Under The Surface

The most significant difference between a grandmaster and a club player is not simply that the grandmaster calculates more accurately, but rather that he sees more deeply. This book invites you beneath the surface, where you can learn to navigate the depths of chess. Jan Markos shows how a strong player perceives chess, which features of a position he focuses on, and how he thinks at the board. The author's philosophy is that understanding chess brings pure happiness, and he would like to share this happiness with you. "In his new book, GM Jan Markos focuses on important, yet often neglected, aspects of chess. He deals with this interesting and difficult topic excellently, making fine use of his chess and teaching abilities. The book is highly readable and belongs among the best chess books I have read in recent years. Although the book is intended to be read by amateurs, even grandmasters will find it interesting and useful. If you want to learn more about chess and don't mind thinking independently, this is the book for you." GM David Navara

For the updated paperback edition of Under the Surface, Tom Wilber has written a new chapter and epilogue covering developments since the book's initial publication. Chief among these are the home rule movement and accompanying social and legal events leading up to an unprecedented ban of fracking in New York state, and the outcome of the federal EPA's investigation of water pollution just across the state border in Dimock, Pennsylvania. The industry, with powerful political allies, effectively challenged the federal government’s attempts to intervene in drilling communities in Pennsylvania, Wyoming, and Texas with water problems. But it met its match in a grassroots movement—known as "fractivism"—that sprouted from seeds sown in upstate New York community halls and grew into one of the state’s most influential environmental movements since Love Canal.Wilber weaves a narrative tracing the consequences of shale gas development in northeast Pennsylvania and central New York through the perspective of various stakeholders. Wilber's evenhanded treatment explains how the revolutionary process of fracking has changed both access to our domestic energy reserves and the lives of people living over them.He gives a voice to all constituencies, including farmers and landowners tempted by the prospects of wealth but wary of the consequences; policymakers struggling with divisive issues concerning free enterprise, ecology, and public health; and activists coordinating campaigns based on their respective visions of economic salvation and environmental ruin. Throughout the book, Wilber illustrates otherwise dense policy and legal issues in human terms and shows how ordinary people can affect extraordinary events.

A bloodthirsty siren. A spellbound selkie. A vindictive witch... And a fiery redhead from Nashville willing to take them all on. Kaia has finally decided to put her parents' house on the market and let go of the memories it holds, but she didn't bargain for the secrets she uncovers there. Her whole world changes when she's plunged into a storm on the Atlantic with Sam, the enigmatic fisherman she just met at the bar. As they fight for their lives, Kaia discovers she's a siren, and Sam finds himself ready to break all his own rules for her. Though giving in to her instincts is easy-both in the ocean and in bed-the battle between her siren and human selves takes Kaia to the very edge of who she thinks she is. In the water, she spars with a merciless, territorial siren who wants something she can't give. On land, Sam reveals his own secrets to Kaia, including a curse that looms over him-a curse that could take him from her forever.Under the Surface is the first part of an adult paranormal romance series featuring sizzling love scenes, a witchy love triangle, and maritime legends come to life.

This book approaches deep ecology as a philosophy, not as a political, social, or environmental movement.

*Now a New York Times Best Seller* Over the course of two decades, John Hargrove worked with 20 different whales on two continents and at two of SeaWorld's U.S. facilities. For Hargrove, becoming an orca trainer fulfilled a childhood dream. However, as his experience with the whales deepened, Hargrove came to doubt that their needs could ever be met in captivity. When two fellow trainers were killed by orcas in marine parks, Hargrove decided that SeaWorld's wildly popular programs were both detrimental to the whales and ultimately unsafe for trainers. After leaving SeaWorld, Hargrove became one of the stars of the controversial documentary Blackfish. The outcry over the treatment of SeaWorld's orca has now expanded beyond the outlines sketched by the award-winning documentary, with Hargrove contributing his expertise to an advocacy movement that is convincing both federal and state governments to act. In Beneath the Surface, Hargrove paints a compelling portrait of these highly intelligent and social creatures, including his favorite whales Takara and her mother Kasatka, two of the most dominant orcas in SeaWorld. And he includes vibrant descriptions of the lives of orcas in the wild, contrasting their freedom in the ocean with their lives in SeaWorld. Hargrove's journey is one that humanity has just begun to take-toward the realization that the relationship between the human and animal worlds must be radically rethought.

Are you able to see what is hidden right under your eyes? Rynne Slater, a twenty-eight year old, gorgeous, intelligent African American woman has been tied to her desk for the past six years working on a miracle scar remover. She hasn't thought about dating anyone until she meets the local town hermit, Pierce McMahon. Rynne promises not to let herself fall for Pierce, but that vow is put to the test as she wants to learn more about the man beneath the hood. Pierce McMahon hasn't been approached by any woman since his ex-girlfriend cut up his face in a fit of anger. He always thought he didn't want a woman's company anymore. But that all goes out the window when he opens his front door and finds the alluring ebony beauty Rynne standing on his porch. More than anything, he wants to make her his and he refuses to allow the narrow-minded opinions of her brother or his sister to stand in his way. But how can he make that happen when a whole town hates him because of the way he look. Will Rynne finally be the one to look... Beneath the Surface?