09/04/2007

GARRY KASPAROV is the most successful chess player of all time, a world champion at the age of twenty-two and the number one ranked player in the world for two decades. In his new book, How Life Imitates Chess, the Grandmaster shares the strategies he has learned from dominating the world’s most intellectually challenging game – lessons about mastering the strategic and emotional skills to navigate life’s toughest challenges and maximise success, no matter how tough the competition. An ardent opponent of the Russian president Vladimir Putin, he also discusses his current tactical manoeuvres on the political front. How Life Imitates Chess is published by William Heinemann.

PROFESSOR JEFFREY SACHS is a man who believes that a new enlightenment can solve many of the world’s problems. The designer of shock therapy for the former communist countries of eastern Europe is one of the world’s most influential economic advisers and he is also this year’s BBC Reith lecturer. In his series of five lectures, entitled Bursting at the Seams, he argues that the world is in a period of turbulent transition and that the biggest challenges - global warming, terrorism, poverty, disease and bad governance - need to be navigated by broader and deeper global co-operation. The first lecture goes out on Wednesday 11 April at 9.00am and the other four lectures go out on the following Wednesdays at 8.00pm.

Collective joy! “Why aren’t we all dancing in the streets like in the good old days?” wonders BARBARA EHRENREICH. Her new book, Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy, looks at the history of man’s capacity to come together as one with much dancing and feasting and examines our paltry attempts to make merry today. Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy is published by Granta Books.

For the vast majority of its fans around the world, the experience of listening to classical music has been through recording. One of the striking aspects of the past century has been the overwhelming popularization of a form of music previously restricted to particular places and wealth. In his latest book, Maestros, Masterpieces and Madness: The Secret Life and Shameful Death of the Classical Record Industry, NORMAN LEBRECHT describes the birth and glory days of the classical record industry, but then reveals how the culture of classical recording has now died thanks to a combination of corporate greed, ego-trips, incompetence and the internet. Maestros, Masterpieces and Madness: The Secret Life and Shameful Death of the Classical Record Industry is published by Allen Lane.