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Content by Hugh Davies
Reviewer Rank: 223,596
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Reviews Written by
Hugh Davies "Hugh Davies" (UK)
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Kings of the World
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by Alexander Meynell
Edition: Paperback |
| Price: £25.00 |
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| Availability: Not in stock; order now and we'll deliver when available |
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Synopsis, 13 Jul 2007
Julius Caesar and Imperial Rome continue to fascinate us, even two thousand years after the empire's apogee. In this book Alexander Meynell has a selected number of writings linking Rome with Britain, including a survey of Roman and Celtic Britain by the eminent historian Sir Charles Oman.
Meynall himself delivers some speculations on Hadrian's Wall and late Roman Britain, before the protective legions departed, while Raymond Keene, OBE, of the Spectator and the Times, has been invited to contribute a peice surronding indentifications of four Roman busts in the Royal Automobile Club, Pall Mall.
Alexander Maynall is a classics enthusiast, specialising in Roman military history. As benefits to the writer with military interests, he is also a chess expert with one of the largest libraries in the U.K, and has won first prize in the celebrated Hastings Tornament-Major Section. In 2005 he co-authored with Alexander Chernianev, the first serious overview of the games of David Janowski (Hardinge Simpole, 2005). His grandfather, Lord Killearn, was top board player for the house of Lords chess team in their annual clash against the House of Commons. Alexander is currently working on a significant new study of Hadrian's Wall, based on his first ahnd observstions of the extensive site and remains.
Raymond Keene is a British Chess Champion, and the first British Chess Player to achive a FIDE (World Chess Federation) Grandmaster norm. He was awarded the OBE for services to chess in 1985. He is chess correspondant of the Times, The Sunday Times, The Spectator and the International Herald Tribune. He is a profile aurthor of chess books, several of which are classics of the genre. He has organised three World Chess Cahampions.
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1 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
Synopsis, 9 Jul 2007
Published in 1777, and including the text of the 1749 edition, this is possibly the first chess book in English. The greatest chess-player amongst musicians and the greatest composer amongst chess-players, Philidor was undoubtedly the leading player in the eighteenth century. For nearly fifty years he was what we would now call World Champion and for many of these years he was the leading opera composer in France. Our Philidor was born in 1726 near Paris and was remarkably precocious, both in music and chess. By the age of eleven he had had a motet performed at the Chapel Royal in Versailles and he was already a fine chess-player in his early teens. The best player in France, M. de Kermur, Sire de Legal, took an interest in the boy. At first it seems he gave him the odds of a Rook, then, after three more years, had to play him level and finally he was beaten by his erstwhile pupil in a match in 1750.
But already for some years he had been considered the best player in France. It is interesting to observe that he never regarded himself as a professional chess-player but solely as a musician who supplemented his income from composing by playing chess and giving blindfold displays.
In 1747 he utilized these introductions on a visit to England where he demonstrated how much greater a player he was than any of his contemporaries by beating Philip Stamma in a match at odds in London by 8-1. This was an astonishing feat since Philidor gave Stamma the odds of the move and the formidable advantage that any drawn game should count as a win for Stamma.
He returned to the Continent and there wrote and published in 1749 in Paris the celebrated Analyse du jeu des Echecs. The theme of the work - that 'pawns are the soul of chess' - was so modern as to be about two hundred years before its time. It was rather as though Nimzowitsch and his theories of the twentieth century were contemporary with Philidor: he was not really understood until a couple of centuries had passed. But what he wrote on the endgame and his general advice was obviously sound and marked a step forward in the way of scientific analysis.
- From the Introductory note, by Harry Golombek.
Publisher's Note: This is a facsimile reprint of a book printed in 1777, some two hundred and twenty eight years ago. This is reflected in the quality of the original ink, which occasionally shows through on the reverse of the page, and a occasional 'dirtiness' on the page. This does not materially affect legibility. Readers should also be aware of the use of the 'long s' which looks similar to the usual lower case letter f.
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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Synopsis, 6 Jul 2007
Mikhail Botvinnik, disciple of Josef Stalin and iron man of Soviet chess, seized the chess crown in 1948 in the 'famous five' Match Tournament. This was held to settle the question of the World Championship after reigning champion Alexander Alekhine had died in possession of the title. 1948 ushered in a long period of control of world chess by FIDE, the world chess federation, backed, in turn, by the powerful chess federation of the USSR , the land where chess had become the iconic national game. Botvinnik dominated the field, easily outdistancing his main rivals Smyslov, Reshevsky and Keres , while the hapless Dr. Max Euwe , former world champion , whose sudden and dramatic descent from world class chess was made brutally apparent by this event, was left trailing in last place, 6.5 points adrift of the field. Inspiration and controversy alike still surround the 1948 match tournament . At a time when more than one player claims to be world champion and rival organisations have their own champions, the resolution brought about by the match tournament is often regarded as the holy grail of world title definition. Yet critics also persist in seeing this system as flawed. Why for example was the Polish grandmaster Miguel Najdorf not invited when US Grandmaster Reuben Fine dropped out? Was it because Najdorf had defeated Botvinnik in a recent tournament? Worse, unsubstantiated rumours abound that Paul Keres, an enthusiastic participant in Nazi-controlled competitions of the early 1940s, came under pressure to lose games in Moscow - the very heart of the Soviet Empire - to Stalin's protégé Botvinnik.
Harry Golombek, the author of this book, was on the spot throughout and at the very epicentre of all the action. Here he annotates every game and follows every nuance. An International Master and British Champion, Golombek had a fluent knowledge of Russian and was alert to every key variation and possibility. Here are all the games, annotated in detail, of an historic and controversial event. Readers can make up their own minds on the evidence - was Botvinnik the dominating titan of his day or was his triumph founded on the elimination of a dangerous rival and on political favouritism extended by the most powerful man in the Soviet Empire?
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1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Synopsis, 6 Jul 2007
All chess enthusiasts are fascinated by the question of Who is the strongest of all time? Here two respected chess statisticians and a noted chess grandmaster come together to provide an answer, each one attacking the problem from his own perspective, but each one also coming up with the same unavoidable response!One can argue endlessly about preferences, but when such preferences ( backed up by the informed opinion of readers of The Times, as well as exhaustive results between the élite and a close examination of tournament and match charts ) all point in the same direction, then it is difficult to dispute the outcome.In the course of this fascinating and scholarly journey, the reader encounters all the greats of chess, from Staunton via Steinitz to Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Botvinnik, Fischer, Karpov and Kasparov. Each contender is provided with a thumbnail cv and extracts from their most significant encounters.
Ray Keene, OBE, is a Grandmaster who has organised three world championships and writes daily for The Times, London. Professor Nathan Divinsky has held chess and bridge championships in Canada and is a figure of repute in the University of British Columbia, while Jeff Sonas, chess statistician extraordinaire operates the celebrated and highly respected chessmetrics website.
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Staunton's City
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by Raymond Keene
Edition: Paperback |
| Price: £18.53 |
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| Availability: In stock |
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1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Synopsis, 6 Jul 2007
Howard Staunton was the iconic polymath who essentially founded British chess. He was the dominant player of his time and after his 1843 victory against St Amant in Paris he would undoubtedly have been hailed as world champion, had anyone thought of creating the title at that time. Staunton's name also goes down into history as the man after whom the standard Staunton pattern chess pieces are named.
The year 2003 was the 175th anniversary of the foundation of Simpson's in the Strand, the great 19th century home of chess. The Staunton Society, therefore, decided to organise a chess tournament to celebrate both Staunton and this great venue. This book gives all the games and a potted history of chess in London. The greatest London events are recorded as well as games played in London by every World Champion. Raymond Keene OBE, chess correspondent of The Times, was London's first official Grandmaster. Artist Barry Martin is the Honorary Secretary of the Staunton Society.
This book is updated to include the Third Staunton Tournament.
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English: 1...P-Qb4
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by John Watson
Edition: Paperback |
| Price: £23.70 |
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| Availability: In stock but may require up to 2 additional days to deliver |
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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Synopsis, 6 Jul 2007
First published in 1980. Volume 3 (1 P-QB4 P-QB4) accounts for a high percentage of master games. The author shows that its former reputation as a dull system hasn't held up as modern players have found increasingly sharp and unbalanced methods of conducting the play. Attention to detail has been maintained and a particular effort has been made to deal thoroughly with transpositions.
Watson's aim throughout has been to provide a practical balance of theory, discussion and examples. With encyclopaedic coverage and many original suggestions, this series gives the reader the ability to understand the complexities of the English Opening and to play it with confidence.
International Master John Watson is widely known as a player, author, and chess trainer. His books have won numerous awards including Book-of-the-Year awards for "Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy" and "Chess Strategy in Action".
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Buddhism in Bellingham
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by Caroline Kingsbury
Edition: Paperback |
| Price: £23.70 |
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| Availability: Usually dispatched within 4 to 6 weeks |
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Synopsis, 6 Jul 2007
In the fall of 1993, four different Buddhist groups in Bellingham joined their financial resources and rented a space in the downtown area to use for Buddhist meditation and teaching. The groups remain autonomous and use the Hall at different times, but continue to act ecumenically in maintaining the communal space. The numbers of participants have steadily increased over the last few years, and the groups continue to co-operate with each other while remaining autonomous. This study offers clarification and explication of this phenomenon by way of conducting in-depth interviews with participants of each of the four groups. The goals are to ascertain what the members' specific Buddhist practices and beliefs are and to determine if the membership of the groups differs markedly from each other, for example, in demographics or similar pre-Buddhist experiences. A brief history of Buddhism and a summation of its beliefs is given, extant research of Buddhist conversion is summarized, and theories of why people convert are explored to help illuminate the processes that people may have undergone in deciding to align themselves with Buddhist practice. The research material is presented in the framework of a seven-stage model of religious conversion that organizes and highlights the overarching themes found in these Buddhist groups. It will be shown that participants are highly educated, spiritually seeking, independent thinking individuals who do not feel obliged to believe or act on specific dogmatic ideologies, but who embrace the practice of Buddhist meditation, and find its supporting philosophy amenable to their cognitive viewpoints.
A major inclusion is a set of transcripts of the Business Meetings of the group. These give a virtually complete chronological account of how the meditation center was initially organized and maintained, a project that rested on the faith of several individuals that Buddhist meditators in the area would continue meditating and want to support a communal space where this could be facilitated.
Caroline Kingsbury received her Masters at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington and is a Research Associate in the Anthropology Department there. She is a long-time Vipassana practitioner and lectures on Buddhist history and contemporary issues in the Pacific Northwest.
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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Synopsis, 6 Jul 2007
"to a receptive person, what you get out of fishing is infinitely more than fish. For that reason I believe that neither size nor numbers should matter much; fishing should be the exercise of your skill - and its main reward the spot it brings you to. If these are not your main objectives, then you don't know fishing." From Going Fishing by Negley Farson.
Lord Hardinge of Penshurst (1921-1997) was a publisher, mostly of crime fiction, and himself wrote seven crime novels under the pseudonym of George Milner. He was a keen and expert salmon fisherman for over 50 years, in many parts of the British Isles and Northern Europe. An Incompleat Angler is widely recognised as a fishing classic, and even today receives frequent mentions in fishing publications. This edition is a reprint of the original, with a new introduction by Lord Hardinge's son, Charles, and includes the drawings by Chow Yeats-Brown omitted from the original.
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0 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Synopsis, 6 Jul 2007
The World Chess Championship was officially founded by the Steinitz - Zukertort match of 1886. This thrilling account - Part One of the Hardinge Simpole complete history of the world chess championship - tells the stories of the champions and their challengers up to 1937. It is a record of everything that is best in chess from the decades which pre-dated control of the title by the World Chess Federation and the subsequent domination by the USSR. It is a Companion volume to World Chess Championship:Botvinnik to Kasparov.Pablo Moran was a noted Spanish journalist and chess expert. He has also written the definitive account of the Spanish Chess Championships, Campeones y Campeonatos de Espana de Ajedrez as well as Agony of a Genius, the final years of Alexander Alekhine.
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0 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Synopsis, 6 Jul 2007
COMING SOON:
Ray Keene, grandmaster, author and organiser of the last world chess championship, is writing a book on the Kramnik-Leko match to be available as soon as possible after the event.
As well as annotating every game played, Keene also explains his new ideas on the history of the world championship and presents evidence that Labourdonnais, Anderssen, Morphy and Staunton should all be regarded as champions in the lineage that is conventionally begun with Steinitz.
"This strange divide we have built up around 1886 mainly serves to do a terrible injustice to Steinitz -- his reign was longer than Lasker's and he contested nine matches for the title against the best possible opposition over 28 years: an average of one match every three years! "
As in 2000, the Internet is buzzing with ideas, analysis and comment about the match. Keene has been watching and taking part in debates in the online chess communities, e.g. chessgames.com, and will include the best of the live kibitzing in the book.
Raymond Keene is a British Chess Champion, and the first British Player to achieve a FIDE (World Chess Federation) Grandmaster norm. He was awarded the OBE for services to chess in 1985. He is Chess Correspondent of The Times, The Sunday Times, The Spectator, and The International Herald Tribune. He is a prolific author of chess books, several of which are classics of the genre. He has organised three World Chess Championships.
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