Readers' Nook

In partnership with the Chess Room staff, we have started a pilot project to have chess eBooks available through Libby.

Libby is a mobile app and website that provides Mechanics Institute members with access to thousands of eBooks, eAudiobooks, and eMagazines.

After holding an informal poll, Christian Brickhouse, our new Scholastic Program Coordinator, let us know that the chess players surveyed would like books covering chess exercises and especially endgame studies. Respondents had a wide range of ratings; therefore, we selected chess eBooks across difficulty levels. Following that feedback, we have selected the following 11 titles for our pilot project:

100 Difficult Chess Puzzles in One Move by Charles Morphy

180 Checkmates in Two Moves, Solutions in Diagrams Part 1 by Charles Morphy

180 Checkmates in Two Moves, Solutions in Diagrams Part 2 by Charles Morphy

180 Checkmates in Two Moves, Solutions in Diagrams Part 3 by Charles Morphy

180 Checkmates Chess Puzzles in Two Moves, Part 1 by Andon Rangelov

Chess for the Gifted and Busy: A Short But Comprehensive Course From Beginner to Expert by Lev Alburt, Al Lawrence

Chess Training Pocket Book: 300 Most Important Positions (Third Revised Edition) (Comprehensive Chess Course Series) by Lev Alburt

Chess Training Pocket Book II: 320 Key Positions for players of all Levels by Lev Alburt, Al Lawrence

100 Endgames You Must Know: Vital Lessons for Every Chess Player Improved and Expanded by Jesus de la Villa

The 100 Endgames You Must Know Workbook: Practical Endgame Exercises for Every Chess Player by Jesus de la Villa

1001 Chess Exercises for Club Players: The Tactics Workbook that Also Explains All Key Concepts by Frank Erwich

In addition to these eBooks, we have recently found that Libby has added the British Chess Magazine to its eMagazine offerings. You can find the last 18 issues on Libby now. (Keep in mind this is a "rolling" 18-month license. In other words, in November of 2024, you can read the April issue of 2023. But in December 2024 the oldest issue you can access will be May 2023).

EBOOKS

Eric Gansworth Apple : skin to the core : a memoir in words and pictures
Umberto Eco Baudolino
Scott Carney The Enlightenment Trap : Obsession, Madness, and Death on Diamond Mountain
Umberto Eco Foucault's pendulum
Umberto Eco The island of the day before
Umberto Eco The Prague cemetery
László Krasznahorkai The melancholy of resistance
Susanna Clarke Piranesi
László Krasznahorkai Seiobo there below
Neil deGrasse Tyson Welcome to the universe : an astrophysical tour
Rafia Zakaria Against white feminism : notes on disruption
Wajahat Ali Go Back to Where You Came From
James Sallis Black hornet
James Sallis Bluebottle
Jonathan Stephen Harris The complete book of drawing optical illusions and spiral art
Julian Tepper Cooler heads
James Sallis Eye of the cricket
James Sallis Ghost of a flea
Christopher J McMahon Into a gale's full fury : Stories and reflections on my years sailing in the us merchant marine in the 1970s and 1980s
Christopher M Collora Long Island : historic houses of the South Shore
James Sallis The long-legged fly
James Sallis Moth
Meredith Mooring Redsight
A Ashley Hoff With Love, Mommie Dearest The Making of an Unintentional Camp Classic.
LaTonya Yvette Woman of color
Samuel R Delany Dhalgren

PRINT BOOKS

NON-FICTION

Arts, Architecture & Crafts

China artbook 709.51 C53
R. Tripp Evans The importance of being furnished : four bachelors at home 747.092 E924
Mariko Mori Mariko Mori 709.2 M854
Thomas Heatherwick Humanize : a maker's guide to designing our cities 720.103 H441
Adam Moss The work of art : how something comes from nothing 701.15 M913

Biography & Genealogy

Eric Gansworth Apple : skin to the core : a memoir in words and pictures 970.004 G199
Daniel Handler And then? And then? What else? 813.54 H236
Robert Phillip Kolker Kubrick : an odyssey 791.4 K95
Sam Wasson The path to paradise : a Francis Ford Coppola story 791.4 C78
Tom Selleck You never know : a memoir 792.092 S467
Scott Eyman Charlie Chaplin vs. America : when art, sex, and politics collided 792.092 C46
Hubert Howe Bancroft Literary industries. : A memoir. 92 B2132b

Chess

Wojciech Moranda Supreme chess understanding : statics and dynamics 794.1 M829
Wojciech Moranda Universal chess training 794.1 M829u
Willard Fiske Chess in Iceland and in Icelandic literature, with historical notes on other table-games. 794.1 F54c

Computer Science

Daniela Rus The mind's mirror : risk and reward in the age of AI 006.3 R949
Peter Prohaszka Your jungle guide to chess tactics : sharpen your tactical skills! 794.12 P964
Antonio Gude A complete chess course 794.1 G922
Efstratios Grivas The tactics bible : magnum opus 794.12 G872t
Viktoria Ni Winning chess exercises for kids : tactics and strategies to outsmart your opponent U 794.1 N577

Food & Drink

Mark Kurlansky The core of an onion : peeling the rarest common food--featuring more than 100 historical recipes 641.6525 K968

Health

Tracy Lockwood Beckerman The better period food solution : eat your way to a lifetime of healthier cycles : banish bloat and breakouts, balance hormones, and reduce painful cramps 641.563 B396

History

Josephine Crawley Quinn How the world made the West : a 4,000 year history 909.0982 Q73

Literature & Writing

Eliot A. Cohen The hollow crown : Shakespeare on how leaders rise, rule, and fall 822.33 C678
Dear human at the edge of time : poems on climate change in the United States 811.6 D28

Natural Sciences & Mathematics

Lorraine Daston Rivals : how scientists learned to cooperate 509 D231r

Performing Arts & Music

Judi Dench Shakespeare : the man who pays the rent 792.02 D392

Philosophy, Psychology & Religion

Nate Silver On the edge : the art of risking everything 153.75 S587
Sacred Writings: 5. Hinduism: the Rig Veda 294.5 S123
Jaroslav Pelikan On searching the scriptures, your own or someone else's : a reader's guide to Sacred Writing and methods of studying them 291.82 P38

Politics

Beverley Milton-Edwards Hamas : the quest for power 322.42 M662

Social Sciences & Current Events

Fuchsia Dunlop Invitation to a banquet : the story of Chinese food 394.1 D922
Ryan J. Reilly Sedition hunters : how January 6th broke the justice system 364.131 R362
Sophie Yeo Nature's ghosts : the world we lost and how to bring it back 304.2 Y46
Wesley E. Marshall Killed by a traffic engineer : shattering the delusion that science underlies our transportation system 363.12 M367
Monstrous anger of the guns : how the global arms trade is ruining the world and what we can do about It 338.4768 M756
Jean-Martin Bauer The new breadline : hunger and hope in the twenty-first century 338.19 B344

Travel & Geography

Romania & Bulgaria. 914.98 L847
Anthony Ham West Coast Australia 919.41 L847
Charles S. Rice My journey to Mongolia : a reporter's journey 915.17 R495
Lonely planet Indonesia. 915.98 L847
Lonely Planet Bali, Lombok & Nusa Tenggara 915.986 L847
British Columbia & the Canadian Rockies. 917.11 L847
Fodor's southern California 917.949 F653

EBOOKS

John Le Carré Agent running in the field
Laura Fenton The bunk bed book : 115 bunks, lofts, and cozy nooks
Jane Langton The Dante game
Blair Bigham Death interrupted : how modern medicine is complicating the way we die
Gregory Makoff Default : the landmark court battle over Argentina's $100 billion debt restructuring
Anaïs Nin Delta of Venus : erotica
Ben Aaronovitch False value
James Baldwin The fire next time
Larry Brooks Great stories don't write themselves
Rebecca Lister Growing pineapples in the Outback
Craig Johnson Land of wolves
Deepak Chopra Metahuman : unleashing your infinite potential
Matt Haig The midnight library
Christopher Goto-Jones Modern japan : A very short introduction
Murray Kempton Part of our time : some ruins and monuments of the thirties
Judy Gauthier Quilt as-you-go for scrap lovers : 12 fun projects; tips & techniques; color & piecing strategies
Obi Kaufmann The state of water : understanding California's most precious resource
Theda Skocpol The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism.
Louis Auchincloss Theodore Roosevelt
Alaa Abd el-Fattah You have not yet been defeated : selected works 2011-2021
James M Cain American noir classics
James M Cain The baby in the icebox and other short fiction
James M Cain Career in C major and other fiction
James M Cain Cloud nine
James M Cain The embezzler
James M Cain The enchanted isle
Stephen Fry Fry's ties : The life and times of a tie collection
James M Cain Galatea
James M Cain The institute
James M Cain The James M. Cain collection. Short stories. Illustrated : The baby in the icebox, dead man, pastorale, the birthday party and others
James M Cain Jealous woman
Max Gross The lost shtetl : a novel
James M Cain The magician's wife
James M Cain Mignon
James M Cain The moth
Nordic tales : folktales from Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, and Denmark
James M Cain Past all dishonor
James M Cain Rainbow's end
James M Cain The root of his evil
James M Cain Sinful woman
Stephen Fry Stephen Fry in America : [fifty states and the man who set out to see them all]
Cara Hunter All the rage : a novel
Nick Bradley The cat and the city
James M Cain The cocktail waitress
Richard Gilman-Opalsky The communism of love : an inquiry into the poverty of exchange value
Benjamin Herold Disillusioned : five families and the unraveling of America's suburbs
Charlotte Joko Beck Ordinary wonder : Zen life and practice
Kristine S Ervin Rabbit heart : a mother's murder, a daughter's story
James S Pula Union General Daniel Butterfield : a Civil War biography
Patrick Langley The variations
Kiyoko Murata A woman of pleasure : a novel
Sherry Scott The year my mother died : a memoir
Ruby F Nazaruk Bedtime stories for children : A collection
Evie Woods The lost bookshop