the Battle of Britain than any other fighter pilot. He shot down the Heinkel 111 which had just bombed Buckingham Palace and had the highest score (twenty-three) of enemy aircraft destroyed, as late as 1941. Thereafter commissioned, early in 1941, he was for a time an instructor at an operational training unit, passing on to others the knowledge that he had won in the toughest series of air battles ever fought. Returning to operations, he served under another fabulous air fighter, ‘Paddy’ Finucane; then was posted to rocket (airborne weapons) development, a task almost as dangerous as combat flying. Later he commanded a famous fighter squadron in the Far East. and shot down the first Japanese he encountered. Unorthodox, autocratic in his command but resentful of unreasonable interference from those above him, Ginger Lacey was a boyish-looking figure with a fantastic gift for leadership, and sharp eyes, bravery and an innate sense of timing. He died in 1989, but his amazing story was recorded by an experienced writer who was a fellow officer in the RAF until 1951 and knew him well. It is a memorable and stirring biography. ‘The best all action war story yet produced.’ - Yorkshire Post ‘A top-scoring story.’ - Evening Standard ‘Fast-moving biography.’ - Sunday Times ‘The best biography of a fighter pilot ever written.’ - Yorkshire Evening Post Richard Townsend Bickers volunteered for the RAF on the outbreak of the second world war and served, with a Permanent Commission, for eighteen years. He wrote a range of military fiction and non-fiction books, including ‘Torpedo Attack’, ‘My Enemy Came Nigh’, ‘Bombing Run’, ‘Fighters Up’ and ‘Summer of No Surrender’. Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent publisher of digital books.

    Failing to gain recognition for his music in his native United States, he achieved celebrity in South America in the early 1960s and then, unbelievably, became the biggest rock star in the Soviet Union, where he was awarded the Lenin Prize and his icons were sold alongside those of Josef Stalin. His albums went gold from Bulgaria to Berlin. He made highly successful movies and, naively earnest, was an unwitting acolyte for socialism; everywhere he went, he was mobbed by his fans. And then, in 1986, at the height of his fame, right after 60 Minutes had devoted a segment to him, finally giving him the recognition he had never attained at home, he drowned in mysterious circumstances in East Berlin.Drawn magnetically to his story, Reggie Nadelson pursued the mystery of Dean Reed's life and death across America and Eastern Europe, her own journey mirroring his. As she traveled, the Berlin Wall came down, the Soviet Union crumbled, and Reed became an increasingly alluring figure, his life an unrepeatable tale of the Cold War world. Encountering the characters— musicians and DJs, politicians and public figures, lovers and wives—who peopled Reed's life, Nadelson was drawn further and further into a seedy, often hilarious subculture of sex, politics, and rock 'n' roll. Part biography, part memoir and personal journey, Comrade Rockstar is an unforgettable chronicle of an utterly improbable life

    He was eager to begin his first practice, but it turned out to be more than he bargained for. In just two years, in September, 1918, the entire village was sickened in rapid succession in the flu pandemic that killed quickly and indiscriminately throughout the world. It was wartime, and Nixon was unable to find help., This story is an up close and personal account of what it was like to be sick with the HINI type virus in 1918. It is a tale of a dedicated doctor whose selflessness, compassion and courage helped the villagers survive in the pandemic that killed more people in a year than the Black Death killed in a century...

    They did not know that the war they were fleeing had in fact ended—25 years earlier. Corinne Purtill was one of the first journalists to meet the families upon their incredible return to society. Years later she returned to Cambodia to learn the truth about their time on the run. What she found was a darker and more complicated tale than the one they first shared, a story of terror, isolation, fierce loyalty, appalling choices and murder. The result is a story that examines the unyielding human need for family and connection and the meaning of survival. Corinne Purtill is a journalist who has reported around the world for publications including Quartz, GlobalPost, CNN, Salon and the Cambodia Daily. She lives in California with her family. Cover design by Hannah Perrine Mode

    

    Yet in 1979, the Amon Carter Museum of Fort Worth, Texas, daringly commissioned him to do just that.The resulting 1985 exhibition and book, In the American West, was a milestone in American photography and Avedon's most important body of work. His unflinching portraits of oilfield and slaughterhouse workers, miners, waitresses, drifters, mental patients, teenagers, and others captured the unknown and often-ignored people who work at hard, uncelebrated jobs. Making no apologies for shattering stereotypes of the West and Westerners, Avedon said, "I'm looking for a new definition of a photographic portrait. I'm looking for people who are surprising—heartbreaking—or beautiful in a terrifying way. Beauty that might scare you to death until you acknowledge it as part of yourself."Photographer Laura Wilson worked with Avedon during the six years he was making In the American West. In Avedon at Work, she presents a unique photographic record of his creation of this masterwork—the first time a major photographer has been documented in great depth over an extended period of time. She combines images she made during the photographic sessions with entries from her journal to show Avedon's working methods, his choice of subjects, his creative process, and even his experiments and failures. Also included are a number of Avedon's finished portraits, as well as his own comments and letters from some of the subjects.Avedon at Work adds a new dimension to our understanding of one of the twentieth century's most significant series of portraits. For everyone interested in the creative process it confirms that, in Laura Wilson's words, "much as all these photographs may appear to be moments that just occurred, they are finally, in varying degrees, works of the imagination."

     On the Camino: advice and information about what to expect on the Camino. Terrain, waymarkings, accommodation, food and drink, money matters, keeping in touch (telephone, internet, etc.), health – with advice on staying healthy and accessing the Spanish health service, Camino administration, etiquette and safety – staying safe and planning for any eventuality. The Caminos: information about the other Caminos, a list of books about the Caminos and pilgrim statistics, with the most popular starting points, nationalities, routes and busiest months. History: the History section aims to give you an understanding of the historical background to the Camino and the role it played in the foundation of modern Spain and Europe. It contains a history of Spain, and a history of the Camino from its beginnings to its revival, in the late 20th century. There’s also an account of life on the Camino in the middle-ages, the people who walked then, and the hardships and hazards they faced. Society, Culture & Environment: a brief outline of the fascinating mosaic that is modern Spain, its politics, cultures and peoples. The natural environment of northern Spain and the impact of the Camino on it. A description of the architectural styles and periods you’ll see along the Camino. Communicating: advice on making yourself understood and understanding others, with a Menu Guide and the most useful Spanish words and phrases for Camino life, plus a few phrases in Basque and Galician. Glossary: a concise reference for many Camino-related persons and things. This new edition, published in September 2013, has been extensively changed, updated and expanded based on feedback and criticisms received from readers over the past two years, and the author's experiences of walking various Caminos during that time. Most of the changes and additions are in the areas: - Packing, what to bring: with the different packing options listed in detail, and the pros and cons of different items explained. - A typical Camino day is described, from waking at the crack of dawn, to bedding down at nightfall. - There's detailed information about how Pilgrim Hostels work, and what it's like to stay in one. - Health: blisters, bedbugs, heatstroke, and other Camino hazards, are described with advice on avoiding them and dealing with them. Thanks to everybody for their feedback and their help with this new edition. ¡Buen Camino!

    "Dawn" delves deep into an intensely creative period of Elverum s life, with a beautiful mix of journal writing, jokes, photographs, and music. This 144-page hardcover collection chronicles a winter spent alone in a cabin in arctic Norway, wrestling with ghosts, gathering wood, acting out myths--3 months of unfiltered brain torrents interspersed with drawings. It comes with a 17-track CD of songs written during that time, songs that have become well known over the years through recordings and live performances. The CD is a kind of lost album finally recorded properly, pared down to just guitar and vocals. Also included is a 16-page color photo booklet.

    Kerry Stokes is a remarkable Australian. Not because he is one of this country's wealthiest and most powerful people but because of what he overcame to get there and because he has endured when others didn't. He is the last mogul. His rise has intrigued the business world for decades but there is so much more to him than takeover targets and balance sheets. Behind the laconic front is a human story as tough and touching as a Dickens tale: Oliver Twist with great self-expectations. It is the story of a poor boy who stared down poverty, ignorance and the stigma of his birth to achieve great wealth and fulfilment. A compelling story that, until now, he has not told. Now he oversees a multi-billion dollar media, machinery and property empire. He is renowned for his art collection and for philanthropy, spending millions of dollars to buy Victoria Crosses from soldiers' families to donate to the Australian War Memorial. But he's a private man. A man apart. He made his name in the West but kept his distance from the buccaneering band of entrepreneurs who forged fabulous fortunes in Perth from the 1960s until the 1987 crash. Bond went to jail, Holmes a Court died; Connell did both. Lesser lights flickered and faded but Stokes grew stronger, becoming a player alongside Murdoch, Packer and Lowy. His story fascinates all the more because he has spent most of his life guarding it. But now he's telling it, to one of Australia's great storytellers. This book will tell his story, scars and all.

    Uncover their mesmerizing, realistic stories of combat, courage, and distress in readable and balanced stories told from the front lines.Witness the creation of new technologies of destruction: tanks, planes, and submarines; machine guns and field artillery; poison gas and chemical warfare. It introduced U-boat packs and strategic bombing, unrestricted war on civilians and mistreatment of prisoners.World War I reduced Europe’s mightiest empires to rubble, killed twenty million people, and cracked the foundations of our modern world. In its wake, empires toppled, monarchies fell, and whole populations lost their national identities.If you like gripping, authentic accounts of life and combat during WWI, then you won't want to miss WWI: Tales from the Trenches.

    Buck first flew in the 1920s, inspired by the exploits of Charles Lindbergh. In 1930, at age sixteen, he flew solo from coast to coast, breaking the junior transcontinental speed record. In 1936 he flew nonstop from Burbank, California, to Columbus, Ohio, in a 90-horsepower Monocoupe to establish a world distance record for light airplanes. He joined Transcontinental and Western Air (T&WA) as a copilot in 1937; when he retired thirty-seven years later, he had made more than 2,000 Atlantic crossings -- and his role had progressed from such tasks as retracting a DC-2's landing gear with a cockpit-based hand pump to command of a wide-body 747. Buck's experiences go back to a time when flying was something glamorous. He flew with and learned from some true pioneers of aviation -- the courageous pilots who created the airmail service during flying's infancy. At the behest of his employer Howard Hughes, Buck spent three months flying with Tyrone Power on a trip to South America, Africa, and Europe. He flew the New York-Paris-Cairo route in the days when flight plans called for lengthy stopovers, and enjoyed all that those romantic places had to offer. He took part in a flight that circled the globe "sideways" (from pole to pole). He advised TWA's president on the shift to jet planes; a world expert on weather and flight, Buck used a B-17G to chase thunderstorms worldwide as part of a TWA-Air Force research project during World War II, for which he was awarded the Air Medal (as a civilian) by President Truman.In "North Starover My Shoulder," Bob Buck tells of a life spent up and over the clouds, and of the wonderful places and marvelous people who have been a part of that life. He captures the feel, taste, and smell of flying's greatest era -- how the people lived, what they did and felt, and what it was really like to be a part of the world as it grew smaller and smaller. He relates stories from his innumerable visits to Paris, the city he loves more than any other -- echoing Gertrude Stein's view that "America is my country, and Paris is my home town" -- and from his trips to the Middle East, including flights to Israel before and after it became a state. A terrific storyteller and a fascinating man, Bob Buck has turned his well-lived life into a delightful memoir for anyone who remembers when there really was something special in the air.