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30044080

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Barrayar

Lois McMaster Bujold

1991

{"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"}

As Barrayar begins, Aral and Cordelia Vorkosigan are expecting their first child. When the crafty old emperor dies, Aral takes over as regent. A plot to assassinate Aral and Cordelia with poison gas fails, but the antidote, while effective, is also a powerful teratogen that poses a grave threat to the bone development of his unborn son. In a desperate attempt to save the fetus, Cordelia has it transferred to a uterine replicator—an artificial womb—to undergo an experimental recalcification treatment that may partially combat the otherwise-fatal bone damage. When Count Vidal Vordarian attempts a coup, five-year-old Emperor Gregor is rescued by his loyal security chief, Captain Negri, and reunited with the Vorkosigans. Cordelia, Gregor, and various retainers escape into the hills and hide amongst the rural population while Aral and his father organize the resistance. After Cordelia rejoins Aral, they learn that the replicator containing Miles has been captured. Without proper maintenance, the fetus will succumb within six days, but Aral refuses to attempt a rescue when there are far greater concerns. However, Cordelia convinces her personal bodyguard, Ludmilla Droushnakovi, and one of Aral's officers, Clement Koudelka, to help her rescue Gregor's mother, Princess Kareen, and the replicator containing Miles. Once in the palace, Cordelia and her party are caught. They overpower their captors, but Princess Kareen is killed by Vordarian's bodyguards. They execute Vordarian and escape with the replicator, and the coup falls apart without its leader. Cordelia is put in charge of Prince Gregor's early education, with far-reaching consequences for Barrayar. Because of his exposure to the teratogen, Miles Naismith Vorkosigan is born with extremely fragile bones that break easily, and his growth is stunted. On Barrayar, babies with birth defects are common, due to the hostile environment and to lingering radiation from the war between Barrayar and Cetaganda. With life difficult and resources limited, such babies were traditionally killed, though this practice is illegal by the time of Miles' birth. Still, so-called "muties" are reviled and shunned, and Miles, though genetically sound, must deal with prejudice throughout his life, starting with his own grandfather, Piotr.

30048410

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Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood

11/25/2010

{"/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction"}

'I will journey to the black heart of a corrupt Empire to root out my foes. But Rome wasn't built in a day and it won't be restored by a lone assassin. I am Ezio Auditore da Firenze. This is my brotherhood.' Rome, once mighty, lies in ruins. The city swarms with suffering and degradation, her citizens living in the shadow of the ruthless Borgia family. Only one man can free the people from the Borgia tyranny - Ezio Auditore, the Master Assassin. Ezio's quest will test him to his limits. Cesare Borgia, a man more villainous and dangerous than his father the Pope, will not rest until he has conquered Italy. And in such treacherous times, conspiracy is everywhere, even within the ranks of the brotherhood itself...

30049306

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The Hollow Needle

Maurice Leblanc

1909

{"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction"}

Arsène Lupin is opposed this time by Isidore Beautrelet, a young but gifted amateur detective, who is still in high school but who is poised to give Arsène Lupin a big headache. In the Arsène Lupin universe, the Hollow Needle is the second secret of Marie Antoinette and Alessandro Cagliostro, the hidden fortune of the kings of France, as revealed to Arsène Lupin by Josephine Balsamo in the novel The Countess Of Cagliostro (1924). The Mystery of the Hollow Needle hides a secret that the Kings of France have been handing down since the time of Julius Caesar... and now Arsène Lupin has mastered it. The legendary needle contains the most fabulous treasure ever imagined, a collection of queens' dowries, pearls, rubies, sapphires and diamonds... the fortune of the kings of France. When Isidore Beautrelet discovers the Château de l'Aiguille in the department of Creuse, he thinks that he has found the solution to the riddle ("l'Aiguille Creuse" being French for "The Hollow Needle", and also the French title of the novel). However, he did not realize that the château was built by Louis XIV, the king of France, to put people off the track of a needle in Normandy, near the town of Le Havre, where Arsène Lupin, known also under the name of Louis Valméras, has hidden himself.

30051028

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High School Heroes

On Christine Carpenter’s first day of her sophomore year at Thomas Jefferson High School she makes a startling discovery. She can hear peoples’ thoughts. After convincing herself she’s not going crazy, Chris must learn to control her amazing mind-reading ability. Using her power she quickly realizes her crush, the captain of the football team, is also blessed with a special ability. She is soon sucked into a world she never thought possible when two more of her classmates, and a teacher, turn out to have powers as well. What are they meant to do with their special gifts that can either help, or harm others? Christine soon finds out when a monster, lurking in the depths of her school, threatens to murder the student population. When it becomes apparent that the creature is someone she knows, she must decide whether to try and save him, or destroy the beast. It is a difficult choice, but one that ultimately takes her from being an ordinary high school student to being a hero. With this, Christine learns that being a hero doesn't mean having superpowers, it is ultimately the decisions she makes that are the distinguishing factors.

30052313

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Bloodlines

Richelle Mead

8/23/2011

{"/m/02vzzv": "Urban fantasy", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature", "/m/04n87l": "Dark fantasy", "/m/01qxvh": "Romance novel"}

After helping rogue Dhampir Rose Hathaway evade justice, Sydney Sage's situation with the Alchemists is shaky at best. Her career is jeopardized, to the point where she may have to undergo re-education. Woken in the middle of the night, Sydney is given a last chance: to pose as the older sister of Jill Dragomir (illegitimate sister of the Queen Vasilisa) at a boarding school in Palm Springs, California. Jill is being hidden away from dissident Moroi who want to kill her to end the queen's rule, and a recent attack on Jill at the court has convinced several higher-ups that hiding her in a sunny location is the best way to keep her safe - and keep the queen on the throne. Jill is accompanied by Eddie Castile, a Dhampir who, like Sydney, is still in serious trouble from helping Rose. Tagging along is Adrian Ivashkov, a royal and spirit-user who is taking a break from life at the vampire court. Sydney thrusts herself into the job to prevent her younger sister Zoe from being pulled into the Alchemist world (as well as to keep Zoe away from Keith, the Alchemist in charge of the Palm Springs area, who has a history with Sydney's family). Keith is insistent that Zoe take the mission, but Sydney succeeds in convincing the other Alchemists that she is better prepared. However, her sister takes Sydney's words as an affront, believing she is capable of joining the Alchemists, and leaves Sydney on a sour note. Adrian, Eddie, and Sydney accompany Jill to the private school, posing as her siblings. Adrian is stationed in the house of a local Moroi, Clarence Donahue, an older vampire who lives with his college-age son Lee. Clarence is obsessed with 'vampire-hunters', claiming that they killed his niece, Tamara. The students at the school become infatuated with Sydney's Alchemist tattoo, asking her what "powers" it gave her and where she got it, making her curious. During a history class, she meets the teacher's aide, Trey, who is on the football team. All his teammates (excluding him) have been getting tattoos at a place called Nevermore to enhance their sports performance. Sydney gathers information about the 'rare' metallic tattoos and understands why students are so interested in hers. Tattoos called "steel", made using silver, grant enhanced strength and speed, and bronze-colored "celestial" tattoos imbue a feeling of euphoria. Because the tattoos wear off quickly (lasting from several days to a couple of weeks), they have to be continuously touched-up and lead to addictions. Sydney makes the connection that those tattoos and the gold tattoos used by Alchemists were made using the same procedure (but with different effects, as Sydney's restrains her from telling humans of vampires). Jill catches the attention of a senior named Micah, worrying Sydney. Sydney asks Eddie and Adrian to help persuade Micah and Jill to avoid a relationship, but becomes infuriated when Eddie disagrees. Talking to Lee, Sydney and Adrian 'set' Jill up with him - but despite her interest in Lee, Jill is upset with Sydney interfering in her love life. The group goes mini-golfing, and Sydney is freaked out when Jill (a water-user) uses magic on a waterfall. Sydney is awoken in the middle of the night by Jill asking her to go find Adrian, claiming he's stuck at an apartment with two Moroi women in Long Beach, unable to get home. After Sydney wonders how Jill was able to sense Adrian's moods and actions, Jill admits the truth - she has become bonded to Adrian. During the attack on the vampire court, Jill had actually been killed, and only Adrian's spirit magic had saved her. Sydney, angered now that she knows the extent to which Adrian's actions have caused trouble for Jill (Adrian's hangover on Jill's first day at school had transferred across the bond, and she has had several nightmares caused by his nighttime excursions), goes to Long Beach to find him. Arriving at the apartment, Sydney berates Adrian, whose only excuse is that being at Clarence's house alone is driving him crazy. As they prepare to leave the apartment, the women receive a phone call that a Moroi friend of theirs has been killed - and the attack is identical to the story Clarence told about the death of his niece. Because Sydney already knows all the languages the school offers, she is excused from her last class period and spends the time helping out a teacher. The teacher is writing a book, and Sydney offers to help with notes, typing, and coffee runs. Her first task to is to read and summarize an old Latin book about magic. While later visiting Adrian, Sydney finds herself near Nevermore, and she breaks in while Adrian distracts the tattoo artist. She discovers vials of vampire blood and metallic residues, along with a clear liquid she's unable to place. Sydney offers to help Adrian find a job, so that he can move out of Clarence's house, but is infuriated when he intentionally fails several interviews. Sydney returns to school to find that Jill has disappeared. Eventually, Sydney and Eddie realize that she has left campus to go on a second date with Lee. Sydney berates Jill and Eddie for not taking the mission seriously, pointing out that she's spending a great deal of her time looking after all of the Moroi while trying to stay in the Alchemists' good graces. Unfortunately, Keith has been making several negative reports about Sydney's performance, and her father calls that evening to let her know that she is being recalled, and Zoe is being rushed into training - Keith has succeeded in convincing other Alchemists that Sydney is too friendly with the Moroi and Dhampirs to properly serve the Alchemists. Unable to find a job that suits him, Adrian asks Sydney to help him instead get into a local college, hoping that he will be able to find a place to live with the help of financial aid. In return for connecting Sydney with an acquaintance at the college's admissions office, Sydney's teacher asks her to make a charm from the Latin book - a small amulet that would burst into flame when a certain phrase was chanted. When the teacher refuses the amulet (only wanting to know whether the procedure was possible to follow) Sydney keeps it in her purse. Sydney revisits Nevermore and the receptionist reveals that another Alchemist has been providing the supplies for the special tattoos. Adrian calls her over to Clarence's house and shows Sydney a needle mark on his neck. Sydney realizes that Keith has been siphoning blood and saliva from Clarence and selling it to Nevermore. Sydney asks Adrian to break into Keith's apartment to look for proof, while she confronts Keith at a local diner. Sydney reveals her true reason for being repulsed by Keith - while he stayed with her family as an Alchemist trainee, Keith raped Sydney's older sister. Keith races back to his apartment, tailed by Sydney, but Alchemists have already arrived, having been summoned by Adrian. Keith is taken into Alchemist custody. The group goes to a fashion show that Jill is modeling in, but Adrian and Sydney bicker - Adrian has enrolled at college too late to receive financial aid, but Sydney paid for his art classes herself. Sydney mentions that she is heading to Keith's place, and is ambushed by Lee when she gets there. He reveals that it was he who has been killing girls, including his cousin Tamara, because he was trying to "reawaken" himself back into a Strigoi. Five years before the events of the book, Lee (then a Strigoi) was restored by an unknown spirit-user, and he has been obsessed with converting himself back to a Strigoi. Adrian comes to Keith's apartment to apologize to Sydney, just as Lee cuts her arm with a knife. Lee handcuffs Adrian and ties Sydney's hands together while explaining that he intended to "awaken" Jill as well (claming he loves her and wants the two of them to be together forever). Lee tries to drink Sydney's blood, but finds it disgusting. Left with no other choices, he calls two Strigoi women and tells them that in exchange for "reawakening" him, they could have his hostages. Sydney unties herself and almost escapes with Adrian when the Strigoi arrive. One of the Strigoi tries to "reawaken" Lee, but unintentionally kills him instead when his body refuses to accept Strigoi blood. They turn on Sydney, only to have the same reaction to Sydney's blood as Lee had, before moving on to Adrian. As her last hope, Sydney throws the seemingly-useless amulet at one of the Strigoi, and is astonished when she catches fire. Eddie bursts through the door and defeats the Strigoi. Jill sees Lee's dead body on the recliner and is horrified and traumatized. Sydney meets with a senior Alchemist for a debriefing. Both are very interested in the knowledge of Lee's predicament, which suggested that any Strigoi who are "restored" will be unable to be "reawakened" to Strigoi. The Alchemists hope to research the phenomenon to find a way to protect Strigoi from "awakening" any others. With Keith's departure, the Alchemists have promoted Sydney to take charge of the Palm Springs area and offer her Keith's old apartment, as well as a new roommate for Jill - a Dhampir closer to Jill's age. Knowing Adrian's wishes, she instead asks that Adrian be given the apartment in exchange for his assistance in the research into spirit users and Strigoi. Sydney instead requests her own dorm room on campus, allowing her to continue to watch Jill. Back at school, Sydney confronts her teacher about the amulet, and the teacher confesses she had known about vampires all along. as well as Alchemists. She believes that Sydney has an innate magical ability, and it was that ability that gave the amulet its power. As the book ends, Abe Mazur, Rose's father, arrives with Jill's new roommate - a Dhampir named Angeline who Sydney met while on the run with Rose the previous year. Adrian realizes that Abe has been keeping a close eye on Palm Springs because of Nevermore - and that Abe himself is likely trafficking vampire blood as well. Abe, in turn, reveals to Adrian that the reason Sydney had been forced to obey his commands was that Sydney had contracted him for an attack on Keith that left him with a glass eye - retribution for Keith's rape of her sister. The book closes with the arrival of two other former Strigoi who had been restored: Sonya Karp, who is also a spirit user, and Adrian's former rival for Rose's affections, Dimitri Belikov.

30069705

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Purple Jesus

The novel focuses around three characters: Purvis Driggers, a 24-year old unemployed man, Martha Umphlett, a divorced young woman made to live with the family she once escaped, and Brother Andrew, a monk devoted more to nature than God. Their stories intertwine through a series of events related to a murder, a love triangle, and the sightings of a legendary woodland figure known as the Hairy Man.

30084048

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Sabotaged

Margaret Haddix

8/24/2010

{"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature"}

The book starts where the last left off. Jonah, Katherine, and Andrea are going to be sent back in time to Andrea's time. JB is going to give them a briefing, but his projectionist, Sam, says to brief them after they get there. He does, however, manages to tell them that Andrea is Virginia Dare, the first English child born in the colonies. When they arrive, the Elucidator is gone. Andrea blames Jonah, but Jonah figures out that Andrea was the one who lost it. Deliberately. Andrea begins to tell them why. She says that the night before they left to the 1600s, a man came to her and said that if she did what he said, and plugged in the numbers he gave her, she would be able to do the one thing she always wanted to do, save her parents. Her parents had died in June one year before. Katherine explains that she could not go back to that time and relive it, which is the paradox of doubles. They go through a series of events including saving John White, Andrea's grandfather. They also save Antonio and Brendan, two boys who were to make great artwork. They have tracers which they mix with, implying that they are time travelers. Eventually, a man who calls himself Second gives them food and later on, a jar of paint for John White. Jonah gets furious with Second's "gifts" and says that they all should try to do the opposite of whatever they are going do because it must've been what Second would have wanted. Later on, Jonah follows the tracer boys and finds a canoe and they all follow the tracer boys. In the middle of paddling, Jonah is hit by two boys named Brendan and Antonio in mid-air and falls into the water. He is rescued and sleeps throughout the day. When he wakes up, he finds himself on an island with Andrea, Katherine, John White, Dare, and Brendan and Antonio. Katherine then explains that Second came to Brendan's and Antonio's rooms and sent them here and that they are the real versions of the tracer boys. The boys learn to fish and set up a campfire by being with their tracers and on the next day they head to Croatoan Island. When they arrive, they find that there are dead skeletons everywhere and the reason why nobody went to Croatoan Island is because the tracer boys think that the "evil spirits" of the dead haunt them because of their killings. The tracer boys wake up the tracer version of John White and show him the island. Then the tracer boys say that they hear the sounds of the evil spirit so they head back to the canoe, but Dare runs off into the woods and Jonah chases Dare into the woods and finds Virginia Dare's tracer. He calls Andrea to mix with her tracer, but then while Andrea is within her tracer, she says that Virginia Dare won't come out of the woods until the tracer boys leave. Andrea becomes furious, and suddenly the tracer is inside Andrea. Now Andrea, Brendan, and Antonio get to control what happens. They wake up John White and Virginia Dare meets her grandfather. A man comes up behind Jonah and Katherine and says that what just happened is a second chance in history. The man says he calls himself Second because he gives people second chances. He reveals that his real name was Sam Chase, causing Jonah to figure out that Second/Sam was JB's projectionist. Second/Sam explains that he sent them to Roanoke Island to rescue John White and bring him to Virginia Dare, when actually they were supposed to go the moment where Virginia Dare buries the bones to honor the people of Croatoan Island. Then it actually means that Second/Sam really didn't "Sabotage" their mission, he just wanted them to rescue John White and bring him to his granddaughter which in original time, he was not supposed to. Then JB makes an appearance doing the same thing that Brendan and Antonio did to Jonah, landing on Second/Sam and says that Second/Sam is a traitor for jeopardizing the kids, John White and Dare's life. He fires Second/Sam and explains to Jonah that when Brendan and Antonio landed on him in the canoe, it was called a Time Smack and makes the person fall asleep. Second/Sam then gives Andrea his Elucidator and presses a button, but then he falls asleep. A TV screen shows up in the woods with a pre-recorded video. Second/Sam says that he has released the ripple to go on forward. JB screams and gives the kids his Elucidator and sends them into Time Travel. Second's voice comes up on his Elucidator that Andrea is holding and says that they have to hold on to Andrea and press the glowing button to return to 1600. All the kids agree to go back to 1600 but Andrea says that Jonah can't come because she says she wants to protect him. Andrea, Brendan and Antonio make their way back to 1600 while Jonah and Katherine are floating through time travel with JB's Elucidator. Second's voice comes up on the Elucidator and says that he and Katherine will have to beat the ripple to 1611. Jonah and Katherine start doing flips from a force that pushes them which is actually the ripple passing them. Second says that if the ripple passed them an even number of times, they will beat the ripple, and if they flipped an odd number, they are starting behind. It seemed then they beat the ripple, but JB's voice comes on the Elucidator and says that Jonah and Katherine must save 1611 if they want to save JB, Andrea, Brendan and Antonio and Dare from 1600 and return to the twenty-first century. Jonah and Katherine take the chance and land in 1611. When they are traveling through time Jonah finds a piece of paper with John White, Andrea, and Brendan that was drawn by Antonio. Katherine and Jonah get ready to try to save 1611.

30089390

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Gilded Latten Bones

Glen Cook

{"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"}

==Characters in "Gilded Latten Bones"== *Garrett *The Dead Man *Dean *Pular Singe *Saucerhead Tharpe *Morley Dotes *Belinda Contague *Playmate *John Stretch *General Westman Block *Deal Relway *Winger *Tinnie Tate *Max Weider * Alyx Weider * Strafa Algarda (Windwalker Furious Tide of Light) *Kip Prose * Pilsuds Vilchik (aka Jon Salvation)

30100917

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Second Skin

John Hawkes

The story is told by a 1st-person narrator, a fifty-nine-year-old ex-naval lieutenant whose name is Edward, though other characters usually call him Skipper or Papa Cue Ball (due to his baldness). Though the tone of the novel strives to be comic and optimistic, the narrator's life is beset by a series of tragic events: his father (a mortician), his wife, and his daughter Cassandra commit suicide; his son-in-law Fernandez is killed after he has left Cassandra to live with his gay lover; Skipper is beaten up and perhaps raped during a mutiny on board of U.S.S. Starfish, the ship he commands in W.W.II; he is harassed by a small clan of shady fishermen on the "black island" in north-Atlantic where he settles after leaving the US Navy. The narrator eventually finds shelter in a tropical island with his black mess boy, Sonny, and his lover Catalina Kate, though it is not clear if the scenes on the island, where Skipper works as an artificial inseminator, are real or simply imagined. The novel is told in a non-linear fashion through a series of flashbacks. It is then at first difficult for the reader to understand the reasons of some weird episodes, such as the one which takes place in the second chapter, when Skipper, goaded by Cassandra, has the name of his son-in-law Fernandez tattoed on his chest in green ink. We subsequently discover that Fernandez has left Cassandra because their marriage was no more than a masquerade, devised to hide Skipper's incestuous relation to his daughter (which may also explain his wife Gertrude's suicide).

30105910

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Smile

Raina Telgemeier

{"/m/0xdf": "Autobiography", "/m/0py0z": "Graphic novel"}

After a severe trip and fall accident, Raina (author) has a nearly five-year experience with dental surgery and orthodontics. This occurs at the same time as the onset of puberty, peer relationships in middle school, and bullying.

30112310

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The Reckoning

Molly is a freelance photographer and journalist who has just been offered an assignment by the New York Times: travel to Cambodia to cover a U.S. military search for the body of an American pilot who went down thirty years ago during the Vietnam War. She meets up with the search team and encounters two civilians. One is Duncan O'Brian, a kindly academic and archaeologist who is interested in restoring ancient Khmer temples. The other is John Kleat, the brother of an MIA Vietnam veteran who has dedicated his life to finding the remains of missing American soldiers in Vietnam and Cambodia. There is also a mysterious blond Caucasian man, thin and bedraggled, who is seen from a distance but never approaches the team. After weeks of work the remains of the pilot, or any U.S. servicemen, have still not been discovered. A typhoon is approaching and the search is to be cancelled. At the last moment, Molly randomly begins taking shots with her digital camera, including a shot down a large sinkhole. When she reviews the photo it turns out that the bottom of the sinkhole contains human bones. A search by a Marine lowered on a rope reveals evidence of an American pilot, as well as a Khmer Rouge mass grave. The U.S. military is contacted and agrees to extend the search by a week, but for essential personnel only - meaning that Molly, Duncan, and Kleat are expelled from the dig. In a Phnom Penh restaurant, Kleat fumes angrily that Molly got them kicked off the dig by taking pictures of human remains, something she had been told not to do by the U.S. military. Hours before all three civilians are to depart to returm to their respective homes, the mysterious blond man from the dig site approaches, revealing that he has found dog tags of several MIA servicemen, all of the Eleventh Cavalry armor. He reveals that his name is Luke and he speaks with a West Texas accent, and the trio place his age at about twenty. He gives them two hours to decide whether or not to join him - if they agree he will lead them to the resting places of these missing soldiers. Molly, Duncan, and Kleat agree. They quickly recruit the services of Samnang, an elderly Cambodian who speaks fluent English and once studied in the West, and three brothers who operate an expedition-outfitting business of sorts. With the last of their funds, the three civilians purchase an "expedition package" that includes the assistance of the three brothers, an aging UN Land Cruiser, a French colonial-era Mercedes truck, and boxes of U.S. military supplies siphoned from similar remains-hunting expeditions. It is night-time and the two-vehicle convoy drives north, into the wilds. After hours of driving the group stops at the edge of the mountainous rain forest, unsure of where to go. Molly spots tread marks of an armored personnel carrier - the heavy vehicle having driven through clay that was then baked in the summer sun, turning rock-hard and resisting the elements for three decades. Knowing that the APCs went into the rain forest and up the mountainside, the group continues in that direction. They soon find an undiscovered ancient Khmer city of massive size, and Luke disappears. The group makes camp, amazed at their find and deciding that remains of the missing group of Eleventh Cavalry soldiers must be inside. As everyone begins to explore the city, they discover both amazing and troubling things. The ancient city, while remaining unpillaged and unvandalized over hundreds of years, is a labyrinth that has been further confused by the overgrown jungle. Quickly, signs of the missing soldiers are discovered, and appear strange: The soldiers, of which there are nine listed as missing, had tried to turn parts of the city into a crude fortress, stringing concertina wire. One morning, during an argument, the group looks up to discover one of the soldiers' two APCs some sixty feet up in a grove of enormous trees - the forest having grown that much in thirty years. Molly, a veteran rock-climber, climbs up to the armored vehicle and attaches a rope. She discovers a terra-cotta head, having been taken from one of the many statues in the city, mounted to the vehicle's exhaust port as a trophy. The group begins descending into argument, dissension, and anger as the days pass. Duncan and Molly want to explore the city and catalog its sites, later to release the findings to the academic world for further exploration. Kleat is only interested in the remains of the soldiers, and is willing to allow the three Cambodian brothers to loot and pillage to keep them satisfied. Samnang sides with Molly and Duncan, but is hated by the three brothers, and is disdained by Kleat, because there is evidence that he was once a member of the Khmer Rouge government. The three brothers, armed with assault rifles, begin growing more aggressive and hostile over time. Molly tricked Kleat into giving her his Glock pistol to prevent him from provoking a slaughter, and hid it away. Finally, the remains of the Eleventh Cav soldiers are found. Some are found in the top room of a large tower. The room was once a shrine to Buddha, with an open roof to serve as an observatory. The soldiers had turned the room into a defensible bunker and had created a large S.O.S. signal on the floor of the room, hoping that aircraft would pass overhead and see it. The room shows evidence of a massive firefight, but no non-American ammunition is found - there is no sign of an enemy. That night Molly is awakened to the sound of gunfire - the three brothers are intoxicated and angry. In the morning it is revealed that they think Samnang had stolen and smashed their loot from the city. Molly and Duncan talk to Kleat, who reveals that he had come upon the brothers beating Samnang with their rifles. Unable to kill Samnang in front of Kleat, the brothers let him go, only to pursue him later. The brothers are also agitated because the jungle, growing faster than ever because of the rains from the approaching typhoon, has encroached on the two vehicles, miring them overnight. Calmly, Duncan placates them, helping them free the Land Cruiser. Deciding to leave that evening, the group breaks into teams: Two brothers will try to free the Mercedes truck from the mud. Another brother, the most Americanized of the trio, will go with Duncan to search for loot to replace that which Samnang had smashed. Molly and Kleat will do the same. Molly makes a grisly discovery - Samnang's artificial leg being gnawed on by gibbons, and then finds another Eleventh Cav body in a bamboo grove - a suicide by self-inflicted gunshot. She calls for the others, and they help her extract the corpse's helmet, remaining scalp and hair, and three teeth. They return to the vehicles, but the Cambodian brother who was with the trio has gotten separated from them. As they wait, Kleat seizes the opportunity and jumps into the Land Cruiser, driving off. The vehicle runs over several land mines, obliterating it. The two brothers, angrily chasing their Land Cruiser, also find themselves in the mine field, and both die. Molly, having run out into the mine field as well, discovers the second APC at the bottom of a bomb-crater lake. Duncan slowly rescues her, using a stick to feel cautiously for mines. Deciding that the mysterious Luke has placed the mines to keep them from leaving the city the way they entered it, Molly and Duncan decide to escape through the city, leaving out the other side of it. In case Luke is watching from a distance, Molly and Duncan begin removing supplies from the hopelessly-mired truck, giving the impression that they are going to stay through the typhoon. That night Molly, trying to be helpful, opens Duncan's briefcase to find some items that she can rescue (the duo had agreed to leave everything behind in order to travel faster). She discovers that Duncan was the mysterious troublemaker and thief from the U.S. military search site. The briefcase is also filled with other mysterious items, including ID cards, tags, and photographs. When she confronts him he seems genuinely confused. Suddenly, Luke arrives, and he and Duncan converse cryptically. Luke is now missing three teeth, and Molly realizes, to her horror, the identity of the soldier in the bamboo grove. She uses Kleat's Glock to shoot Luke who, in death, reveals himself to be the missing Cambodian brother. Molly fears that, in a malaria-induced hallucination, she had imagined seeing Luke and had killed an innocent man. She and Duncan flee through the city, growing weaker from minor injuries sustained the day before in the mine field explosions. Duncan's face becomes injured by what appears to be a gunshot, and Molly tries to help him. They find a sheltered room to rest, and when Molly awakes she finds that Duncan is gone. Searching for him, she discovers the cloth used to bind his jaw on the ground - free of blood. Two more soldiers' bodies are later found. One is a suicide by hanging, while the other man had been a sniper who had completely enclosed himself in a nest of razor wire to prevent anything from getting to him...or to prevent him from going anywhere. Duncan's trail leads to the top room of the tower they group had discovered previously; the observatory room with the remains of the Eleventh Cav men. In the room Molly discovers, under a pile of debris, the body of the soldiers' commander: a young man with a wedding band. To her shock, she discovers that his name is Duncan O'Brian. In his belongings Molly finds a photograph of her mother, who had committed suicide when Molly was a baby. She realizes that Duncan O'Brian, an Army soldier, was her father, and that his death in the war drove her young mother to kill herself. Later, still in the room, she discovers that Duncan O'Brian had been killed by a soldier named John Kleat in retaliation for getting them lost and trapped in the city. The panicked soldiers, trying to hide the death of their commander, had buried their commander under tons of explosive-induced rubble and exiled the killer, Pvt. John Kleat. Molly, unable to see in the dark, is approached by a presence who talks to her. He has a bag full of jade eyes, which had been seen in the skulls of all the intact American soldiers' remains. Horrified, Molly realizes that this mysterious person intends to remove her eyes and replace them with jade. She loses consciousness. When she awakes she is being rescued by members of the U.S. military team from the original dig - Samnang had somehow made it back to civilization and told them about her. It is not revealed if her eyes had indeed been replaced with jade.

30146199

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Chuang Tse and the first emperor

Anna Russo

2010

{"/m/070wm": "Spirituality"}

2222 years ago. Contravening any historical fact, Zhen Li, King of Qin, having unified the six states in which the kingdom was divided into, undertook the title of Qin Shi Huangdi, or rather the first august emperor, reviving with him the very beginning of time. To delete any historical fact that would have illegitimated his power and following his trusted Minister Shi Lu’s recommendations, had ordered that any text so far written be destroyed and to obtain the largest possible number of hard labor prisoners for the construction of the Great Wall, the terracotta army, and his threehundredandsixty-five room palace, extended sentences which would have punished not only the responsible but its entire family, as well. It was because of a book and the extension of the penalties that Chuang Tse’s family was deported. Chuang Tse was saved thanks to his foresighted mother who had not registered him at birth, making him unknown to the civil service. Eleven years had past from that day. Chuang Tse had grown up as did his longing for revenge. In the meantime, the first emperor had attained an immeasurable power and proved to be a cruel and despotic tyrant. He had thousands of enemies which he had to watch from and despite all the propitiatory rites, the stars had predicted for him a terrible defeat and a reign of only eleven years. Yet the emperor was not aware that the time of that most terrible enemy had arrived. That morning, like every morning, Chuang Tse set out for the banks of the river with his yellow canoe. He had been warned not to sail towards the sea, but Chuang was anxious to experiment the Emperor’s latest invention: a compass. The emperor had assured him that the use of that instrument would have always helped him find the right direction, but for the moment Chuang had not yet understood its mechanism. Distracted and near the sea by now, he had not noticed the arrival of a storm. Carried away, the boy lost his grip and sank under the waves. Down below he distinguished the presence of a wall that was not visible from the surface. He had no time to investigate: the violent waves hurled him against the wall. Trapped in some sort of channel, convinced he was dead and now within the tunnel that connects the world of the living with that of the dead, he was still certain of this state when he re-emerged in the middle of a bright colored garden of a mysterious palace unknown to anyone. Chang Tse was determined to become the first to discover this secret place. But the palace was not an easy place to explore, besides being rather disquieting: the four sides of the garden were decorated with the figures of mythological animals accompanying one to the afterworld, yet the magnificence of the place did not bring one to presume of a burial chamber. It was then and while he was hidden behind the bushes, that Chuang Tse saw him for the first time. He was flying… or rather, it was the impression he gave. He suddenly appeared from the far end of the immense room and moved as if its feet never touched the ground. He did not make any noise, not even the smallest murmur. Without doubt must have been of noble birth judging from the palace and the garments he was wearing; even if, ever since Ying Zheng became first emperor, in fear of rebellion, forced all aristocrats to move into the capital city and that palace was just way too far from there. He was absorbed in his thoughts when he glanced at the face of the small being. He there realized that he was just a child and that he could have been almost his same age. His skin was as white as alabaster and his mouth seemed a rose-colored line placed on his face in form of a smile. The nose was perfect and his eyes… were closed. Suddenly, the mysterious child disappeared and Chuang decided he was no longer eager to do any further investigation: the place was beginning to haunt him. He returned to the same spot from which he had entered, but the grating from which he had gotten by was now closed and too heavy to be raised by a child. Chuang was trapped, but he did not lose faith: he would have found the way out elsewhere. Forced to enter the palace, he finally made acquaintance with the small boy and discovered, thanks to a hidden tablet, that the boy was the Emperor’s secret son. The boy was blind from birth, but the Emperor could not reveal to the people that he had generated a son of the darkness and, being of divine descent, nor take his life. He therefore put to death all those who knew about his existence and confined the boy in the secret palace in the middle of a forest. Considering his nature, Chuang Tse would have gravely yearned to return to the first Emperor’s progeny, all the evil that the Emperor had inflicted on his family, but realized that the child was just another victim, just like they all were, if not the one that paid the highest price, being so close to the first Emperor: he had been deprived of his life, even if in a more subtle manner, having his existence been denied. In the world of obscurity in which the child lived in, the alternated silence of water pelting, sounds and animal calls was all he knew. Yet, despite all this, when he spoke of his father he proudly exclaimed,”My father is the most powerful man on earth. And even the most righteous, the strongest and most valorous…” then he stopped, remained in silence for a moment and puzzled, concluded:”But I do not know him! “ And while these words still hovered over their heads in the middle of the room and the child remained motionless in his sorrow, Chuang Tse made his first decision as an adult and behaved as the best of men: it was the first time he had heard someone speak worthily of the first emperor and it was also the first time he had no intention in contradicting those words. After a long silence, the child looked up to Chuang and in a boldly manner said:”My father cannot come to see me because he is very busy! He created the greatest empire on earth. My father created the world! This is what the scribes say!”; then unexpectedly he stopped, and confused and almost imploring, as if to gather all the courage on earth to speak, asked Chuang; “Please, you who know many things, tell me… how is the world that my father created?” It was then that Chuang unconsciously accomplished his destiny. As first thing, he gave his new friend a name. He called him Qi, that, according to his knowledge, had no meaning: energy that generated all changes; that was the essence of Qi’s world; as second thing, decided to fill up that emptiness with the description of the world not as his father had actually created it, but to not disappoint the boy, like it would have one day been, and to start off nicely, began from the description of what Qi knew best: his palace. He illustrated a marvelous world without war or oppression, without pain or sickness, in which time flowed slowly. And thus Chuang depicted a world that was the exact opposite of the world that Qi’s father had actually created but at the same time, had told no lie: to not dishearten his friend, he described the future. Qi did not live alone in the palace; three servants looked after him and one of them was arriving. Obviously, nobody was aware of Chuang’s presence and if they would have founded him, it would have meant the end; meanwhile the scribe was getting closer: one further step and he would have seen them. Frightened, Chuang looked around himself, but there was nowhere to hide. He looked at Qi’s face that had turned pale in the meantime and it was then that he came up with an idea. Chuang quickly hid himself under Qi’s immense yellow mantle and spontaneously began to whisper some suggestions to Qi that he systematically repeated, making the scribe think that the child had gained his sight. Happily, the scribe brought back the news to the other servants who rushed, while Qi and Chuang were forced to continue in their deception; but by now Qi had understood how things worked in this world and how men behaved; to Chuang’s surprise, Qi knew exactly what was happening around him despite his blindness. All that was left to do was to tell the Emperor. Despite all the defensive and preventive measures, the first Emperor had been poisoned by someone of whom he had never suspected of: himself. So now he waited. The scribe arrived and shouted:”Your son can see! We are not sure how long he has begun to see, even if we cannot say he actually sees with his eyes, but he sees much better and much farther ahead than all of us!”; The emperor, then, threw himself on the chair: he was happy, he was proud and was finally free to leave now; his sovereignty was over. His only order was to inform Qi’s mother. Qi’s mother had sought refuge in a mansion not far from the court and bred silkworms. At the good news, the Empress smiled and said something that she had never said before and for that same reason pronounced it with particular pride, ”May my son reign in all the lands beyond the sea, that have never appeared on any book or on any map and never shall be and neither he nor his kingdom be mentioned, until I say so! For the rest, may all those who are working on punishment make return to their homes. Their faults have been amnestied”. That same day the servant returned to the capital city, rather shocked by the Empress’s commands, which had gone far beyond her simple role as Emperor’s wife. But having lost much time during his trip, which had brought him far away from his world, the servant could have not known what the Empress already knew thanks to her dreams, her butterflies and to her servant’s faster horses: soon after speaking with the scribe, the Emperor passed away. Shortly after that unusual conversation, a joyful moment had finally arrived in the life of the august and, thus, had not left any final messages. The court, unprepared for the event, had not announced the death to the community and hid the remains of the great Emperor in a box with salted fish on its return to the capital city, while plotting deceitful and swindling schemes in search for its successor. The only thing that remained to do was to carry out the Empress’s command, that finally saw the return of many people to their homes, including Chuang Tse’s family, although little Qi, who was now called by this name, was furtively taken away from the secret palace and nor his name or his kingdom was ever mentioned again. By orders of his mother, he was entrusted with unknown islands off the coast of the Chinese sea, which never appeared on any map and which nobody ever spoke of. On these lands, Qi reigned wisely, creating that world, which he now clearly saw, and that little Chuang Tse, finally at home, had told him about. The scribe, instead, returned to the Empress, took one end of that wonderful thread and brought it all over to the other side of the world, discovering people and countries, which were neither so frightening nor so different than his, and opened a wonderful road today still entitled: the silk route. The world of Qi, as Chuang Tse had described to him and that the first emperor failed to create, still exists today. Some are certain that it is an island between the three mountains in the middle of the sea, Pongnae-san, Yôngju-san and Pangjang-san, home of the gods; others call it Peng Lai (Paradise), but wherever it may be and however it is called, Qi continues to reign over it, man continues to dream and all we have to do is to search for it… at the bottom of our hearts. it:Chuang Tse e il primo imperatore

30148229

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Luv Ya Bunches

Lauren Myracle

10/1/2009

{"/m/0488wh": "Literary fiction"}

Yasaman, Violet, Katie-Rose and Camilla, each of whom are named after flowers, are girls entering fifth grade. Luv Ya Bunches is the name the four girls decide to call Yasaman's social network at the end of the book.

30149875

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Exodus

Steve White

12/26/2006

{"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"}

Advanced aliens depart their homeworld in order to flee their stars impending nova. Decades after the Terran Civil War the aliens arrive and attempt to colonize an inhabited human world. They are not able to recognize the intelligence of the planet's inhabitants, because they do not recognize human forms of communication as communication. The miscommunication leads to warfare, where these new aliens throw themselves at their opponents with suicidal fury. The old "anti Bug" alliance partners join together to fight off this new threat.

30151589

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Hit and Run

Lurlene McDaniel

2007

{"/m/02xlf": "Fiction"}

Laurie Stark is very excited when popular, athletic Quentin Palmer (Quin for short) asks her out on a date. While they are on their date, Analise Bower is babysitting. After her job has ended, she doesn't feel like asking for a ride. She knows the roads and feels safer on her bike. While riding back home in Quin's mother's SUV, Laurie falls asleep and is awakened by a crash. Quin assures her that it was only a deer he mistakenly hit, though he isn't so sure himself. Seeing that the crash had damaged some property, Quin covers the scene and drives away. Sometime after the accident, Analise's talented boyfriend Jeremy receives a call from her parents concerning Analise's location. For a few days, Jeremy and Mr. and Mrs. Bower try to locate Analise. They are unsuccessful and hand the case over to the police. One morning, the police announce that they found Analise injured. Because of the attempt to cover the accident, the case is therefore called a hit and run. In the hospital, the doctors say that Analise has gone in Coma because of a serious head injury. Meanwhile at school, when the principal announces Analise's accident, Laurie is very shocked to hear that the accidents location is somewhat near the place Quin mistakenly hit a "deer". Her friend Judie, suggests that she use the information for her own benefit by blackmailing Quin to become her boyfriend. Laurie hesitates but does what Judie says to. Afraid that the incident might ruin his future as an athlete, Quin accepts and pretends to be Laurie's boyfriend. A few days later, Jeremy receives a call from Mrs. Bower informing him that Analise is dead. Guilty of her actions, Laurie emails Analise's friend Amy the evidence that is needed to prove that the SUV Quin was driving was the one which hit Analise. In Analise's point of view she floats out of her body and outside the building. She passes a boy crying in his room and a girl sitting at her computer, not recognizing either, on her way to the light (To show that she is crossing over). At the end of the book, Jeremy is the one who creates Analise's coffin with his beautiful wood carving skills. Action is taken against Mr. Palmer and his son. The story is finished with Jeremy saying: "Goodbye, my angel".

30159329

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Everlost

Neal Shusterman

2006

{"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"}

Allie and Nick both die in a car crash. They're supposed to go towards that light at the end of the tunnel, but they bump into each other and get knocked into a mysterious world between life and death called Everlost. The world is filled with terror, and unexpected twists for the souls that reside there. Both Nick and Allie want their lives back, so they start exploring this new world, hoping to find a way back to their normal lives. There is a catch, however: If they stand still in the living world for too long, they will sink into Earth. The longer they stay in Everlost, the more they forget about themselves in the real world. In the beginning of the book, they are saved by a boy named Lief, who tells them that they are called "Afterlights", who cannot walk where the living walk. They are somewhat like ghosts. He warns them of a dreaded and evil monster, McGill, before they make their way to New York City. There, they meet a Mary Hightower, the "mother" of Afterlights who keeps many Afterlights safe, and author of hundreds of books on living in Everlost. She lives with the children under her care in the destroyed World Trade Center. This is because things that are much beloved in the world can cross into Everlost if they are destroyed. They settle down, but Allie is not content with the way things are, so she sets out to see if she has special powers. Allie notices other Afterlights at the Twin Towers keep repeating and doing the same exact thing everyday. Lief gets stuck playing the Pac-Man arcade game non-stop and she has to pry him from the game to drag him along with her. They meet The Haunter in a factory that crossed over to Everlost. Allie gets Lief and Nick captured by The Haunter and it is shown that Allie can pick up living things and also possess or 'skinjack' as it is called in the book. In her adventures, she learns how to use her own powers. These adventures tell Nick his purpose while revealing the secret plan of Mary Hightower and the real identity of the McGill, Mikey McGill, Mary(really Megan) Hightower's younger brother. Mary, also known by others as the Sky Witch, has been lying to the children, stealing the coins they invariably have in their possession, which will allow them to leave Everlost, a metaphor for the coins given to pay Charon. Nick has also received the nickname "Chocolate Ogre" because of how he has a chocolate stain on his face, and Mary spreads rumors about how he sends Afterlights away by luring them in with the smell of chocolate. Allie outsmarts the McGill, who is unmasked by his sister. Allie, traveling home, is later saved by Mikey, who takes her the rest of the way home.

30167141

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Daniel

Henning Mankell

{"/m/02xlf": "Fiction"}

The story is set in 1874. Hans Bengler is an entomologist from Skåne, Sweden who is studying at Lund University and decides to go on an expedition on his own to the Kalahari Desert in Southern Africa to find insects new to science and thereby to make a name for himself. After a long and arduous journey by sea to Cape Town and then in the desert he arrives at a trading post run by an expatiate Swede which Bengler decides to make the base for his explorations. Whilst at the trading post he comes across a small boy, called Molo, who was the sole survivor of his extended family all of whom had been brutally killed by men on horseback with spears and rifles, some who were white and some who were black. He is taken to the trading post where he was put in a cage to be bartered in exchange for provisions. Bengler decides to rescue the boy adopting him as his son. Not knowing his name Bengler decides to call him Daniel. Bengler sets himself the challenge, as he sees it, of civilising the young savage boy. The two of them journey back to Sweden. Daniel initially seeks to escape but over time grows to accept Bengler as his new father who begins to learn to speak Swedish and adopt some basic European customs, though still recalling the aspects of his African culture and beliefs he had been taught. On board ship and on arrival in Stockholm Daniel is treated with curiosity and disdain and experiences some racial abuse. Bengler decides to gain notoriety and earn a living by displaying and giving lectures on his exhibits, stored in glass jars. However, noticing the great interest the public had displayed in Daniel he decides to include him as a surprise exhibit in his lectures. After a serious incident father and son are forced to flee hiding their tracks to avoid being pursued. Bengler hands Daniel over to an elderly farmer and his wife in Småland to look after as he decides to disappear, promising to return in time. Daniel finds he is not welcomed into the deeply religious close-knit rural community. He becomes more and more homesick and has increasingly disturbing dreams about his mother and other family members. He befriends a young girl called Sanna whose unusual behaviour has resulted in her being ostracised by local people and is abused by her adopted father. After making one unsuccessfully attempt to make his way home, subsequently, Daniel and Sanna set off together to find a ship to take them both to Africa. Their adventure ends with the two friends arguing and returning home with events spiralling out of control with a sequence of disastrous consequences.

30171079

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Dark Tower

{"/m/06c9r": "Role-playing game"}

Dark Tower is an adventure which describes a dungeon contested over by followers of Set and Mitra and the surrounding lands. The module describes a village and four challenging dungeon levels in detail.

30172765

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A la juventud filipina

José Rizal

1879

{"/m/05qgc": "Poetry"}

In the poem Rizal praises the benefits that Spain had bestowed upon the Philippines. Rizal had frequently depicted the renowned Spanish explorers, generals and kings in the most patriotic manner. He had pictured Education (brought to the Philippines by Spain) as "the breath of life instilling charming virtue". He had written of one of his Spanish teachers as having brought "the light of the eternal splendor". In this poem, however, it is the Filipino Youth who are the protagonists, whose "prodigious genius" making use of that education to build the future, was the "Bella esperanza de la Patria Mia!" (beautiful hope of the motherland). Spain, with "Pious and wise hand" offered a "crown's resplendent band, offers to the sons of this Indian land."

30184055

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Guantanamo: My Journey

10/16/2010

The book details Hicks' life to 2010, providing not only vivid details of his imprisonment in Cuba, but provides details for all of Hicks' life. The first half of the book catalogues the events leading up to his arrest in 2001, starting with his early childhood. The second half of the book accounts for Hicks' time in captivity, his trial, and return to Australia.

30190058

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Codex

Lev Grossman

2004

{"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller"}

The novel is about young banker Edward Wozny, who is sent by his firm to organize a mysterious client's library of rare books. He discovers the client may own a unique fourteenth-century codex, long thought to be a hoax by medieval scholars. As he becomes involved in the mystery of the codex, he also becomes addicted to a strange computer game that seems to have parallels to his real life.

30196697

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Orion in the Dying Time

Ben Bova

{"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"}

The plot starts from where it stopped in Vengeance of Orion. Orion awakes in a temple after been transported to the Neolithic era by the Creators. He then sees Anya whom he had been looking for throughout the previous novel in the series. As they leave the temple together, he spies a statue of Set initially taking it to be a man wearing a totem mask. They enter a garden and as Orion tries to take a fruit, Anya stops him warning him of Set who owns the garden. She then tells him of their mission which is to assess the situation and then come back for more equipment. As they walk on they encounter a group of slaves been guarded by a dinosaur. Orion with the help of Anya, then saves the baby from been killed and eaten by the dinosaur. The slaves been cowed warn of the retribution from their masters. Orion then decides to take them along till they get to the forest. Upon arrival in the forest, Anya tries to contact the rest of the Creators only to discover that her access has been blocked by Set thus trapping them in that era without any help. They however, try to settle down in the area and look for game to kill so as to survive. Anya, then encourages Orion to try to initiate contact maybe he would be successful. This serves as a beacon for Set now locates them and promises to send them punishment for killing his creature. They then move deep inside the forest where, they hide and encounter another group of humans, who already live there, led by Kraal. Orion then suggests the merging of the two groups under Kraal's leadership which he reluctantly agrees to. However, that same night, Set sends huge gigantic snakes which attack them and kill quite a number of them. This almost weakens Kraal's resolve to unite his people to stand against Set. Orion however, convinces him and together with Anya, they try to unite the tribes to stand against Set. Their work is unfortunately undone by Reeva, one of the slaves whose baby Orion saved from the dinosaur and now Kraal's wife, sells Anya and Orion out to Set. They are both captured and taken to Set's fortress. Set tries to torture them in order to find out about a particular time nexus. They succeed in escaping but are unable to fight their way out. They then jump into Set's time warp device and try to use it to escape. They find out that the time warp is too strong to be over ridden and find themselves in the Cretaceous. They try to discover what Set's plan is for that era. They are eventually captured and Set deals with Anya who with her fellow Creators abandon both the earth and Orion to Set's devilish plans in order to save their skin. However, Set plans to send Orion to a time before the Creators became aware of him to murder, them all. He almost succeeds but Orion manages to break free of his control and he allows himself to be used by the creators to destroy Sheol the sun of Set's home planet Shaydan. This sets of a cataclysm wherein the debris of Shaydan then pelts the earth with meteors which wipe out the dinosaurs leaving only mammals. However, Set survives and is hiding on earth in the Neolithic. Orion also awakes back in the Neolithic and is intent upon revenge. He goes back into the Dark Ages and brings along the army of Subotai, general of Ogotai's Mongolian army. He then goes to Set's fortress himself to confront him. He succeeds in throwing Set's fortress into chaos. However, Set proves too strong for him until he is helped by the Creators coming out of their hiding place. Set is then thrown into a time stasis where he is left to roast forever in the flames of hell.

30207241

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The Outsiders of Uskoken Castle

The book recounts the children's adventures as they live by the rules of their community and come into conflict with the city's residents. It begins by introducing some of the children. Branko's father is a traveling fiddler, so Branko used to live with his mother, who worked in a tobacco plant. But she has died, leaving Branko homeless. He finds a fish on the ground at the market, picks it up and is arrested for theft. Zora frees him through the window of the prison and takes him to the castle, which the band has made their home. After passing a test of his courage, Branko is accepted into the band of outlaws along with Nicola, Pavle and Duro. The city residents persecute the children, who play pranks on them in retaliation. In one episode the band steals a chicken from the old fisherman Gorian, who is honest, poor and works hard. Branko and Zora feel sorry for him and try to repay him with chickens stolen from the wealthy Karaman. Gorian catches them and insists that they return the stolen chickens. The children promise to help Gorian by working for him when he is short handed. They help him in his conflicts with a large fishery.

30209152

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At Close Quarters

Eugenio Fuentes

2009

{"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction"}

The unexpected death of a highly disciplined and successful army member of Camp San Marcial is officially explained as suicide. Major Olmedo had always followed the letter of the law and never questioned orders through the army hierarchy. He only broke the law in one respect and that was to carry an unauthorized pistol, since his name had appeared on a terrorist organization's hit-list. Major Olmedo had recently completed a report which was commissioned by the Ministry of Defence in Madrid. In it, he recommended the closure of Camp San Marcial as an efficiency measure. This highlighted the growing cleavage between his own generation and style of troop which were dedicated to peace-keeping and winning wars with technology; vis-a-vis the older, Francoists, who still believed in numbers and yearned for a reinstatement of the recently abolished compulsory military service. When he gets shot there is an internal inquiry which results in a verdict of suicide. Marina, the Major's daughter, is not satisfied with this outcome and hires a private detective, Ricardo Cupido. Cupido sets about investigating the "crime" scene with rigour and a professional manner. The scene itself simply is the pistol and a note in hurried handwriting saying two words, Forgive me scrawled on one of the Major's business cards. Cupido questions each of the suspects and mulls over this problem even where Marina gives up on learning the truth because of the strain it is putting on her and dismisses him. Cupido does get to the bottom of the mystery.

30213703

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No Land! No House! No Vote!

3/1/2011

{"/m/05h83": "Non-fiction"}

The book follows hundreds of shackdwellers in the township of Delft in Cape Town. In early 2007, they were moved into houses they had been waiting for since the end of Apartheid but soon were told that the move had been illegal and they were removed from their new homes. In protest, they occupied Symphony Way, a main road opposite the housing project. It soon blossomed into a settlement of hundreds of shacks inhabited by organised protesting families. It became known as Symphony Way and was the home ground of the Symphony Way Anti-Eviction Campaign, whose membership vowed to stay on the road until the government gave them permanent housing. The community was eventually evicted after almost two years occupying Symphony Way. They were moved to the infamous Blikkiesdorp temporary relocation area where they are still struggling for land and housing. The stories are real-life accounts of the struggle of the pavement dwellers.

30220626

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Slights

Kaaron Warren

Slights is a first-person narrative by a troubled woman, Stevie, who lost her father when she was nine, and her mother when she was 18. Her father, a police officer, was killed during a mysterious shooting incident on the job, and her mother died when Stevie crashed their car while driving recklessly. The accident left Stevie badly injured and she had a near-death experience in which she found herself in a dark room filled with angry people threatening her. Usually nothing frightened Stevie, but that room terrified her, and she was relieved when she was revived in hospital. From an early age Stevie was anti-social and soon earned herself a bad reputation. After her mother's death she had the house to herself and began digging in the backyard, an activity her father had often indulged in. She stopped cleaning the house, and herself, and berated and abused most people she encountered. Her indifference to herself and others led to a suicide attempt when she was 21. She returned to that dark room filled with angry people clawing and tearing at her, and she was very grateful when someone found her unconscious and took her to hospital. While the room frightened her, she was intrigued by it and realised that the people in it were those she had slighted at some point in her life. She wanted to find out what other people's rooms were like and took a job at a local hospice to be close to people near death, but was frustrated when she could not get the information she wanted. Then she resorted to picking up strangers and bringing them home. She would get them drunk or drug them, and start killing them, but revive them as they lost consciousness so she could interrogate them. She never got much out of them and they all died. She buried the bodies in the backyard amongst her father's secrets. Stevie's backyard excavations had uncovered toys and trinkets from her childhood, but also objects she had never seen before, and bones. Indifferent to life and her fascination with death led to several more suicide attempts and trips to her dark room. Each time Stevie was discovered and revived. But when she was 35 she hung herself and no one found her in time to save her. She had learnt that her father had been under investigation for the deaths of several people, and with the reported disappearances of those she had murdered, it was only a matter of time before the police arrived at her house. For a very long time she lay in her dark room and endured the biting and scratching of those she had slighted. Then suddenly her tormentors were finished with her and left the room, and after a while Stevie heard her mother and father's voices and she began to rise along a "golden path".

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Ummachu

Uroob

1954

The novel begins with a depiction of the playful childhood of a naughty threesome - Ummachu, Mayan and Beeran. Ummachu, the charming daughter of Athar Ali, finds herself drawn to the strong and sturdy Mayan. But, ironically enough, she becomes Beeran's bride, much to her dislike. Ummachu confesses later: "What can I do, a hapless girl?" The novel covers two generations and signifies the dawn of the third. It also tracks the feud-ridden family tales, which are narrated by `historian' Ahammadunni. The focus is on `Ummachu.' The other protagonists who gain prominence are her close associates - Mayan, Beeran and Chappunni Nair. Assertive and impulsive, Chinnammu is said to be modelled on Ummachu; the mould may be the same, but each pursues a different path of her own.

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The Empathic Civilization

Jeremy Rifkin

The Empathic Civilization is divided into three parts with an introductory chapter that summarizes the contents and arguments of the book. The first part consists of four chapters and analyses empathy from the perspective of psychology, biology, and philosophy. Rifkin provides a history of empathy in psychology, including how it relates to the works of Freudian psychology, Melanie Klein, Ronald Fairbairn, Heinz Kohut, and Donald Winnicott, leading to John Bowlby and Attachment Theory. As psychological theory has evolved, empathy has played a larger and larger role, especially in the emotional and intellectual development of children. In terms of biology, Rifkin connects the biological function of mirror neurons with the capacity for empathy. Philosophically, Rifkin explores empathy-altruism, the faith versus reason debate, and truth versus reality debate. Rifkin argues in favour of relationalism, that the meaning of existence is to enter into relationships. From the lens of empathy, he deconstructs the concepts of truth, freedom, democracy, equality, mortality. The second part consists of five chapters and focuses on the rise, development, and fall of civilizations. Rifkin connects the qualitative changes in energy regimes and communication techniques with changes in how people understand and organize reality. Hunter-gatherer societies were all oral cultures and thus only existed in geographically-limited small groups and identified themselves symbiotically in terms of that group. Spiritually, these societies believed in local gods who were only known to others through oral tales. The development of writing, as well as hydraulics and irrigation, allowed agricultural societies to better organize themselves so that a larger geographic area and a larger population could be controlled. Hydraulic power was labour intensive, requiring large populations of subservient people. With scripts, there was a shift from a mythological consciousness to a theological consciousness; individuals thought of themselves less in terms of a small, local group and more with a monotheistic religion which included a personal relationship with a god. Decentralization followed the collapse of the Roman Empire, as each town operated a water or wind mill and the printing press distributed literature, empowering more people. Autobiographies started to be written, more people married for love rather than other arrangements, and the concept of privacy, democracy, and market capitalism was more prevalent. People began to organize themselves more into nation-states. Steam and fossil fuels became the dominant energy regime and electronic communications, like telegraphs, radios, telephones, and television, became the dominant means of communication. With vastly more interaction with other people and cultures, there was more emphasis on studying people and psychology. Personal investments, social exploration, and creativity became highly valued. The third part consists of the remaining five chapters. Rifkin extrapolates the changes in energy regimes to predict a shift in production towards renewable sources like wind and solar power under distributed (i.e. personal) management. Rifkin also extrapolates the changes in communication to predict a proliferation of wireless, mobile personal communication that allows people to be constantly connected to others regardless of distance, language, or other barriers. This will evolve people's sense of empathy to create a biosphere-wide consciousness and a mode of production he calls distributed capitalism. Rifkin believes this new system will allow people to solve more complex issues, such as climate change and pathogenic pandemics, focus more on quality of life (rather than materialistic) issues, and value collaboration over competition.

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Beyond the Crash

Gordon Brown

2010-12

The book is divided into four parts and a total of eleven chapters. There is also a Prologue, an Introduction and a Conclusion. The Prologue relates how Brown decided to go ahead with his ground breaking recapitalisation plan for British banks during a transatlantic plane flight on September 26, 2008. The introduction takes the story in the prologue two weeks forward to October 8, the day when the bank recapitalisation plan was announced. Brown describes how the crises evolved to become much wider than a banking crises - it became what he calls the first crises of globalisation, which if not overcome will threaten a decade or more of low growth, with millions left jobless and millions more in poverty. Brown recalls that in the last years of the 20th century, Europe and America had between them a majority share of the world's production, exports and investment. While after 2000 Europe and American had a minority share in all those areas, while still retaining a large majority of the world's consumption, financed by borrowing from the rest of the world. Brown states that this recently developed situation has become unsustainable. He says it's essential for emerging economic giants like China to further boost their consumption if global growth is to be optimised and the crises is to be fully overcome. The introduction also discusses the need for morality to inform the conduct of market participants. Part 1 has only one chapter, which tracks the UK government's response to the crises starting from the Sept 2007 bank run on Northern Rock and ending on Oct 13th 2008 after Brown's bank recapitalisation plan had been announced. In contrast to the global focus found in the rest of the book, the focus here is largely on Britain, with some attention to cooperation and dialogue with the US and Europe, especially to Brown's work in persuading them of the need to recapitalise their own banks. There is a brief mention of Brown's push to gain consensus for a G20 "heads of state" summit. Chapter 2 is about the 1997 Asian crisis. Brown relates lessons from the earlier crisis, such as how the successful response by the Hong Kong authorities to the double play speculative attack showed that well executed government intervention can sometimes prevail over hostile markets. He diagnoses that the international community's inadequate response to the 1997 crisis is one of the reasons for the current crises, as it prompted emerging nations to focus excessively on building up foreign reserves, thus contributing to global imbalances. Chapter 3 is about the current crisis, especially its relation to the banking sector. Brown asserts that the problems in banking sector was excessive and poorly understood risk taking, coupled with inadequate capital. Chapter 4 is about the 2009 G-20 London Summit and the back room diplomacy that was necessary to achieve consensus for the coordinated action unveiled at that meeting. Brown discusses the role of his team in setting the stage to ensure a successful outcome. He also acknowledges the important contributions made by various other international leaders including French President Nicolas Sarkozy, U.S. President Barack Obama and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Chapter 5 is a forward looking review of the challenges to be faced after 2010 in delivery global growth and reducing worldwide unemployment. Brown says that all nations and regions will need to act concertedly if Global trade imbalances are to be reduced and the crisis is to be fully overcome. He notes that further policies to boost domestic demand in countries with current account surpluses like China will be essential but not sufficient - regions like Africa need to be helped so they can become new engines of global growth - and the US and Europe need to ensure their deficit reduction plans are combined with growth friendly policies. Brown discusses an International Monetary Fund report, which suggested that effective global cooperation in the years leading up to 2014 could reduce global unemployment by as much as 50 million and help lift an additional 90 million people out of poverty. Chapter 6 contains analysis on the United States. Brown sketches the specific challenges facing the US including their high level of net debt and on-going current account deficit. He says America also has exceptional qualities which can help them overcome their problems if marshalled wisely. Brown concludes the US economy needs to become more export orientated and that the government needs to ensure adequate levels of investment, which are unlikely to be delivered by the private sector alone. Chapter 7 is about the opportunity available to China. Brown advises that with increased switching from policies favouring exports to those aimed at boosting domestic demand, China can contribute to reducing global imbalances, while at the same time sustaining her own high growth and further reducing domestic poverty. Brown acknowledge that China has now been moving in this direction for several years, but says that further progress will help both China and the wider world. Chapter 8 covers India, the rest of Asia, Russia and Latin America. Brown praises India as a country that has achieved high growth without worsening global imbalances, which she had done by not running either a large current account surplus or deficit. He notes however that internally India's growth has been uneven and that further policies aimed at reducing poverty and inequality in the lagging regions will be important for achieving sustained growth. Chapter 9 focuses on Europe and the specific challenges relating to the Eurozone currency union. Brown says it's important for deficit reduction plans to be combined with growth friendly policy and that greater fiscal co-operation and flexibility will be needed to keep the Eurozone together. Chapter 10 is about Africa, which Brown says was much harder hit by the crises than was Asia or Latin America. Brown says the continent has enormous potential and can become a new engine of growth for the whole world. He advises that help from G20 countries will be needed, both to boost investment in infrastructure and to make sure African countries have access to the markets of developed nations to help boost trade. Chapter 11 sums up Brown's thoughts on the need for coordinated global action to reduce unemployment and poverty while boosting growth. He says that different regions are called on to act in different ways, but if nations work collaboratively it will help them better achieve both their individual domestic goals and to boost global growth as a whole. Part 4 contains just a Conclusion and an Appendix. The Appendix relates a speech Brown made back in 1998, in the aftermath of the Asian financial crises, discussing the need for enhanced global cooperation on economic issues. The Conclusion reiterates Browns themes. Brown recaps on the need for the decision making of market participants to be informed by ethical concerns and not purely by the profit motive. Brown also stresses the need for global cooperation to achieve poverty reduction, a fair distribution of resources and lower unemployment - goals which Brown says reflects the values held by the world citizens.

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The Second Mrs. Giaconda

E. L. Konigsburg

1975

{"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"}

A prologue opens by asking, "Why did Leonardo da Vinci choose to paint the portrait of the second wife of an unimportant Florentine merchant when dukes and duchesses ... were begging for a portrait by his hand?"Mrs. Giaconda, p. 3. It introduces Salai by five quotations from Leonardo's notebooks and his will. Early narrative chapters establish those two characters and their relationship. The son of a poor shoemaker, Salai is a cutpurse caught in the act by the master, whose grasp and visage he mistakes for the hand and face of God. Leonardo takes him as an apprentice, at no fee, and practically as a servant. Salai remains a scoundrel who moves from petty theft to selling his master's sketches, and later to selling his audiences. Princess Beatrice comes to Milan and marries Il Moro, the duke, who had hoped to marry her beautiful older sister Isabella d'Este. He continues to wait on his beautiful mistress Cecilia Gallerani, the subject of a Da Vinci portrait that is already famous. "She's small and dark and perfectly plain", Salai says when he first sees Beatrice; when they meet by accident, she is "trying to get the sun to make me blond and beautiful".The Second Mrs. Giaconda, pp. 38, 51. They discover a shared taste for mischief. To Leonardo she laments, "Could I but gain my husband's love, I know that I could disguise this plain brown wrapping." He asks what she has "to give him that Cecilia has not" and she volunteers her "sense of fun".Mrs. Giaconda, pp. 60–61. Salai and even Leonardo often visit Beatrice and she becomes the toast of Milan —assisted by the visits. They come to consider her "our duchess" but she does win her husband's love. Isabella visits and envies her sister for "the intellectuals, the gifted, the skilled craftsmen; the very elements who were drawn naturally to Beatrice."Mrs. Giaconda, p.80 Beatrice grows into a political role and becomes a collector of clothing, jewels, etc., and no longer a companion to Salai. She does confide disappointment in the massive Leonardo's horse, conveys insight regarding the master's talent, and admonishes Salai to take some responsibility for that. To achieve great art, Leonardo needs "something wild, something irresponsible in his work", and Salai must help. The merchant Giaconda and his wife appear only in the last of nineteen chapters, visiting the studio during the master's absence. Beatrice has approved Leonardo's The Last Supper and died in childbirth. Milan has been conquered by the French and Leonardo has moved to Mantua. Duchess Isabella of Mantua (sister of Beatrice) has been frustrated for years seeking her portrait by Leonardo, which delights Salai. "Sooner or later she would come to realize that here was one prize that was just out of reach of her jeweled pink fingers."Mrs. Giaconda, p. 133. Spurred by Beatrice and Isabella, the irresponsible Salai determines to persuade Leonardo to paint Lisa.Mrs. Giaconda, pp. 136–138.

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Witch and Wizard: The Gift

James Patterson

11/4/2010

{"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"}

Whit is walking in a New Order city when he sees that Wisty is to be executed in the Courtyard of Justice. He races to save her, only to find that she has already been killed, once again being fooled by The One when he sees she's still alive after she sets herself on fire (which, for Wisteria Allgood, is a good thing). Wisty reveals that The One killed Margo, an important Freelander. Whit and Wisty escape the New Order and head through a portal. They come out in a different part of the City of Progress. Whit sees Celia on a billboard, who tells him to turn himself in to the New Order, that everything he's done is wrong. As Celia fades away, we see that Whit feels strongly that Celia was really up on the board, and that she would never tell him to turn himself in. The One executes a soldier for failure to kill Wisty. Wisty and Whit return to Garfunkel's, to big surprise, and dismay when the Freelanders learn that Margo is dead. After several tears are shed, Wisty convinces the kids that they shouldn't be beating themselves up about Margo's death, that she wouldn't want them to. The Freelanders accept this and continue on. Whit and Wisty are assigned to a quest at a New Order jail as Stephen and Sydney Harmon, a very powerful witch and wizard. They manage to make it in and out of the place, but don't rescue the kids. After Whit and Wisty return, Whit shares with Janine, the Shaman of the group, a poem that he wrote about Celia, and Wisty destroys the romantic moment, telling Janine that Whit got the poem from their eighth grade English class. That night, they visit a Resistance concert, where Wisty learns of her gift in music. She describes being up on stage as a type of euphoria, a high. Whit sees a fake New Order "rock group" who call themselves "the Nopes". He then sympathizes his feelings about writing a six-page poem about Wisty's death. Wisty meets the Bionics, a popular New Order group, and their drummer, Eric, whom she finds very attractive. After almost getting caught by the New Order and using magic to get away, Eric and Wisty spend the night kissing and being together. Wisty wakes up in the morning to find her drumstick gone, much to her dismay, and she learns that Eric took it. Wisty, very angry, texts Eric, and eventually arranges a meeting at the City of Progress diner. But first she visits Mrs. Highsmith, the witch from the last book that almost got her arrested. After the visit, Wisty goes up to the diner, only to learn from Eric that he took the drumstick because he was working for the New Order. Wisty and Whit are taken in to a New Order school. The One continually tries to steal Wisty's Gift (which we learn is actually dominion over the element fire). After some help from Byron Swain, the kids get trapped in a frigid room for what looks like their final hours, but Whit and Wisty turn themselves into fish and escape the school. They return to Garfunkel's, and, taking some kids with them, go down to the abandoned war shelter. Garfunkel's, and the kids who were too scared to go with them, is then destroyed as the kids look on in horror and heartbreak. Whit decides they should go to Mrs. Highsmith's home again. He kisses Janine with very confused thoughts, obviously torn between Janine and Celia, and then returns to Mrs. Highsmith's home with Wisty. The witch gives them a message from their parents that also says that they should turn themselves in, that they should just give up in their quest. The One then appears, infuriating Wisty, who screams at Mrs. Highsmith that "she told him they were there". With horror, Mrs. Highsmith tells the kids that The One has "mastered air, earth, and water", the other three elements, and we learn that the reason why he needed Wisty's Gift is because he wanted to control all four of the elements. Wisty and Whit learn that that they can conjure things up with their imagination, and that is the center of their magic. Wisty says that The One's power is almost godlike. Wisty and Whit eventually surrender to The One. In the epilogue, Wisty and Whit's parents are executed, to Wisty and Whit's horror. Celia appears and freezes time so that Wisty can escape. The book ends with "to be continued", as did the last, with us unknowing of Whit's whereabouts, where Whit's going, or what Wisty has to do.

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The Lampshade: A Holocaust Detective Story from Buchenwald to New Orleans

2010-09

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, a lampshade, purported to be made from the skin of a Jewish Holocaust victim, turned up in a sidewalk rummage sale in New Orleans. Purchased for $35 by Skip Henderson, the lampshade was sent to his friend Mark Jacobson, a writer living in New York. Jacobson embarked on a quest to discover the origin of the lampshade. Genetic testing showed that it was indeed made from human skin. However, because of the condition of the tanned skin, there was no way to determine the ethnic origin of the person whose skin was used, or if it was indeed a relic of the Holocaust. Over the course of the next few years Jacobson attempted to track down the origin of and examine the meaning of the lampshade, how it ended up in New Orleans, and to decide what to ultimately do with the gruesome object. Both the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Yad Vashem museum in Jerusalem, declined to take possession of the lampshade, saying that the concentration camp lampshades made of human skin were probably a "myth." Over the course of his investigation, Jacobson examines the history of the Buchenwald concentration camp, where such objects were reputed to have been made, as well as the racial and post-Katrina history of New Orleans, the world of Holocaust deniers, the black market trafficking in such goods, and the mythology surrounding objects made from human skin.

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White Sister

During a routine day, Det. III Shane Scully accidentally strikes John Bodine, a homeless schizophrenic African America man with his car. After getting him medical attention and trying to offload the man without a lawsuit, Scully is called to a homicide where he finds a cop and former Crip gangbanger in his wife Alexa's car, and Alexa missing. A series of leads eventually finds Scully interrogating Lou "Luna" Maluga, a psychotic sociopath, and his estranged wife Stacy, the titular "White Sister," both big names in the rap music industry. After being repeatedly ordered to cease investigation and threatened with criminal charges or dismissals, Scully is given an out if he returns his wife's personal computer, only to find a series of romantic emails between his wife and the "Dark Angel," the same police officer found shot in Alexa's car with Alexa's weapon. Later, his son will point out that the majority of the text are veiled references to several rap slang terms and groups, making the messages coded transmissions from the undercover officer. During this time, he receives a phone call from Alexa where she confess to the murder and apparently commits suicide, leaving her in critical condition. Following Stacy Maluga, Scully is eventually lead to Derek Slater, another rap artist whom Stacy is attempting to turn against her husband by exercising an escape clause in his contract, and Bust-A-Cap, a well dressed, well educated, eloquent gentleman outside of his rap artist persona. Scully plays several tapes showing that Maluga is setting up Derek and planning to murder both him and Bust-A-Cap, which he appreciates but does not seem perturbed by, having been targeted with violence before. During this, Alexa undergoes surgery and slides into a coma, and is presumed guilty by the media forces arrayed against her. After learning that the "Dark Angel" really is an undercover officer on long term assignment, he begs that the department attempt to dissuade the media from continuing to slander his wife, and is flatly refused. After preventing there murder at Bust-a-Cap's latest concert performance, Scully eventually winds up in Vegas, and is captured along with Derek and Bust-A-Cap, and led out into the desert to be executed. Once there, Scully notices there are three dug graves, which is unusual as only Derek and Bust-A-Cap were targeted for murder and Scully was not expected to be in Las Vegas, let alone captured. As they stand around the graves, Scully idly asks Lou Maluga when he is planning on marrying his mistress and divorcing his wife. Extremely confused by the question, Lou Maluga allows Scully, over Stacy's shrieked objections, that Stacy can't allow Lou to divorce her, as the court costs and division of property would ruin the rap label she's struggled to maintain despite her husbands repeated violent episodes and husband's bungled business practices. After pointing out the number of graves, and explaining how the third one was originally meant for Lou, a violent shootout occurs. Lou Maluga and a few of his bodyguards are killed. Stacy, after confronting Scully and explaining how this doesn't affect her plans, is shot by her bodyguard "Insane Wayne," an undercover California Sheriff's officer. After collecting all the survivors, several quickly confess that they hijacked Alexa and her car, picked up the undercover officer, and executed him with Alexa's weapon, before forcing her to confess to his murder and shooting her in the head. Wayne, having been brought into the Maluga family by the "Dark Angel" was in danger by his relationship, and so no info had been allowed out that might've cleared his wife. Scully, enraged by the LAPD for throwing his wife under the bus, agrees to not sue for character defamation and slander in exchange for not being charged or punished for his violations. Alexa, still in a persistent vegetative coma, is scheduled to be taken off life support despite Scully's strong objections. But when he attends the hospice where she is kept, he finds her body gone. Finding a fire alarm going off in the basement, Scully heads down there to find John Bodine, whom Scully had befriended after a fashion, performing an African tribal dance around Alexa's body. Believing her to have died after being taken off life support, Scully and the doctors are shocked when she spontaneously revives, and slowly begins to recuperate.

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The Man in the Moone

Francis Godwin

1638

{"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"}

The book begins with a prologue in which Gonsales explains how a voyage to the Moon is no more fantastic than a voyage to America was considered earlier. The account proper contains a number of travel narratives, starting in Spain and ending in China. Godwin proposes that the earth is magnetic, and that only an initial push is necessary to escape its magnetic attraction. The energy necessary for this push is provided by a species of bird called gansas, specifically trained for the purpose. Galileo Galilei's 1610 publication Sidereus Nuncius had a great influence on Godwin's astronomical theories, but unlike Galileo, and like Kepler, Godwin proposes that the dark spots on the Moon are seas, one of many similarities between The Man in the Moone and Kepler's Somnium. Once on the Moon, Gonsales finds it inhabited by tall Christian people who live a happy and carefree life in a kind of pastoral paradise.

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The Mind Readers

Margery Allingham

1965

{"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction"}

Canon Avril is looking forward to hosting Albert Campion and his wife Lady Amanda for half-term, with their nephew Edward, and his cousin Sam. But strange things are happening at the electronics establishment on a remote island on the east coast where Sam's father works, and when the boys arrive at Liverpool Street Station an attempt is made to kidnap them. Then Edward goes missing, and Campion and DS Charles Luke find themselves caught up in a mystery, unexpectedly helped by a certain Thomas T. Knapp.....

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The Legend of Sun Knight

The story takes place in a world somewhat reminiscent of Medieval period Europe. In this world, there are many Gods that get their power from the people that worship them. However, the Gods are forbidden from directly tampering with the human world. The more powerful Gods, in this case, the God of Light, grant certain humans some of their power in order to act out their will. The God of Light has twelve Knights to do so, led by the Sun Knight. With his enchanting blue eyes, shining golden hair and dazzling smile, he is the epitome of perfection—the perfect representative of justice and compassion. But in truth, the Sun Knight's true self is a cynical, sarcastic man who would rather be anything else than the overbearing Sun Knight who has to speak of the Light God in all his waking hours.

30266018

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The Deadly Dungeon

Ron Roy

1998

{"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"}

The trio heads up to Wallis Wallace's castle in Maine where they begin to hear strange noises in the night. While Wallis Wallace says that it is the ghost of a famous movie star who lived there years back, Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose believe otherwise and are determined to find out the truth.

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Overwinter

David Wellington

9/14/2010

The novel picks up shortly after the end of Frostbite following werewolves Cheyenne “Chey” Clark and Montgomery “Monty” Powell as they travel toward the Arctic Circle in search of a cure for the curse of lycanthropy that has afflicted them both. Along the way they are joined by Dzo, the personification of the Inuit muskrat spirit, and Lucie, the French werewolf who gave Monty the curse of lycanthropy. They are pursued by Varkanin, a Russian hunter who has blue skin from silver poisoning that renders him nearly-immune to werewolf attacks, who is in the employ of the Canadian government that wants the werewolves killed so they can sign an oil development agreement with a foreign energy company. The search for the cure to the werewolves' condition is complicated by Chey's gradual loss of her human identity to her increasingly wolf-like nature.

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Sapphique

Catherine Fisher

{"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature", "/m/026ny": "Dystopia"}

It is the sequel to “Incarceron.” The setting is in two places, a place of peace and less starvation which is all fake and governed by protocol in which they call “The Realm” and the other place is a prison called “Incarceron” which is microscopic in size but once inside it is a huge world and the prison itself is alive that looks at its prisoners through millions of red glowing eyes that dot everywhere. There is no technology in the realm because of protocol and Finn who escaped the prison believes the realm is just as bad as Incarceron. The story starts off with Attia who helped Finn escape but wasn’t able to escape herself. She goes to a magic show pretending to be an average bystander because she is the magician’s helper. His name is Rix and he is known as the Dark Enchanter. She tags along with him for a while and they go to a few places then she turns on him, leaving him to die but he comes back with a vengeance later on. She steals his glove which is Sapphique’s glove (a man who was the only one to escape from the prison, Finn did too as previously mentioned). She hatches a ride with Keiro, Finn’s oath brother, and they fight a twelve headed monster together. They are then summoned by Incarceron to go to a certain location, that has its humanoid body, and along the way they go to a nursery that gets them in contact with Finn. The prison wants to escape itself to see the stars, if it does this, it will leave millions of prisoners left to die. Meanwhile, Finn is told by Claudia that he is the long lost prince Giles but he has a hard time remembering. He has visions that depict this but he has a hard time putting it all together. To make matters worse, somebody else claims that they are Giles. There are some trials and testimonies between the two and we learn later that somebody else has taught this fake Giles, all of Finn’s old unrecoverable memory. The council decides that the pretender is actually Giles so they decide that Finn is going to be executed for lying (which he didn’t lie). He has a little battle with the pretender nearly killing him but he aims for his arm. Finn and Claudia run away to the wardnery, the portal to the prison and they do all in their power to hold off the Queen’s huge advancing army. Jared is Claudia’s mentor and he meets them there nearly getting killed by a plot from the Queen. Jared knows more about the portal then them and he starts working on it. Meanwhile, Keiro reaches the humanoid statue after becoming Rix’s apprentice. Keiro said the magic line that Rix wanted to hear that tells Rix who his apprentice is. If it wasn’t for Keiro, Attia would be dead because Rix's revenge would’ve killed her. Keiro decides to not give the prison the glove and puts it on himself. He trades places with Claudia. He is put in the place where Claudia was in the realm and she was put in his place in Incarceron. Incarceron recognizes her because Claudia was a baby when the Warden took her from the prison and wanted her to become queen. Now outside, Keiro gets the nice clothes he always wanted as well as the food but he realizes he is in the middle of a battle. They capture the Queen’s son and she holds fire. Some of the Queen’s soldiers get in by following a Steel Wolf (the warden’s protectors) and there is a little standoff but Finn’s team manages to pull through. The realm is fake, as previously mentioned, and all of its power is lost revealing its ugliness. It was all an illusion. Jared puts on the glove and we realize that he was Sapphique. He decides to keep the portal open so there is a constant connection between the Realm and Incarceron. Attia steps out of the prison for the first time and she is awed by the stars. Finn makes a pledge to put an end to protocol and to fix up both the prison and the realm. Sapphique (Jared) decides to do most of the tidying up for the prison. The story has several mini climaxes. The mini climaxes are surprising questions or conflicts that are raised and then another character’s viewpoint is seen. Finn was the main character and the bad guy was the prison. The conflict from the last book; “Incarceron” is solved when everybody gets a chance to escape.

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Jack Adrift: Fourth Grade Without a Clue

We meet the Henry family as they are driving from their small western Pennsylvania town to their new lives in Cape Hatteras. On the way, Jack accidentally starts an argument between his two parents because his father will tell lies just to win people over, while his mother will be honest no matter what. When they get to Cape Hatteras, a guard stops them because the island is covered with water. Jack's father lies their way onto the island. Everyone in the family is disappointed with their new home, which is a trailer half submerged in the water. Jack meets a new friend, Julian, who likes to stutter and play air guitar. Jack lies to Julian and tells him that he is from New York City and that his father is an admiral. After that, Jack realizes that he is more like his dad. Jack develops a crush on his new teacher, Miss Noelle. Miss Noelle learns about his crush when she keeps Jack after school for not writing a report about his dreams. Miss Noelle tells him that some of the best friendships start with a crush. Meanwhile, the principal of First Flight Elementary, Mrs. Nivlash, asks to see Jack. She tells him her plan to allow gum chewing at the school. However, if someone sticks just one piece of gum, the privilege will be revoked. Mrs. Nivlash appoints Jack to become the school's "respect detective" - someone to report if gum is being stuck to things. Jack hates his new duty as a respect detective, so he just tells Mrs. Nivlash all the good things kids have been doing, prompting her to stop being suspicious. Jack's father is feeling depressed, so the Henry family decides to throw him a big birthday party. Jack gets him a lucky Buddha statuette, which his father begins to believe in after it brings him a streak of good luck. One day, however, Jack's father accidentally casts the Buddha into the ocean, prompting him to realize that all along, he just got lucky.

30282609

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Fire and Sword

Simon Scarrow

2009

{"/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"}

The book covers the time period between December 1804 and April 1809. At the start of the novel, Napoleon has recently been crowned Emperor of France, while Arthur has returned from his successful campaigns in India. The plot of the novel revolves around Napoleon's wars in central Europe, and plans for the invasion of England, foiled by the Battle of Trafalgar. Running parallel to this story, Arthur Wesley is making a name for himself in the armies of Britain, commanding a unit of the army sent to deprive Napoleon of the Danish navy, and in the first expeditionary force sent to liberate Portugal from French rule. At the end of the novel, Napoleon's position is becoming more tenuous, with plots being hatched against him, while Arthur has begun to inflict the first defeats on the armies of Napoleon in the Iberian Peninsula.

30290563

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How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming

Michael E. Brown

2010

{"/m/016chh": "Memoir", "/m/06mq7": "Science"}

The memoir is a non-fiction account of the events surrounding the eventual demotion of Pluto from full-planetary status. It chronicles the discovery of Eris, a dwarf planet even larger than Pluto, located within the Kuiper belt, beyond Neptune's orbit. The replaying of events include the adversarial challenging of long-held scientific beliefs between some of the world's leading astronomers, and the eventual 2006 International Astronomical Union's vote to demote Pluto from the nine planets of the Solar System.

30291999

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Vengeance of Orion

Ben Bova

{"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"}

Orion continues on his adventures and finds himself a thetes on board a Greek ship headed to the city of Troy and makes friends with a talkative old man called Poletes. The Golden One then appears to him revealing himself as Apollo the Greek god and that his plans are for the Trojans to be victorious in that era so as to create a Euro-Asian Empire. Little by little he remembers he was meant to be on a mission to the stars when his ship exploded. He ends up blaming the Golden One for the destruction of the ship. He then decides to thwart whatever plans Apollo might have for the era and ends up saving the Greek camp from being overrun by the Trojans on a counter attack. His courageous acts earn the attention of Odysseus who then adopts him as a member of his household. As a favor Orion requests that Poletes becomes his servant thereby elevating the man's station. Odysseus' first duty for Orion is to accompany him with Ajax and Nestor to Achilles' tent to persuade him to return into the fray. Achilles had earlier withdrawn from the battle because Agamemnon had taken from Bris whom he captured. Achilles however insists on only re-entering battle when High King Agamemnon apologizes to him. Seeing this is an impossibility, Odysseus and his team withdraw and he then asks Orion to go as a herald to the Trojans with an offer of peace. Orion, sensing this will enable the Trojans to win changes the demand to the previous insulting demands brought by earlier heralds. This offer is of course rejected and while there he notices a weak point in the walls of Troy via the Western section built by men. The Trojans then send Orion back to the Greek camp with their refusal and a warning that the Hatti are coming to their defense. This news upsets the Greeks who had earlier been assured by the Hattis of their intention not to interfere in the Trojan War. Orion is then sent to the Hattis with a copy of the agreement with the Hattis only to discover that the mighty empire of the Hattis had disintegrated and the soldiers were nothing more than bandits. He then encounters a band of Hatti soldiers led by Lukka who agree to follow him back to his camp. Upon return he discovers Achilles' partner Patrocles is dead and this has prompted Achilles to enter the battle again. He faces off with Hector and defeats him cutting off his head. However, Achilles is wounded by a stray arrow piercing his heel. He later commits suicide. Lukka and his group then help in building a ramp over then Western section of the wall and by this the Greeks enter into Troy and raze the city to the ground, thus defeating Apollo's plans. While the spoils are being shared the High King takes half of all the goods which leads to dissatisfaction. Poletes uses this to make fun of him but Agamemnon decides to blind him. This upsets Orion and he decides to leave, taking Helen with him who decided against going back to Sparta because of the barbaric way of life there. She suggests going to Egypt where she believes she would be treated civilly. On their way he meets Apollo who instructs him to assist the Israelites in their toppling of Jericho's wall before arriving in Egypt. On arrival, he is involved in palace intrigues again as Pharaoh's Chief priest has been poisoning him and usurping his power. Also, Menelaus has arrived in Egypt having been told by Nekoptah that his wife is in Egypt. Nekoptah tries to set up Orion to be killed in addition to killing his twin brother, Hetepamon. He is however, able to turn the tables against Nekoptah with the help of the crown prince and Hetepamon. He also assists the other Creators to capture Apollo who has actually gone mad and was trying to kill the others so as to be the only one and be worshiped as god. Nekoptah still tries one last time to set Orion up with Menelaus but he loses and is killed when he kidnapped Helen. However, Orion is stabbed through the heart with a spear by Nekoptah, who then dies. Orion wakes up later in the Neolithic and sees Anya, who then wakes up after he kisses her. The novel then ends with an epilogue which is the beginning of the succeeding book.

30294262

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The Fields of Death

Simon Scarrow

6/24/2010

{"/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"}

The book covers the time period between April 1809, and 1815, the climax of the conflict at the battle of Waterloo. At the start of the novel, Napoleon is facing increasing pressure as his marshals are repeatedly defeated by Arthur Wellesley, leading the allied armies of Britain and Spain. The plot of the novel revolves around Napoleon's wars in central Europe, and failed invasion of Russia, as his armies rapidly lose men and their reputation for invincibility. Running parallel to this story, Arthur Wesley is leading the allied forces to victory in the Peninsula War, before invading Southern France. The novel ends with Napoleon and Wellington finally meeting in battle, at Waterloo.

30297100

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Schilder-boeck

Carel van Mander

The book begins with a book on the "foundations" of the painter's art. This introductory book has fourteen chapters on art theory listing such subjects as landscapes, animals, drapery, and arrangements of subjects. The following books are set up as lists of biographies or "explanations". Van Mander split his book into six basic parts that have separate title pages and are indexed. Because the pages are numbered only on the right-hand page, the indexes have an addendum to the page number to indicate the front (recto) or back (verso) of the "folio" to be able to locate text more efficiently. Looking up painters remains difficult because the indexes use first names rather than last names, since the last names in use by the painters themselves were not consistent in all regions where the painters were active. Many painters were better known by their nicknames than their given names. For this reason, the spelling of the names used in the text do not always match the names in the indexes. * Foundations (Den Grondt der Edel vry Schilder-const: Waer in haer ghestalt, aerdt ende wesen, de leer-lustighe Jeught in verscheyden Deelen in Rijm-dicht wort voor ghedraghen.) * Lives of ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman painters (Het Leven Der oude Antijcke doorluchtighe Schilders, soo wel Egyptenaren, Griecken als Romeynen) * Lives of modern Italian painters (Het Leven Der Moderne, oft dees-tijtsche doorluchtighe Italiaensche Schilders.) * Lives of great Dutch and German painters (Het Leven der Doorluchtighe Nederlandtsche, en Hooghduytsche Schilders.) * Explanation of Ovid's Metamorphosis (Wtlegghingh op den Metamorphosis Pub. Ouidij Nasonis.) * Explanation of Figures (Uvtbeeldinge der Figueren) The biographies in the book are similar in style and format to Giorgio Vasari's book. Karel van Mander digresses only rarely from the format; starting per painter with an overview of the childhood years and a list of teachers, followed by some career information and concluding with a list of notable works. The second edition includes a biography of van Mander himself that Miedema believes was written by his brother, who may have been with him on his deathbed.

30303269

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Maigret and the Dosser

1963

Maigret investigates the circumstances when a homeless tramp is recovered from the Seine, after being attacked and badly wounded. The tramp proves to be a former doctor, known to fellow tramps as 'The Doc', who abandoned his family twenty years previously to work in Gabon, but returned to Paris to live rough, mainly under various bridges. Thanks to Madame Maigret's sister, who lives in Mulhouse, Maigret learns more of the family background. His wife, estranged but not divorced, is persuaded to visit him in hospital, but displays no affection or interest in a reconciliation. The tramp, identified as François Keller, was rescued by Jef van Houtte, a Belgian barge owner, and whilst in hospital, refuses to talk. But Maigret suspects that Keller knows his attacker and is keeping quiet for a good reason. He also believes that the Belgian is not telling him the whole story. Under intense interrogation, van Houtte eventually confesses that many years ago he was responsible for the death by drowning of his father-in-law and that Keller was a witness. But Keller still won't say anything, and Maigret is forced to release the Belgian for lack of evidence. Keller returns to his life on the streets.

30303286

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Decoding Reality

2010

The book explains the world as being made up of information. The Universe and its workings are the ebb and flow of information. We are all transient patterns of information, passing on the recipe for our basic forms to future generations using a four-letter digital code called DNA. In this engaging and mind-stretching account, Vlatko Vedral considers some of the deepest questions about the Universe and considers the implications of interpreting it in terms of information. He explains the nature of information, the idea of entropy, and the roots of this thinking in thermodynamics. He describes the bizarre effects of quantum behaviour - effects such as 'entanglement', which Einstein called 'spooky action at a distance' and explores cutting edge work on the harnessing quantum effects in hyperfast quantum computers, and how recent evidence suggests that the weirdness of the quantum world, once thought limited to the tiniest scales, may reach into the macro world. Vedral finishes by considering the answer to the ultimate question: where did all of the information in the Universe come from? The answers he considers are exhilarating, drawing upon the work of distinguished physicist John Wheeler and his concept of “it from bit”. The ideas challenge our concept of the nature of particles, of time, of determinism, and of reality itself.

30314483

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The Carbon Diaries: 2015

2009-02

{"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"}

The book chronicles a year of the life of Laura, a sixteen year old student in London, as England imposes carbon rationing in the wake of weather-related disasters. The stresses of rationing and extreme weather tear at the social fabric of Europe and England, while Laura's family is torn apart as her father loses his job and her selfish older sister refuses to adapt. Laura just wants to live a normal life, attract the attention of the fetching and accomplished boy next door, and practice with her friends in her garage band.

30315642

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Starfall

Stephen Baxter

In the year 4771 colonized planets around nearby stars plan to win their freedom from Earth. Since they are only capable of sublight space flight their rebellion is fifty years in the making. They launch several waves of GUTships and a computer virus against earth. It is discovered that Empress Shira, who has ruled Earth and its colonies for nearly a thousand years is a refugee from the future, a member of the religious group known as The Friends of Wigner, who is attempting to guide Earth into her future using a dangerous mathematical modeling device, the "logic pool". In 4820 the starborn's rebellion succeeds and Shira is forced to shut down the logic pool before using a transdimensional transport system to escape. The device also inadvertently alerts an alien race called the Squeem to the presence of humans.

30315838

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Curious George Gets a Medal

H. A. Rey

1957

{"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"}

George makes a mess with ink and a fountain pen and tries to wash it away with the garden hose, but the room fills with water and he hurries to a nearby farm to get a portable pump. He is chased by the farmer but eludes him by entering a museum. He makes another mess with a dinosaur display but Professor Wiseman wants him to go up in a space ship and then bail out. George agrees and is given a tiny space suit. At the critical moment, it is uncertain whether George will jump or not, but he does and the experiment is a success. George is carried to Earth by a parachute and is awarded a medal.

30316001

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No Boats on Bannermere

Geoffrey Trease

1949

{"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"}

William Melbury and his younger sister Susan (Sue) live with their mother in the south of England, in furnished rooms. His mother inherits a cottage from her second cousin; but only if she lives in it for five years. Cousin Fay disliked week-enders and wanted Beckfoot Cottage to be lived in. So they move from the south of England to the cottage in Bannermere, Upper Bannerdale. William and Susan transfer to schools at Winthwaite five miles away, a boy’s grammar school and a county secondary school. Bill befriends Tim Darren and Sue befriends Penelope (Penny) Morchard at their respective schools. Bill finds that Cousin Fay also owns a rowboat and they row to the island of Brant Holm in the lake. But the owner of Bannermere Hall stops his tenant the farmer Mr Tyler leasing them the boathouse by the lake. Sir Alfred Askew only bought the property last year when he retired from India, but is determined to play the local squire, complete with monocle. They suspect Sir Alfred of something, go into his woods, and find that he has uncovered an ancient buried skeleton on the lakeside. There are actually five skeletons, possibly from the 9th century during the period of Viking raids, and Sir Alfred has not notified the police of the find. An inquest is held. Later when Bill sees an aerial photo of the lake, he sees shading indicating a burial on the island in the lake. They investigate, and uncover a buried skeleton, but are interrupted by Sir Alfred and his friend Matson an antique-dealer. There are also some silver dishes and flagons, probably the monastery treasure mentioned in an old chronicle of St Coloumbs Abbey in Yorkshire. At the inquest they are deemed treasure trove, as the skeleton was Christian and buried facing east with hands crossed on the breast (as proved by Tim’s photo). As finders the four get three hundred pounds reward each. Sir Alfred claimed it could have been a heathen burial by Norsemen with the items buried publicly; as at Sutton Hoo the items would not be treasure trove but would belong to the landowner. Matson would have sold them for a high price in America.

30324028

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Battle Hymn of China

It was written at a time when the Kuomintang and Chinese Communists were in a United Front against the Japanese invasion, and before the Japanese attack on the USA at Pearl Harbour. Agnes Smedley had spent many years in China, and spent much of it with the various armies, both regular and guerrilla. Like Edgar Snow, she met the future leaders of Communist China when they were living in rural isolation. She also witnessed the Xian Incident and gives her own account of it in this book, along with her view of He Long, Chu Teh (Zhu De) and Mao. She takes her own very distinct view of Mao: :What I now remember of Mao Tze-tung was the following months of precious friendship; they both confirmed and contradicted his inscrutability. The sinister quality I had first felt so strongly in him proved to be spiritual isolation. As Chu Teh was loved, Mao Tze-tung was respected. The few who came to know him best had affection for him, but his spirit dwelt within itself, isolating him... :In him was none of the humility of Chu. Despite that feminine quality in him, he was as stubborn as a mule, and a steel rod of pride and determination ran through his nature. I had the impression that he would wait and watch for years, but eventually have his way. (Book IV, Chapter 3, p. 122 of the Victor Gollancz edition.) She also spent a lot time with the rank-and-file and with non-Communist Chinese, living at the same level as ordinary Chinese and using basic First Aid skills to help in hospitals where both supplies and trained staff were short. Though the book describes a war, it is mostly about how various individuals react to the war, mostly Chinese but also foreigners. She gives a poignant account of how she wanted to adopt a Chinese boy who had served as her orderly, and to secure a good education for him. But the boy felt it was his duty to stay with the army. She takes an individual and non-ideological view, noting merit where she sees it, including among captured Japanese who had turned against the war. She also notes and praises a community of nuns that was living at the same level as poor Chinese. She takes a polite view of Chiang Kai-Shek and praises the work of Madame Chiang Kai-shek (Soong May-ling). Although the book was published in 1943, it ends with the events of 1941. A Japanese attack on the European powers and the USA is correctly foreseen. She frequently notes how the Japanese were using war materials supplied by the USA. The book was highly influential at the time. It is not currently in print, but was re-issued in 1984 under the title China Correspondent. It is frequently cited as a source in biographies of Mao.

30324778

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Antispin

Richard Bronson

{"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller"}

Eight-hundred Chinese soldiers are found dead on the Chinese-Pakistan border. No wounds, no clues, no signs of battle. An American doctor working in Venezuela discovers an entire village dead without apparent cause. Concerned about a new weapon system of mass destruction, the American Secretary of State turns to Nobel Laureate physicist, Noah Schwartz. Autopsies are forwarded to the Centers for Disease Control and then to Schwartz. Tapping his world-renowned contacts, Schwartz finds a theory that was to be released at a famous scientific conference but then inexplicably withdrawn. One of the two referees is dead while the other directs a secret research laboratory in Algeria. Other powers learn of the laboratory and move against it. As China and Pakistan edge towards war, Noah Schwartz races to grasp the secret technology and avert nuclear disaster.

30325490

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Wynter Chelsea

Wynter Chelsea introduces two families that have been fighting supernatural beings for generations. Depicted as The Wynter Chelsea Legacy, they are the greatest human threat to the evil that walks the earth. Amanda Chelsea belongs to the new generation of fighters and is consequently the only female to ever be born in the legacy. She is shielded from the battles at a young age, therefore growing up with little knowledge of the outside forces that her family faces. The new generation of Wynters and Chelseas acquired gifts at the age of ten. Jack Chelsea has the ability to conjure items out of thin air; Dustin Wynter has the ability of telepathy; Trevor Wynter has the ability of precognition; and Amanda Chelsea has the ability to feel other people's emotions. Amanda's empathic gift has been the source of much turmoil in her life, but her curiosity and need to be in the legacy is the true catalyst. After Amanda rebelliously shoots a supernatural force, her parents mysteriously go missing. The four young adults set out on a journey in an Oldsmobile 442 desperately searching for their parents. Along the way Amanda uncovers secrets that have been buried in her family since she was born. And they all face the danger that their parents may have been taken by the one supernatural being that no Wynter or Chelsea could ever destroy - The Marathaca.

30334254

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Turning Thirty

Mike Gayle

2000

{"/m/01z4y": "Comedy"}

Unlike most people Matt Beckford is actually looking forward to turning thirty. After struggling through most of his twenties he thinks his career, finances and love life are finally sorted. But when he splits up with his girlfriend, he realises that life has different plans for him. Unable to cope with his future falling apart Matt temporarily moves back to his parents. During his enforced exodus only his old school mates can keep him sane. Friends he hasn't seen since he was nineteen. Back together after a decade apart. But things will never be the same for any of them because when you’re turning thirty nothing’s as simple as it used to be.

30339271

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Fire: From A Journal of Love

Anaïs Nin

1995

{"/m/016chh": "Memoir", "/m/02gsv": "Personal journal"}

She continues her marriage with Hugh Parker Guiler and her literary and sexual relationship with Henry Miller. Both these follow her to New York and win her back from Otto Rank. She returns to Paris and eventually gives up practicing psychoanalysis. She feels over dependent on Henry and continues to take love where she finds it. She begins a very passionate affair with the wildly romantic but irresponsible Peruvian, Gonzalo Moré.

30339416

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Grass

Sheri S. Tepper

1989

{"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"}

Chief protagonist Marjorie Westriding-Yrarier juggles family issues and her conflicting religious beliefs as her family is sent to the little-understood world of Grass to seek a cure for the mysterious alien plague afflicting all of mankind. The first stage of this search will be to befriend the human aristocracy of the planet who have seemingly become obsessed with a localised variant of fox hunting using the planet’s native fauna in place of the horses, hounds, and foxes found on Earth.

30353263

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The Mousehole Cat

1991

One very stormy winter, none of the fishermen of the village of Mousehole () in Cornwall have been able to leave the harbour for a long while and the village is near starvation. Tom Bawcock and his loyal black and white cat, Mowzer, decide to brave the storms and set sail to catch some fish. When the boat hits the storm, it is represented by a giant "Storm-Cat", which allows Mowzer to eventually save the day by soothing the storm with her purring. This purring becomes a song and while the Storm-Cat is resting Tom is able to haul in his catch and return to harbour. When they arrive back at the village, the entire catch is baked into a "Star-Gazy" pie, on which the villagers feast.

30354964

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The Apocalypse Troll

David Weber

1999

{"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"}

The story opens in the 25th Century, when a small force of human warships encounter a larger group of Kanga ships 'forty light-months from anywhere in particular'. The Kanga are a violently xenophobic alien race who have tried and failed to wipe out humanity in a war they are losing, which has lasted over 400 years. It becomes apparent that the Kanga force is a final desperate attempt to defeat the humans by using an untried time travel theory to go back in time many thousands of years and wipe out humanity before it became a threat. They will have to stopped by any means! They were partially successful and both humans and kangas arrived in the outer solar system in early 21st century. A final battle results in a single human space fighter chasing a kanga tender and its escort of fighters to the outer atmosphere of Earth. Only the accidental involvement of a task force of the US Navy prevented the death of humanity. The human fighter crashed into the ocean and one enemy fighter survived. The badly injured human pilot survives her crash landing and is rescued by a passing yacht. The yacht is crewed singlehanded by a US Navy SEAL on his retirement cruise (Captain Dick Aston). The very young looking pilot is in a coma and has a hole right through her. The wound starts to heal before Dick’s eyes and he spends the next 4 days feeding her while she remains in a healing trance. When she wakes she informs Dick she is Colonel Ludmilla Leonovna of the Terran Marines and no she isn’t a Russian. Ludmilla tells the story of the war and her arrival in 2007. Her healing is caused by a symbiote which came from a mutated bio-weapon of the Kanga, it helps its host in many ways. She also tells Dick that the enemy fighter is ‘crewed’ by a Troll. A Troll is psychopathic cyborg with a human brain created by the Kanga as warriors. Trolls hate both humanity and kangas and love to kill cruelly. Trolls also have a limited telepathic ability to read and influence about 30% of minds. Ludmilla is convinced the Troll will try to enslave or destroy humanity! The next ten chapters deal with letting the world know about the troll without the troll knowing they know! Plans to destroy the troll are made while waiting for the troll to reveal itself. An impossible theft of Plutonium in the US concentrates plans there. Eventually the troll reveals itself by inculcating racial hatreds in a circular area of the southern US. A final battle with the troll and its minions takes place in the mountains of North Carolina. Ludmilla destroys the troll at great risk to herself. However in the process Dick is struck with a lethal weapon, and in desperation Ludmilla injects him with a sample of her own blood which while almost certainly lethal (as the bio-weapon is to more than 99% of the human race) hardly matters now. Sometime later Dick revives and finds himself growing younger with his own symbiote in place, as he recovers the President visits and confirms that the Trolls ship was captured intact and he outlines plans to reverse engineer it and create a world government ensuring that this time the Kanga's won't get anywhere near Earth, and humanity will be spared five centuries of war. The President allows the two to slip away into hiding listed as dead in battle, and a few months later the couple are on their new yacht in the Pacific as they await a flash in the night sky, the silent monument to a crew who died centuries from home to save an Earth not their own.

30358303

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Now I Know

Aidan Chambers

1987

{"/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature"}

Nik, a seventeen-year-old boy, is inspired to study the relationship of Christianity to contemporary life when he is chosen to play Jesus Christ in a film project. Tom is investigating a the mystery of a body found hanging from a scrapyard crane. Julie is in hospital, bandaged from head to foot.

30363390

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Player One

Douglas Coupland

2010-10

{"/m/02xlf": "Fiction"}

The book is divided into five chapters. Each chapter is divided into five parts, each describing events from the perspective of one of the five main characters: Karen, Rick, Luke, Rachel, and Player One. The first chapter "Hour One: Cue the Flaming Zeppelin" has Karen arriving at the Toronto airport on a flight from Winnipeg to meet a man she met online. She sits on a stool at the airport hotel bar in which Rick is the bartender, Rachel is at a computer terminal, and Luke is sitting at a table drinking scotch. Rachel is there with the expectation to meet a man who can father her child and approaches Luke. Karen's date goes badly as she finds the man too assertive physically and too distant intellectually. A self-help guru, Leslie Freemont, enters with his assistant Tara to welcome Rick into his empowerment program; Leslie gives a speech to the group, takes Rick's money, and leaves. Meanwhile, oil prices rapidly increase and explosions start to occur outside. With the power unreliable, Karen, Rick, Luke, and Rachel run to Rick's vehicle to listen to the radio. Karen's date, Warren, is killed by a sniper as he runs to the group who quickly return to the bar lounge where they barricade themselves in. In "Hour Three: God's little Dumpsters" Karen's daughter tells them, over the phone, of rioting and general chaos that is occurring. Rick and Luke crawl through the ventilation shafts to the roof to overpower the sniper but fail and retreat to the lounge. As chemical fall-out starts to land on the airport the sniper seeks shelter in the lounge and is taken prisoner by the other characters. In "Hour Four: Hello, My Name Is: Monster" Rick and Rachel have sex, the sniper explains his motivations, and a teenager suffering from chemical burns seeks their help. In the final chapter "Hour Five: The View From Inside Daffy Duck's Hole" Karen and Luke tend to the teenager’s wounds. Rachel discovers that the sniper is actually Leslie Freemont's son, and upon stating this, the sniper panics, manages to get his gun back and shoots Rachel. The final part of the final chapter is told from the combined point-of-view of Rachel and Player One, who exist in what is labeled as Eternity, and provide an epilogue revealing the fates of the characters. ; Karen : A divorced mother of one daughter, and a receptionist at a psychiatrist office, who travels from Winnipeg to Toronto to meet Warren whom she met in an online forum. ; Rick : A divorced father of one son, and a recovering alcoholic, who works as a bartender at the Toronto Airport Camelot Hotel. He has been saving money to enroll in an empowerment program operated by Leslie Freemont. ; Luke : A pastor of a church in Nipissing, Ontario who lost his faith in religion, stole $20,000 from the church and fled to Toronto. ; Rachel : A young woman who operates a business that breeds lab mice and lives with psychological conditions on the Autism spectrum. Among her psychological conditions is prosopagnosia, as well as an inability to understand humour, metaphors, irony, or social cues. She wants to become pregnant to prove to her parents that she can lead what they consider a normal life. ; Player One : A disembodied voice who watches the events and comments on the character's past, present, and future actions and circumstances. ; Warren : The man who Karen is scheduled to meet at the hotel bar. ; Leslie Freemont : A self-help guru who operates the Power Dynamics Seminar System. He arrives with his assistant Tara to accept Rick into the program. ; Bertis : A religious fanatic, the son of Leslie Freemont, and the sniper on the bar's roof. ; Max : A teenager who tries to covertly take photos of Karen during their flight. He stumbles upon the group as he flees the chemical fall-out.

30363990

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Sapphira and the Slave Girl

Willa Cather

12/7/1940

{"/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction"}

Except for the epilogue, the book takes place entirely in 1856. Sapphira is an unhappy middle-aged woman, crippled by dropsy, who came to marriage late and married beneath her station. Her husband, Henry, a miller, lives an entirely separate life, residing at his mill and visiting the estate house only for occasional meals. Sapphira is comfortable with slavery; Henry is not. Having overheard a conversation between two of her slaves, Sapphira develops a paranoid fear that Henry is having an affair with an attractive young mulatto girl named Nancy. Sapphira responds by mistreating Nancy. Eventually Sapphira invites a dissolute nephew to the estate, who threatens to rape Nancy on several occasions. With the help of the Colbert's daughter, Rachel Colbert Blake, and two abolitionist neighbors, Nancy is helped to make connections with the Underground Railroad and taken to Canada. The epilogue takes place 25 years later. Nancy, now in her 40s, returns to Virginia to visit her mother, and Mrs. Blake. The narrator (Cather) is revealed to be a child who has heard stories of Nancy's escape all of her life.

30406425

/m/0g5t1q8

Titan

The ten thousand civilians of the space habitat Goddard have now finally begun their lives in the Saturn system, after an exhausting two-year journey that almost plunged the infant colony into an authoritative regime. As the probe "Titan Alpha" lands on the moon's surface, a number of strange electrical problems begin happening aboard the space habitat.

30407675

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Balance of Power

When a famous Federation scientist dies, his son puts his inventions up for sale to the highest bidder—whether Federation, Klingon, Romulan or Cardassian. Among the items at auction are medical devices, engineering advances—and a photon pulse canon capable of punching through a starship's shields with a single shot. Meanwhile, at the Academy, Wesley Crusher comes to the aid of his best friend—and finds himself kidnapped by outlaw Ferengi bent on controlling the universe through commerce. When they also set their sights on the photon canon, Captain Picard must find a way to save the Starship Enterprise and the Federation from the deadliest weapon ever known—with every race in the galaxy aligned against him.

30408866

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Moon Over Manifest

Clare Vanderpool

10/12/2010

{"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"}

Moon Over Manifest tells the stories of two independent youths who find themselves living—almost by accident—in the small Kansas town of Manifest in two different eras. The two parallel storylines overlap extensively, and both discuss themes of belonging and of feeling an outsider in a community of outsiders. The primary story, a first-person account of Abilene Tucker's adventures living with an old friend of her father's in Manifest in 1936, revolves around a chance encounter with Miss Sadie, Manifest's mysterious Hungarian diviner. Spending the summer working off a debt to Miss Sadie, Abilene finds herself pulled into the story of a boy, known only as Jinx, who train-hops his way to Manifest in 1917 and assimilates into a community divided along cleavages of ethnic origin and economic class. Miss Sadie's unpredictable recounting of Jinx's story coincides with Abilene's discovery of a box of letters and mementos which play conspicuous roles in Jinx's adventures. Abilene, along with her new friends Ruthanne and Lettie, sets out on an extensive mission to unmask a spy (known by the codename "The Rattler") mentioned in one of the letters, Abilene all the while hoping that their search will uncover clues about the enigmatic character of her father and Abilene's perceived abandonment. When the present-day spy mission and Miss Sadie's narrative begin to overlap, Abilene uncovers truths about Manifest that change not only her conception of the town and its people, but of her familial history and, ultimately, her own desires for independence and security. The second storyline, Miss Sadie's third-person recounting of Jinx's arrival in Manifest in 1917, is supplemented by newspaper clippings and letters from the era found by Abilene. Jinx arrives in Manifest in October 1917 and immediately befriends young local Ned Gillen, adopted son of the Manifest hardware store owner of ambiguous ethnic origin. As their relationship develops, Ned helps Jinx feel welcome in Manifest while Jinx helps Ned learn the skills the former has garnered from a life on the road. Once Ned goes off to war, however, Jinx's relationship with the citizens of Manifest changes forever, as he is forced to prove his worth as an outsider without the assistance of an inside friend. This storyline focuses heavily on the role of immigration in mining towns such as Manifest; as the story progresses, Jinx finds himself helping the miners regain their dignity and escape the clutches of the avaricious mine-owners. Historical events mentioned in the book include Prohibition, coal mining, orphan trains, World War One, Spanish Influenza, and immigration.

30427958

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Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It

Gary Taubes

2010-12

Analyzing anthropological evidence and modern scientific literature, Taubes contends that the common “calories in, calories out” model of why we get fat is incorrect. Instead, Taubes promotes a low-carbohydrate diet, arguing that the consumption of carbohydrates drives the body to release insulin, which in turn can lead to insulin resistance (and diabetes) over time. Taubes also asserts that the consumption of carbohydrates leads the body to store excess energy in fat cells, but that reducing dietary intake of carbohydrates results in the body entering ketosis. In this state, the body breaks down fat (triglycerides) in order to fuel the brain. Although Taubes points out his beliefs regarding consumption of carbohydrates, he clarifies that “this is not a diet book, because it’s not a diet we’re discussing.”

30428029

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Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

2011

An article published under the headline “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior” in the Wall Street Journal on January 8, 2011, contained excerpts from her book, in which Chua describes her efforts to give her children what she describes as a traditional, strict “Chinese” upbringing. This piece was controversial. Many readers missed the irony and self-deprecating humor in the title and the piece itself and instead believed that Chua was advocating the “superiority” of a particular, very strict, ethnically defined approach to parenting. In fact Chua has stated that the book was not a "how-to" manual but a self-mocking memoir. In any case, Chua defines “Chinese mother” loosely to include parents of other ethnicities who practice traditional, strict child-rearing, while also acknowledging that “Western parents come in all varieties,” and not all ethnically Chinese parents practice strict child-rearing. Chua also reported that in one study of 48 Chinese immigrant mothers, the vast majority 'said that they believe their children can be "the best" students, that "academic achievement reflects successful parenting," and that if children did not excel at school then there was "a problem" and parents "were not doing their job."' Chua contrasts them with the view she labels “Western”that a child’s self-esteem is paramount. In one extreme example, Chua mentioned that she had called one of her children “garbage,” a translation of a term her own father called her on occasion in her family’s native Hokkien dialect. Particularly controversial was the ‘Little White Donkey’ anecdote, where Chua described how she got her unwilling younger daughter to learn a very difficult piano piece. In Chua’s words, “… I hauled Lulu’s dollhouse to the car and told her I’d donate it to the Salvation Army piece by piece if she didn’t have ‘The Little White Donkey’ perfect by the next day. When Lulu said, ‘I thought you were going to the Salvation Army, why are you still here?’ I threatened her with no lunch, no dinner, no Christmas or Hanukkah presents, no birthday parties for two, three, four years. When she still kept playing it wrong, I told her she was purposely working herself into a frenzy because she was secretly afraid she couldn’t do it. I told her to stop being lazy, cowardly, self-indulgent and pathetic.” They then “work[ed] right through dinner” without letting her daughter “get up, not for water, not even for bathroom breaks.” The anecdote concludes by describing how her daughter was “beaming” after she finally mastered the piece and “wanted to play [it] over and over.” Chua uses the term "Tiger Mother" to mean a mother who is a strict disciplinarian. This use of the term appears to be fairly recent. In his novel South Wind published in 1917, Norman Douglas uses the phrase to mean a mother who will do anythingincluding committing murderto protect her child.

30442087

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This Is All: The Pillow Book of Cordelia Kenn

Aidan Chambers

2005

{"/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature"}

Teenager Cordelia Kenn writes a pillow book for her unborn daughter, speaking of her friendships, romantic experiences, poetry, her special relationship with her teacher Julie, a boy named Will, trees and how her daughter came to be. The pillow book was inspired from Sei Shonagon's pillow book during the Heian Culture in Japan, from which she also gets her inspiration for poetry from Poetry Immortal Izumi Shikibu. Throughout the book's 800 pages Cordelia's teenage years and her character are written and made important to you.

30449279

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Succubus Heat

Richelle Mead

6/4/2009

{"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/04n87l": "Dark fantasy", "/m/01qxvh": "Romance novel"}

Georgina Kincaid has been a bad, bad succubus... which should be a good thing. But lately, thanks to her foul mood over breaking up with bestselling writer Seth Mortensen, she’s been so wicked that Seattle’s über-demon Jerome, decides to “outsource” Georgina to a rival—and have her spy for him in the process. Being exiled to the frozen north—okay, Vancouver—and leaving Seth in the cozy clutches of his new girlfriend is unpleasant enough. Then Jerome is kidnapped, and all immortals under his control mysteriously lose their powers. One bright spot: with her life-sucking ability gone, there’s nothing to keep Georgina from getting down and dirty with Seth—nothing apart from his girlfriend that is. Now, as the supernatural population starts turning on itself, a newly mortal Georgina must rescue her boss and figure out who’s been playing them—or all hell will break loose...

30458203

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In Chancery

John Galsworthy

{"/m/05hgj": "Novel"}

The novel concentrates on the marital failures of Soames Forsyte and to a lesser extent that of his sister Winifred Dartie and on the building antipathy between Soames and his cousin Young Jolyon Forsyte who develops a friendship with Soames' estranged wife Irene. This friendship eventually leads to an affair and Irene's divorce from Soames.

30461839

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Eleven Blue Men

1953

A man collapses in a Manhattan street and is taken to a doctor; he has abdominal cramping, retching, confusion and an alarming bluish hue to the skin. The doctor is understandably confused, and at first diagnoses carbon monoxide poisoning, which is known to cause cyanosis (a blue colour to the extremities due to oxygen deprivation). The hospital prepares for a mass poisoning due to a gas leak or other possible cause; they are right. Another ten men turn up at the hospital with the same symptoms, making the eponymous eleven blue men. At this point, it becomes an epidemic and the Department of Health is called in to investigate. The two investigators recognise the case as similar as an extremely rare poisoning. Only ten recorded outbreaks have happened, and up until then the largest number of people affected in each one was four. This had become the worst incidence in history. By the time they reach the hospital, one man has already died. The others have begun to recover, but the Department of Health is determined to find the underlying cause. They quickly rule out gas poisoning – they don't have one of the main symptoms, and it took too long to present. Instead, after questioning the men, they discover that the men all got sick soon after eating the same food in the same place: oatmeal in a cafeteria. This suggests food poisoning, but of an incredibly rare type that the doctors have never seen before. The men do not have the main symptoms of food poisoning: diarrhoea and vomiting. Also, the incubation period is too short for the most common bacterial poisonings. They also suspect recreational drugs, but the men deny this, saying that they drink quite heavily but nothing else. This brings them back to the oatmeal. Did it have something in it that could cause this reaction? The other possibilities are a chemical contaminant. The men are given a blood test and the doctors also visit the cafeteria where they had eaten shortly before becoming ill. They meet someone from the Bureau of Food and Drugs, who finds multiple violations of the health code in the cafeteria – it is infested with vermin and has open sewage lines, amongst other things. They ask the cook how he made the oatmeal that morning and he explains how he uses dry cereal, water and a handful of salt. The cereal is a generic brand and the water is municipal; these are ruled out as sources of the poison, as more people would be sick if this were the case. That leaves the salt. On the same shelf as the can of salt is another can full of white grains. The doctors ask the chef what this is; he responds that this is saltpetre, used to preserve meats. Its main component is sodium nitrate. The chef also mentions that once, he accidentally refilled the salt can with saltpetre, before realising his mistake and replacing the saltpetre with the real salt. After testing the saltpetre, they find that instead of sodium nitrate, the can contains sodium nitrite. This minor difference is almost unnoticeable, as they both look and taste just like table salt. Both are used to preserve meat, but the levels present in food are closely monitored. However, sodium nitrite is extremely toxic. The can of salt in the kitchen still contained some grains of the sodium nitrite when the chef refilled it with salt. This in itself was not enough to poison the men, otherwise many other men would have gotten sick that day. The men must have received a second dose from somewhere. The doctors realise that some people like to put salt on their oatmeal. The extra sodium nitrite in the salt in a table salt cellar could provide this. They test the salt cellars and find one that contains enough to poison the men. If all the men had used this salt cellar, this could be the cause of their poisoning. Unfortunately, the men have all left the hospital by the time the doctors get back to confirm their hypothesis. It is left uncertain how they got poisoned, but they also mention that they may all have used a lot of salt because heavy drinkers have a low blood salt concentration.

30462815

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Praetorian

Simon Scarrow

11/10/2011

{"/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"}

The book starts with Macro and Cato spending their days at an inn in Rome awaiting further orders from the emperor's secretary, Narcissus. Narcissus finally arrives and orders the duo to go undercover in the Praetorian guard to uncover a plot to assassinate the emperor. Macro and Cato then join the Praetorian guard under different names and try to uncover the plot. During their operation they face their old foe, Vittelius. They succeed in saving the emperor on more than one occasion. In the climax it's hinted that they will go back to Britain to help in the invasion there.

30466544

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The Search for WondLa

Tony DiTerlizzi

9/21/2010

Eva Nine has reached the age of 12 living her whole life in an underground Sanctuary. She has been raised by a robot named "Muthr" (Multi-Utility Task Helper Robot 06), and knows only of the outside world through holograms and a small piece of cardboard inscribed with the fragmented words "Wond" and "La." When the facility is attacked by a large creature named Besteel, she is forced to leave Muthr behind and flee her home. Upon seeing the outside world for the first time she remarks that it is nothing like the holographic simulations she'd been brought up on, encountering many dangerous and alien species of plants and animals that her Omnipod device fails to identify. After another encounter with Besteel and meeting an alien named Rovender Kitt and a large behemoth Otto (identified as a giant water bear by the Omnipod), Eva reunites with Muthr in her (now demolished) home and convinces the Sanctuary computer to allow the robot to escort her to the next underground Sanctuary. When they find it abandoned they convince Rovender to lead them to the royal city of Solas. The group has several more encounters with Besteel and other aliens, in which Eva is nearly embalmed for display at the royal museum. While in the museum she learns that the life forms of this planet (called "Orbona" by its natives) arrived long ago on a dead world that they "reawakened" for their own use. She also discovers many ancient human artifacts and learns of a ruined human civilization beyond a dangerous desert. Eva, Muthr, Rovender, and Otto cross the desert to discover the remains of an ancient human city buried under the sands. Besteel soon arrives and attacks, severely damaging Muthr. Eva then uses her Omnipod to attract several deadly Sand Snipers that kill Besteel and drag him beneath the sand. Muthr, unable to be repaired, dies shortly afterwards, and when the remaining characters tunnel into one of the buried buildings they discover that it was once the New York Public Library, meaning Orbona was once Earth. The still-functioning library computer identifies the cardboard "WondLa" as the cover of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," by L. Frank Baum, and that her own planet died, and was awakened. This is how it became Orbona. In the epilogue, a human boy named Hailey swoops down from the sky in an airship named the Bijou and informs Eva that he is there to take her home.

30467266

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The Winner Stands Alone

Paulo Coelho

{"/m/05hgj": "Novel"}

The book loosely tells the story of several individuals: Igor, a Russian millionaire, Hamid, a Middle Eastern fashion magnate, American actress Gabriela, eager to land a leading role, ambitious criminal detective Savoy, hoping to resolve the case of his life, and Jasmine, a woman on the brink of a successful modeling career. Set at the Cannes Film Festival, the tale narrates the epic drama and tension between the characters in a 24 hour period. Igor, a man of extraordinary intelligence, has promised himself to destroy worlds to get his beloved wife Ewa, who left him for a successful designer, Hamid.

30468411

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Alice Lorraine

R. D. Blackmore

- ~Plot outline description

30469806

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.hack//Epitaph of Twilight

{"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"}

Lara Hoerwick, a fan of the famous online poem Epitaph of Twilight by Emma Wielant, while visiting her uncle Harald Hoerwick starts playing a game on the computer while he is away when suddenly she finds herself in the world of the Epitaph of Twilight as one of the main characters Saya. Lara is excited at first but soon after realizes that she's stuck in the game. Meanwhile the world in the game is about to destroyed by a Cursed Wave. With the world collapsing on itself her only hope is to find the Twilight Dragon and complete the story.

30472026

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24 Hours

A physician and his family are targeted by a psychopathic con man who has planned the perfect kidnapping.

30474192

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The 4-Hour Body

Timothy Ferriss

12/14/2010

Ferriss describes The 4-Hour Body as "unlike any diet or fitness book...It's more like a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book for the human body, full of ridiculous stories, practical philosophies, and larger-than-life characters." The book covers over 50 topics, including rapid fat loss, increasing strength, boosting endurance and polyphasic sleep. Ferriss has acknowledged using steroids, specifically: "using a number of low-dose therapies, including testosterone cypionate," under medical supervision following shoulder surgery, as well as using "stacks" consisting of testosterone enanthate, Sustanon 250, HGH, Deca-Durabolin, Cytomel, and other unnamed ingredients while training. "The slow carb diet II" as detailed in the book can be summarized as the elimination of starches and anything sweet (including fruit and all artificial sweeteners) and a strong preference for lean protein, legumes and vegetables. Ferriss says that he drinks a glass of red wine daily, and has a weekly "cheat day" where he gorges on candy, fried foods, sweet drinks, and all the other forbidden foods so that the body does not go into starvation mode, as also recommended in the Body for Life diet. Although the weekly cheat day may cause a temporary weight gain due mainly to water weight, it actually results in greater weight loss over time. The 4-Hour Body recommends just 2 or 3 gym workouts per week.

30497349

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Frog and Toad Together

Best friends Frog and Toad are always together. This book has five stories about flowers, cookies, bravery, dreams, and, most of all, friendship. *A List *The Garden *Cookies *Dragons and Giants *The Dream

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Hungry Hearts

Anzia Yezierska

1920

{"/m/0707q": "Short story"}

*Wings Shenah Peshah a young lonely janitress living a painfully secluded life in poverty. She is given hope when she meets a young sociologist who moves into her building to study the people he writes about and falls in love with him. *Hunger A sequel to 'Wings', Peshah gets a job at a shirtwaist factory where one of the workers falls in love with her. *The Lost "Beautifulness A mother dances on the edge of self-destruction when she paints her kitchen white for her son returning home from the military but has her rent raised by her cruel landlord as a response. *The Free Vacation House A woman being crushed by motherhood is offered a stay at a free vacation house but finds the strict humiliating living conditions worse than her life in poverty. *The Miracle A Jewish girl travels to America to find love but finds hardship and loneliness. *Where Lovers Dream Poverty separates a happy couple forever, marking their lives as lifestyles separate them. *Soap and Water A student is denied her diploma because of her unsightly appearance due to her grueling life going to school and supporting herself in grinding poverty, making her rebel against the divisions of class. *"The Fat of the Land" A mother goes from poverty to wealth, expecting happiness but only finding a cruel Catch 22. *My Own People A young writer finds inspiration and purpose in the suffering of her brethren. *How I Found America

30510324

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Storm Dragon

Gaven d'Lyrandar, his mind broken by the ancient Prophecy of the Dragons, has been rotting in Dreadhold for over twenty years. He is broken out by a band of adventurers loyal to Haldren, his only companion in his time at the terrible prison, but he begins to get the feeling that he is just a tool. A dragon named Vaskar has hired them to help him fulfill a prophecy and become the Storm Dragon. In exchange, he promises to grant Haldren the throne of a reunited Galifar. Gaven escapes and continues to run from the Sentinel Marshals, but along the way he discovers that he has the power of the Storm Dragon. Just as Haldren is gathering an army to stage a battle and fulfill another part of the prophecy, thus signaling "The sundering of the Soul Reaver's gates", Gaven begins heading towards the Soul Reaver, where he faces Vaskar and defeats him in battle, creating a spear from the Eye of Siberys (a dragonshard). Ultimately, Gaven faces the Soul Reaver in battle and destroys it by destroying the Heart of Khyber (another dragonshard).

30510694

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Carte Blanche

Jeffery Deaver

5/26/2011

{"/m/06wkf": "Spy fiction"}

Set in mid-2011, the story takes place over the course of a week. James Bond is a former Royal Naval Reserve officer who has recently joined the Overseas Development Group - a covert operational unit of British security under the control of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office tasked "to identify and eliminate threats to the country by extraordinary means." Bond is employed within the 00 Section of the Operations Branch. He starts his assignment on the outskirts of Novi Sad in Serbia where an Irish sapper-turned-enforcer named Niall Dunne is planning to derail a train carrying three hundred kilograms of methyl isocyanate, dumping it into the Danube. Bond is able to prevent the catastrophe by derailing the train himself at a much safer place along the line. He is unable to detain Dunne, who kills Bond's Serbian contacts in the course of his escape. Using what little intelligence Bond was able to gather from the operation in Serbia, the ODG is able to establish a connection to Green Way International, a waste disposal consortium contracted to demolish an army base in March. Because Bond is not authorised to act on British soil, he is forced to work with a domestic security agent named Percy Osborne-Smith. The two men clash over the interpretation of the intelligence, prompting Bond to manipulate Osborne-Smith into pursuing a lead Bond knows to be false, and allowing him to investigate the March army base on his own. While exploring the base hospital, he is sealed inside by Niall Dunne, who intends to kill him by bringing the hospital down in a controlled demolition. Bond escapes by improvising an explosive device. Bond turns his attention to Green Way International, led by the enigmatic Severan Hydt. The Dutch-born Hydt is a "rag-and-bone man", who made his fortune in the disposal of waste. He has an intense fascination with death, which is strongly implied to be a sexual fetish. The Overseas Development Group authorise Bond to investigate Hydt when intelligence surfaces suggesting he is also known as 'Noah' and a key player in the derailment in Serbia, which is believed to be a prelude to a much bigger attack that will affect British interests. Bond gets wind of a second attack, to occur later in the week, killing up to one hundred people. He tracks Hydt to Dubai and, with the help of CIA officer Felix Leiter, eavesdrops on a conversation with one of Hydt's senior researchers. Concerned that the attack is imminent, Bond attempts to anticipate Hydt's next move and is on the verge of evacuating a crowded museum when he realises that Hydt is there for an exhibit of the bodies of ninety tribal nomads who were killed a millennium ago. Aborting his planned evacuation, Bond returns to Hydt's facility to find that Leiter has been attacked by an unknown assailant and a local CIA asset has been murdered. Hydt leaves Dubai for Cape Town, with Bond following closely. Once inside South Africa, he meets Bheka Jordaan, a local police operative. Bond is able to get close to Hydt by posing as a Durban-based mercenary, and fuels Hydt's fixation with death by promising him access to mass graves across the African continent. Hydt is taken by Bond's proposal of exhuming the bodies and recycling them into consumer products such as building materials, and gradually welcomes him into his inner circle. Bond attends a fundraiser for the International Organisation Against Hunger with Hydt, where he meets Felicity Willing, the charity's spokesperson. After helping Willing deliver the left-over food from the fundraiser to a distribution centre, the two begin a relationship. Using his cover, Bond is able to infiltrate Hydt's operations in South Africa. His relationship with Bheka Jordaan sours, particularly when he encounters the assailant who attacked Felix Leiter in Dubai: the brother of one of his contacts who was killed in Serbia. As the deadline for the attack - known as Gehenna (derived from the Hebrew word for Hell) - approaches, the Overseas Development Group is ordered to pull Bond out of South Africa and send him to Afghanistan as Whitehall believes the attack will happen there as they can see no connection between Hydt and Gehenna. M is not convinced and manages to keep Bond in South Africa, but the future of the agency depends on his being correct in suspecting Hydt. On the day of the Gehenna attacks, Bond deduces that the target is somewhere in York, but his report is ignored by Osborne-Smith, who believes it is aimed at a security conference in London. Bond manages to access Hydt's research and development facility, where he uncovers plans for a weapon developed by Serbia known as "the Cutter", which fires razor-sharp shards of titanium at hypervelocity. Hydt has been using his operations to steal sensitive information, from which he has acquired the blueprints to the Cutter. Bond realised that the derailment in Serbia was a false flag operation: its intention was not to drop methyl isocyanate into the Danube, but to allow Niall Dunne the opportunity to steal scrap metal from the train for use in the prototype Cutter. Hydt was employed by an American pharmaceutical corporation to detonate a Cutter at a university in York, killing a cancer researcher on the verge of a breakthrough that would bankrupt the pharmaceutical corporation. Misinformation fed to a Hungarian newspaper would suggest the attack was aimed at a fellow lecturer who was a vocal opponent of the Serbian government. With the help of Hydt's personal assistant, Bond is able to stop the attack. Hydt is arrested, but Dunne escapes and shoots his employer at long range. Bond is uncomfortable with the conclusion, feeling that there are too many loose ends at hand. Research shows that the ODG had been misled, and their intelligence misinterpreted; Severan Hydt was never known as Noah. Rather, it is an acronym for the National Organisation Against Hunger, which recently expanded to provide food aid on an international scale. Niall Dunne is an associate of Felicity Willing, whose organisation has expanded to the point where she directly controls one-third of all food aid arriving in Africa. She intends to use this power to strategically distribute food throughout east Africa, giving the Sudanese government a pretext to go to war with rebels and prevent Southern Sudan from seceding. Bond lures Willing into a trap at an abandoned inn where she confesses the plot. Niall Dunne re-appears, attacking the party before Bond and Bheka Jordaan shoot and kill him. Willing is taken to a black site after MI6 spread stories suggesting she was embezzling from her own charity. A subplot throughout the novel involves Bond's investigations into a KGB operation code-named "Steel Cartridge". Bond believes that his father was a spy for the United Kingdom during the Cold War, and that he was killed by Russian agents. Further evidence suggests that Steel Cartridge was a clean-up operation, with the Russians assassinating their own agents that had infiltrated Western intelligence organisations. The suggestion that his father was a traitor does not sit well with Bond, until he unearths further evidence that shows the Russians carried out a Steel Cartridge assassination on a Western spy-hunter who was dangerously close to identifying Soviet moles - his mother, Monique Delacroix Bond.

30527861

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The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

{"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery"}

As the novel opens, Flavia Sabina de Luce schemes revenge against her 2 older sisters, Ophelia (17) and Daphne (13) who have locked her inside a closet in Buckshaw, the family's country manor home located in the English village of Bishop's Lacey. Flavia may have braces, glasses, and pigtails like a typical 11-year-old girl, but she is also a brilliant amateur chemist with a specialty in poisons and a fully equipped, personal laboratory on the top floor of her home. With her scientific notebook at-the-ready, she steals her oldest sister's lipstick, adds poison ivy extract, and then waits, eagerly anticipating changes in Ophelia's complexion. Flavia is especially jealous of her oldest sister because at 17, she is the only one of the 3 girls with memories of their mother, Harriet, a free spirit who disappeared on a mountaineering adventure in Tibet 10 years earlier and is presumed dead. Harriet's disappearance devastated their father, Colonel Haviland "Jacko" de Luce, a philatelist and former amateur illusionist who spends most of his time poring over his stamp collection. The family shares their home with loyal retainer Arthur Wellesley Dogger, who once saved Colonel de Luce's life during the war and now works as Buckshaw's gardener, suffering frequent bouts of memory loss and hallucinations due to posttraumatic stress disorder from his time as a prisoner of war. Mysterious events begin to occur when Mrs. Mullet, Buckshaw's housekeeper and cook, discovers a dead jack snipe on the porch with a Penny Black stamp pierced through its beak. Then, Flavia and Dogger overhear a heated argument between Colonel de Luce and a red-headed stranger who shortly turns up dead in the family cucumber patch. When Colonel de Luce is arrested for the crime, Flavia takes to her bicycle, Gladys, and begins an investigation in the village of Bishop's Lacey, interviewing suspects, gathering clues, and compiling research at the library, always staying ahead of Inspector Hewitt and the police department. As she single-handedly solves the crime, she uncovers the truth behind a 20-year old apparent suicide at Colonel de Luce's alma mater, Greyminster. Both the suicide victim, housemaster and Latin scholar Grenville Twining, and the red-headed stranger in the cucumber patch, Horace "Bony" Bonepenny, uttered "Vale" as a last word. The trail connecting their deaths also includes political intrigue, rare Ulster Avenger stamps, sleight of hand, theft, blackmail, and murder.

30544250

/m/0g9v60x

Everwild

Neal Shusterman

2010

{"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"}

Everwild continues the stories of Allie and Nick as they pursue separate goals. Allie sets off with Mikey, who was once the terrifying monster the McGill in the book Everlost, to find her parents in hopes that she might put her spirit to rest, while Nick finds himself in a race against time to save the Afterlights from endless entrapment in Everlost by the Sky Witch, Mary Hightower. Traveling in the memory of the Hindenburgh, Mary is spreading her propaganda and attracting Afterlights to her cause at a frightening speed. Meanwhile, together with Mikey, the once teriffying monster McGill, Allie the Outcast travels home to look for her parents. Along the way, Allie is tempted by the seductive thrill of skinjacking the living, until she discovers the shocking truth about skinjackers. Skinjackers are not necessarily dead or alive. Allie's body lies in a comatose state waiting for her soul to rejoin it. By the end of the book, The Ripper, Allie, and Nick join forces to defeat the evil Mary Hightower and foil her plan to kill all the world's children in order to bring them into Everlost. The Ripper ends up using her abilities to push Mary into an opening that takes her into the real world. On her way thorugh Mary manages to grab on to her and pull her in with her.

30548959

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O: A Presidential Novel

Mark Salter

1/25/2011

The story begins a few months after January 2011 as the campaign for the 2012 election for president begins to heat up. The book is tightly focused on the campaign itself, centering around a small cast of about eight characters, the primary ones being Cal Regan the new campaign manager, and the fictional character "O" the president of the United States (Barack Obama). According to an early review by The Washington Post, the book "clearly illustrates, season by season, just how effectively presidential campaigners plan, draft and articulate the political discourse that the press pretends it controls." When the president is attacked by his opponent, for example, his campaign staffers point out that the press can be distracted if the president merely buys a second dog.

30578608

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The Last Voyage

The Doctor lands the TARDIS on a space cruiser on its maiden voyage.

30583090

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Charlie Johnson in the Flames

Michael Ignatieff

2003-10

{"/m/02xlf": "Fiction"}

American reporter Charlie Johnson and his Polish cameraman Jacek investigate violence taking place in Kosovo. While in Serb-occupied territory, where there has been significant guerilla fighting, they hide in a house belonging to a Muslim family. They witness a Serb patrol unit destroy a house and light a fleeing woman on fire. A horrified Charlie attempts to assist the woman but she dies at an American field hospital. The event haunts Charlie, even after he returns to his family in England. In an attempt to understand how someone could justify such actions, Charlie tracks down the officer responsible to ask him why he did what he did.

30584827

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Sacred Country

Rose Tremain

1992

{"/m/02xlf": "Fiction"}

"At the age of six, Mary Ward, the child of a poor farming family in Suffolk, has a revelation: she isn't Mary, she's a boy. So begins Mary's heroic struggle to change gender, while around her others also strive to find a place of safety and fulfilment in a savage and confusing world".

30595983

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Edelweiss

Kazushi, Appo, Pierre and Daigo are four average high school students. They are bored of their life and want to find a girl that can be their girlfriend, but no girls accept them. One day they hear about a exchange program to an all-girls school on a deserted island and they have no doubts on going there. Once they arrive, they discover the school's secret: it teaches the secrets of alchemy and how to handle them. Later, they meet the girls and have to help them, as each one has a problem that can't be solved by them.

30598454

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Theory of War

Joan Brady

It tells the story of Jonathan Carrick, sold into white slavery as a child in post-Civil War America and is based on the life of Joan Brady's own grandfather who himself was sold to a midwestern tobacco farmer for fifteen dollars. Cruelly treated by his master Alvah Stokes, it is Alvah's son George who becomes the object of a hatred that endures half a century. forced to submit, but never submissive, Jonathan's escape into a new life as a railroadman, then as an itinerant preacher, opens up a new world for him. But within him lies the need for revenge - a war against George, in fact - that must be safisfied Joan Brady explains "Theory of War is an attempt to understand what my grandfather might have felt about what he'd gone through, and what we - his descendents - still have to cope with because of it.

30610009

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Outerbridge Reach

Stone's incisive, haunting novel follows the story of a copywriter who enters an around-the-world solo boat race.

30610971

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Riotous Assembly

Tom Sharpe

Kommondant van Heerden, Piemburg's the chief of police, is called out to deal with a strange murder case involving the eccentric British spinster, Miss Hazlestone. It appears that Miss Hazlestone has obliterated her cook with a quadruple-barreled elephant gun. As the cook was black, Heerden is initially willing to brush the incident under the carpet, until Miss Hazlestone reveals that she and the cook were former lovers. Heerden, a man with extremely racist sensibilities, is terrified of such information getting out, so he resorts to placing Miss Hazlestone under house arrest, calling in all the reinforcements he can to quarantine the area. Unfortunately, he has not accounted for his subordinate, the lethally incompetent Konstabel Els, nor the elephant gun Els has just collected from the crime scene.

30620075

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Escape from Memory

Margaret Haddix

2003

Kira Landon is a fifteen-year-old girl whose life has been completely normal until her friends talk her into being hypnotized. She finds herself revealing things about a past that she never knew, remembering her mother carrying her through war-torn cobblestone streets while speaking a foreign language. Kira's best friend Lynne pushes her to investigate, but before they can find out anything, Mrs. Landon disappears. That evening, a strange woman shows up at Kira's house, saying that she is her "Aunt Memory". "Aunt Memory" takes Kira to Crythe, a land where people are trained from childhood to remember everything that ever happens to them. Kira soon discovers that not only is her mother a prisoner in Crythe, but that many people are not who they claim to be. Mrs. Landon is actually Kira's real Aunt Memory, and the woman who had called herself "Aunt Memory" is actually Rona Cummins, an old enemy of Kira's parents who tries to obtain her parent's secrets. As Rona keeps raising the stakes, Kira must find a way to save Lynne, Mrs. Landon, and herself, as well as her parents' memories.

30636003

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Skippy Dies

Paul Murray

2/4/2010

{"/m/05hgj": "Novel"}

Skippy Dies follows the lives of a group of students and faculty members at the fictional Seabrook College, a Catholic boarding school in Dublin. The title character, Daniel "Skippy" Juster, dies during a donut eating contest in the novel's opening scene. The rest of the novel explores the events leading up to Skippy's death, as well as the aftermath within the Seabrook community.

30640868

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Sweeping Up Glass

4/29/2009

{"/m/05hgj": "Novel"}

Olivia Harker is a child unloved by her mother, Ida, who is mentally ill. However, her father, Tate, raises her and loves her a great deal while her mother is in a sanatorium. Tate also manages to run a grocery store and is a self taught veterinarian. Ida is released from the sanitorium and returns home to her family. She immediately makes it clear to Olivia that she is a disappointment to her. Ida frequently abuses Olivia. Olivia's only source of friendship is the colored community within her town. She learns many things from them, including words of wisdom. Olivia has a child, Pauline, out of wedlock. Olivia and her father get into a horrible car accident that kills James Arnold. The accident leaves her terribly disfigured, though temporarily. Ida tells her that her father was killed in the crash. Despite these events, she gets married eventually. However, it is not to Pauline's father, who is unknown. Olivia's husband, Saul, builds a tarpaper shack for Ida. She has a relatively happy life despite her mother's constant madness and disapproval of her for 12 years before her husband dies. Pauline follows her mother's example by having a child, William, out of wedlock. When William is a baby, Pauline leaves to become a star in Hollywood. Olivia grows closer to William over the years to the point that he is her sole source of joy. Her ultimate priority is to keep him safe. In 1938, Olivia reminisces about the grocery store store and her father's work as a veterinarian. She recalls how people paid with provisions because of the harsh economic times. The segregation present within the community also stands out for her. She realizes that's it takes place even in her grocery store. There are separate days for whites and coloreds. One day, Pauline returns to take Wiliam. She wants to turn him into a child star so that he can support her. Olivia does not let Pauline take away William upon hearing her reasons. Olivia owns a hill in which the only silver-faced wolves in Kentucky exist . People normally hunted hunted on her land for food, which Olivia unsderstood and respected. Out of nowhere, somebody starts killing the wolves for sport, while chopping off their right ears. Olivia eventually figures out that Alton Phelps is doing this. He thinks that Olivia knows a great secret about him and his friends because her father discovered it many years ago. However, this secret is unknown to her. Alton Phelps even goes so far as to threaten Olivia and William. Olivia begins to investigate this secret and discovers that Alton and his friends are Cott'ners. They are described them as the rejects of the KKK. The Cott'ners have been killing off the younger generations of coloreds in the town for years. In the process of discovering this secret, Olivia discovers that her father is still alive and in prison for killing James Arnold. She discovers this around the time that the Cott'ners are hunting her down as well as her friends. Olivia goes to visit him in prison, while calling the Federal Marshall in the process. She then goes home and discovers some old books of her father's that details where the victims of the Cott'ners are buried. Eventually, the Federal Marshall comes and saves them. Tate is released from prison in exchange for testifying against the Cott'ners.

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Forbidden

Forbidden takes place four-hundred eighty years after an unknown brush with extinction. Perfect order reigns, and the world is at peace. No more disease or famine. But then one day a man discovers the truth: every single soul on earth is actually dead. The human heart has been stripped of all that makes it human. Now only he is alive and only he has the knowledge that can once again awaken humanity. But the way is treacherous and the cost is staggering. For, indeed, in that day life itself is . . . forbidden.

30660449

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Lurulu

Jack Vance

{"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"}

==Reference

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Night Lamp

Jack Vance

{"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"}

When the Faths, a childless academic couple, save young Jaro from a near-fatal beating, they discover he suffers from not just physical wounds, but also the crippling memory of his mother's death, which must be erased. Adopted by them, he grows up an outsider in a world of constant striving for social status, his only goal to become a spaceman and discover the truth of his missing memories. His journey takes him to Fader, a planet closed to the rest of the galaxy, whose inhabitants long ago engineered slave races to support their aristocratic lifestyle. Though Fader's Golden Age has long passed, and they now live in fear of many of their creations, they still maintain a fierce pride. Together with his father, Jaro must find a way to bring justice for his mother.

30664387

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Interlok

Abdullah Hussain

1971

{"/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction"}

The story in the novel was set in Penang in the early 1900s during the colonisation of Britain over Malaya. The story is told from the point of view of three main characters, namely, Seman, Chin Huat and Maniam. The title of the book derived its name from the English word "interlock" which corresponds with the interlocking of the lives of the three main characters of the novel in the final chapter.

30664549

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Viaţa ca o pradă

Marin Preda

1977

{"/m/05hgj": "Novel"}

The novel describes the childhood and adolescence of Marin, the narrator, especially his times at school. Marin finishes near the top at the primary school in his native village. He then tries to enroll at a school in Campu-Lung, but is rejected because of an eye problem. He goes with his father to Mirosi, where he meets a dishonest librarian who demands 1,000 lei to enroll him in a school, but recommends an unsuitable school. Instead, the teenager is enrolled in a school in Blaj, where he studies for two years. Because of the war, he is transferred from there to a school in Bucharest. Marin's father refuses to pay his school fees there, but he manages to get admitted. He only remains at the school for a year, however, as it is demolished by an earthquake. Marin remains in Bucharest where his brother Nila works as a guard in a building. There is no money for him to go to school, so he looks for a job to earn money to pay for exams at a private school. He finds a job with the railroad, but it does not last long. When he comes back he learns that his brother has joined the army and let his room to him. Marin takes a job with a newspaper and then with a printer, eventually earning enough to rent a better room. With a group of friends he wants to publish his first book of short stories and then take several months' vacation in Sinaia, where he hopes to write a novel. He has no inspiration, but after becoming editor of Viaţa Românească, he takes a long vacation and returns to Sinaia, where he writes Moromeţii.