The Library
A few good reads for the long game — free to keep, old enough to belong to everyone. Chess, puzzles, and logic to start. Each links to its free home; nothing here asks for an account.
- PuzzlesGeometric Exercises in Paper FoldingT. Sundara Row · 1893A schoolteacher in Madras shows how far a square of paper and careful folds will take you through Euclid — no ruler, no compass. The first book on our shelf from outside Gutenberg.Read free →Internet Archive · public domain (Madras, 1893)
- ChessChess StrategyEdward Lasker · 1915A clear, humane introduction to the ideas behind the moves — still one of the kindest first strategy books ever written.Read free →Project Gutenberg · public domain
- ChessChess FundamentalsJosé Raúl Capablanca · 1921The world champion’s own primer — spare, elegant, and built around endings and simple positions you can actually hold in your head.Read free →Project Gutenberg · public domain
- PuzzlesThe Canterbury PuzzlesHenry Ernest Dudeney · 1907Wry, story-wrapped puzzles from the great English puzzlist — the kind you carry around in your head for a day.Read free →Project Gutenberg · public domain
- PuzzlesAmusements in MathematicsHenry Ernest Dudeney · 1917A deep, cheerful trove of number and geometry puzzles — a lifetime of quiet evenings, free to read.Read free →Project Gutenberg · public domain
- LogicThe Game of LogicLewis Carroll · 1887The author of Alice teaches formal logic as a board game with counters — playful, rigorous, and oddly soothing.Read free →Project Gutenberg · public domain
These are public-domain books — free to read because their copyright has long expired — hosted by Project Gutenberg. A small shelf on purpose. The studio's own companion books will appear here in time.
From the studio: Fog of War, 1908 — a short, sourced history of the hidden-army game, with the places where the sources disagree.
Great Plans: Savannah, Barcelona and Copenhagen, told move by move — three towns drawn before they were built, with what critics said.
Stories: Thursdays at the Whetstone, and four famous chess games — short reads for an evening, each with something to try across the table.