"These essays address such key topics in the cultural, political, and intellectual life of our time as the tyranny of exercise, the tyranny of nutrition and food snobbery, the sexualization of childhood (and everything else), the philosophical meaning of Radiohead, the rise and fall of the hipster, the impact of the Occupy Wall Street movement, and the crisis of policing. Four of the selections address, directly and unironically, the meaning of life what might be the right philosophical stance to adopt toward one's self and the world." -- Amazon.com.

The average club player doesn’t need to study hundreds of pages of chess opening theory. Understanding structures and finding tactics are much more important than memorizing variations. Renowned German chess trainers Erik Zude and Jörg Hickl have created an ideal club player’s repertoire for Black. This compact manual presents a set of lines that is conveniently limited in scope, yet varied, solid and complete. The core repertoire is based on lines that the authors have successfully played at (grand)master level for decades: the Antoshin Variation of the Philidor Defence against 1.e4 and the Old-Indian Defence against 1.d4. There is only a limited number of plans, ideas and structures that you need to learn, and very few forcing variations. You will develop your position with a sequence of strong standard moves and start your highly effective counterplay. Zude and Hickl provide common sense guidance, explain all typical characteristics and give practical examples. If you have an Elo rating between 1400 and 2200, you don’t need to look further because you can Play 1..d6 Against Everything!

Linden's defiant act of love--resurrecting Thomas Covenant--awakens the Worm of the World's End. If they have any chance to save the Land, it will come from unlikely sources--including the mysterious boy Jeremiah, Linden's adopted son, whose secrets are only beginning to come to light.

As clinical as it sounds to express the value of human lives, health, or the environment in cold dollars and cents, cost-benefit analysis requires it. More disturbingly, this approach is being embraced by a growing number of politicians and conservative pundits as the most reasonable way to make many policy decisions regarding public health and the environment. By systematically refuting the economic algorithms and illogical assumptions that cost-benefit analysts flaunt as fact, Priceless tells a ''gripping story about how solid science has been shoved to the backburner by bean counters with ideological blinders'' (In These Times). Ackerman and Heinzerling argue that decisions about health and safety should be made ''to reflect not economists' numbers, but democratic values, chosen on moral grounds. This is a vividly written book, punctuated by striking analogies, a good deal of outrage, and a nice dose of humor'' (Cass Sunstein, The New Republic). Essential reading for anyone concerned with the future of human health and environmental protection, Priceless ''shines a bright light on obstacles that stand in the way of good government decisions''.

Decolonisation has lost its way. Originally a struggle to escape the West’s direct political and economic control, it has become a catch-all idea, often for performing ‘morality’ or ‘authenticity’; it suffocates African thought and denies African agency. Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò fiercely rejects the indiscriminate application of ‘decolonisation’ to everything from literature, language and philosophy to sociology, psychology and medicine. He argues that the decolonisation industry, obsessed with cataloguing wrongs, is seriously harming scholarship on and in Africa. He finds ‘decolonisation’ of culture intellectually unsound and wholly unrealistic, conflating modernity with coloniality, and groundlessly advocating an open-ended undoing of global society’s foundations. Worst of all, today’s movement attacks its own cause: ‘decolonisers’ themselves are disregarding, infantilising and imposing values on contemporary African thinkers. This powerful, much-needed intervention questions whether today’s ‘decolonisation’ truly serves African empowerment. Táíwò’s is a bold challenge to respect African intellectuals as innovative adaptors, appropriators and synthesisers of ideas they have always seen as universally relevant.

Explains why the environmental crisis should lead to an abandonment of "free market" ideologies and current political systems, arguing that a massive reduction of greenhouse emissions may offer a best chance for correcting problems.

Plagued by disinformation, personal politics and poor research, the Titanic story has existed in a miasma of romance and chivalry for a century now. Going back to the official enquiry transcripts and letters and interviews from survivors, a different picture emerges, and controversies about the sinking can be addressed. Were the 3rd class held below decks while the nobility escaped? Did the captain or 1st officer shoot themselves? Why did the ship leave port with room in the boats for only half of those on board, and why were 400 seats in the boats wasted? Was the Titanic trying for a speed record? With the aid of a hundred years of research, an enlightening new account of the liner's final hours emerges.