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4390666 | /m/0b_qsh | Charlotte Sometimes | Penelope Farmer | 1969 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Charlotte arrives at a new boarding school, and is shown around by a prefect named Sarah. Sarah's mother also attended the school. The next morning she finds herself in the same place, but in the year 1918. A younger girl called Emily calls Charlotte her sister, and addresses her as "Clare". Each night, Charlotte finds herself swapping between her own time and Clare's time. Charlotte and Clare must learn to live two different lives. They write letters to one another in an exercise book, which they hide in the leg of the bed they share in two different times. Charlotte, expecting to have returned to her own time for the last time, is shocked to find that she has returned to 1918. She will go into lodgings with the Chisel Brown family: it appears she will be trapped in the past. In the house, Miss Agnes Chisel Brown shows Charlotte and Emily the toys she had once played with. She tells the two girls about her brother Arthur, who died in the war. Charlotte reflects, forward and back: to Arthur in the past; her own sister Emma in the future; and Clare, trapped in Charlotte's time. She struggles with her identity as being Charlotte sometimes but Clare other times. Charlotte and Emily form a plan to enter the school by night in an attempt to get Charlotte into the bed which will take Charlotte back to her own time. Inside the school sick room, Charlotte finds the bed is occupied, and thus she cannot return home. She escapes being seen by Nurse Gregory, but is seen by another student, Ruth. Charlotte is not the only one who struggles with identity. Emily tells of the wretchedness of being motherless and unwanted, moving around between homes while her father fights in the war. Meanwhile, Charlotte dreams she is fighting to stay as Charlotte. She dreams about Arthur. A letter arrives for Clare and Emily from their father. Emily does not let Charlotte read it, to the bewilderment of the other girls. Charlotte, thoughtful as always, wonders who Sarah's mother is: perhaps it will be Charlotte herself if she is trapped in 1918? At night, Charlotte dreams about Arthur again, as a drummer boy, and that she has turned into Agnes. Her crisis of identity comes to a head as she struggles to preserve her identity as Charlotte. One evening, the Chisel Browns hold a seance in an attempt to speak to Arthur. The girls hide behind the curtains to observe. During the seance, they hear Clare's voice crying out for Emily. Emily cries out, and the two girls are discovered and disciplined. Later, Miss Agnes asks about the voice they heard at the seance - Clare's. She then tells Charlotte and Emily of Arthur’s war experience. Finally, Armistice comes. The war is over: people dance and celebrate in the street, and Charlotte and Emily join in, even though it would anger Mr Chisel Brown. In disgrace, Charlotte and Emily are sent back to the school. Miss Agnes gives them the toys as a gift. Ruth recalls her “dream” of seeing Clare whilst in the sick room. Because of the flu epidemic, the students are able to play wild games in the dormitories, and eventually, Charlotte is finally able to sleep in the bed that will return her to her own time. On arriving back in her own time, Charlotte is surprised to learn that her room-mate Elizabeth knew about her swap with Clare. Charlotte wonders about Sarah's mother and what has become of Emily and Clare. At the school, Charlotte sees an elderly Miss Wilkin, whom she realises that she had known as a young woman in 1918. One day, Charlotte has a conversation with Sarah, and learns what has become of Emily and Clare. Sarah's mother is Emily, and Clare died in the flu epidemic after the war. Later, Charlotte and Elizabeth discuss the events Charlotte has experienced. They find the exercise book in the bed leg, finding the last letter Charlotte wrote to Clare. Charlotte receives a package from Emily as an adult. It contains a letter from Emily and the toys which Miss Agnes had given them, over forty years ago. (This last segment is not in the 1985 revised edition). |
4392699 | /m/0b_vn4 | The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea | James Fenimore Cooper | null | {"/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | The hero of the book is John Paul Jones, who appears as always brooding upon a dark past and a darker fate. Yet he is not so morbid but that he can occasionally rouse himself to terrific activities in his raids along the English coast. Another character is Long Tom Coffin, of Nantucket, comparable to Harvey Birch and Natty Bumppo from Cooper's other novels. |
4393479 | /m/0b_wwh | Beyond the Sun | Matt Jones | null | null | Bernice Summerfield takes her two students Emile and Tameka on a field trip, but when her ex-husband Jason turns up, they all become embroiled with the dangerous super-weapon of a lost civilisation. |
4393883 | /m/0b_x9c | Birthright | Nigel Robinson | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | After the TARDIS malfunctions and then explodes, the Doctor's companions find themselves in two different time zones. Bernice is stranded in the East End of London of 1909, where a series of grisly murders is occurring blamed on Spring Heeled Jack, while Ace is trapped on the planet Ant'ykhon fighting alongside guerrilla fighters against alien oppressors. Ace discovers that Ant'ykhon is actually the planet Earth, 22,000 years in the future and devastated by rising temperatures. The Charrl, an insect-like race, now inhabit Earth. They have been using an unstable trans-dimensional link called the "Great Divide" to travel to Earth's past in order to escape from the dying planet. Once there they implant humans with their eggs, but inadvertently kill them, causing the murders blamed on Spring-Heeled Jack. Since the Great Divide is unstable, any Charrl that travels to the past eventually crumbles into dust. Back in 1909, Benny is scratched by one of the time-travelling Charrls and is implanted with an egg. This has the effect of placing her under the control of the Charrl, causing her to replace the missing Time Vector Generator in the TARDIS and reunite it with its other half in the future. This also stabilizes the Great Divide and allows Jared Khan, a Charrel agent, to attempt to use the Great Divide to give him immortality. The TARDIS time rams its other half and sends it and Khan back to Siberia 1908, where it explodes, causing the Tunguska event. In the far future, Ace and Benny are aided by Muldwych, a mysterious hermit and former ally of the Charrl. He uses the TARDIS to entrap the Charrl inside one its interior dimensions, then sweeps the Great Divide over London, clearing it of Charrl and their eggs (and curing Benny). But when he tries to use the TARDIS to escape from his exile on Earth, the TARDIS expels him from the ship and returns him to Ant'ykhon. The Doctor emerges from the interior of the TARDIS, claiming to have been asleep in his room the entire time (but see Iceberg for details). |
4394070 | /m/0b_xh9 | Just War | Lance Parkin | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | The Doctor and his companions land in German-occupied Guernsey in 1941 where the Nazis are pursuing a top-secret weapon which could change the course of the war. |
4395371 | /m/0b_z4s | Push not the River | null | null | null | The story starts when the 17 year old Anna's parents die. She moves in with Aunt Stella and Uncle Leo and her cousins Walter and Zofia, a very manipulative and promiscuous girl. Anna later meets Jan Stelnicki and falls in love almost instantly and remains obsessed with him for most of her life. Zofia, however, wanted Jan and out of her jealously she tricks Anna into coming into the forest with her where she abandons her. While there Anna is raped by a stranger and Leo goes to where Anna was raped, but he gets stuck and Zofia and Walter watch him die. Anna is married off shortly after her attack to Antoni and the rest of the family move to Warsaw. Now living in Warsaw, Anna's life changes drastically. The Constitution of May 3, 1791 is signed by King Stanisław August Poniatowski, giving the peasants human rights. Many Polish nobles are enraged by the new laws, and call for Catherine the Great of Russia to deliver them. Anna discovers she is pregnant from being raped and gives birth to a son. It is revealed that it was Walter, who supports the Russians, was the one who raped Anna. Anna becomes a supporter of Polish independence, but is forced to watch as her country is overrun by hostile powers. As the victorious Russians march on Warsaw, Zofia sacrifices herself to buy time for Anna and her family to flee the war torn city. |
4395771 | /m/0b_zrg | Silverwing | Kenneth Oppel | 4/24/1997 | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Part One Shade, a young Silverwing bat, is constantly teased for being the runt of his colony. Shade had lost his father, Cassiel, before he was even born, and his mother, Ariel, is constantly worrying for his safety. One day Shade is being teased and bullied by Chinook, the most popular newborn. In response, Shade challenges Chinook to look at the sun. This is forbidden by law, and any bat caught out when the sun rises can be killed by owls. Chinook returns before the sun comes up, but Shade keeps waiting until he sees a bit of the sun. An owl sees this and attempts to catch and kill Shade, but Ariel rescues him in time. Back at the Silverwings' roost, called Tree Haven, Shade is apprehended by the four elders: Bathsheba, Aurora, Lucretia and Frieda. Despite Bathsheba's intentions of punishing Shade, Frieda defends him sufficiently enough to escape punishment. Frieda later corners Shade and asks him eagerly about the sun. She takes him to the Echo Chamber, where she sings the history of batkind into his head. Shade sees that once, millions of years ago, bats were allowed to see the sun. Then the birds and beasts had a war, and both sides tried to recruit the bats. The bats refused to fight, and at the peace treaty, the birds and beasts banished the bats from ever seeing the sun again. But Nocturna, the bat goddess, promised to the bats that one day they will return to the sun. Frieda shows Shade a metallic band given to her by humans, and says that it is part of the Promise. Soon the local owls, led by General Brutus, come to Tree Haven demanding for Shade. Shade is about to sacrifice himself before Ariel stops him. Frieda refuses to hand over Shade, and in response, the owls burn down Tree Haven. Despite Bathsheba's complaints, Frieda orders the Silverwing colony to join the males at Stone Hold and, from there, migrate to their winter retreat of Hibernaculum. Before the journey, Ariel teaches Shade a sound map, which uses landmarks such as a cathedral, a valley shaped like a wolf's head and a waterfall. While Shade's colony is migrating, a strong storm breaks out and separates Shade from his colony. Luckily, Shade lands on a human fishing boat. He eventually finds his way to an island and meets Marina, a Brightwing bat who, like Frieda, is banded. Marina agrees to help Shade locate the Silverwing colony. While journeying to the city, Shade and Marina encounter a Graywing colony, who distrust Marina because she is banded. The Graywings offer to take Shade to the Silverwings, but Shade refuses when they say Marina cannot come. Soon the two reach the city. Part Two In the city, Shade and Marina are captured by pigeons, who accuse them of killing two of their soldiers. Shade and Marina are hauled to the pigeons' camp, where the owl ambassador questions them extensively. When Shade and Marina refuse to answer, the owl orders that the pigeons amputate their wings. Before the pigeons could do this, Shade and Marina escape to the cathedral, where the pigeons are afraid of the stone gargoyles. In the cathedral, Shade and Marina meet Zephyr, an albino bat. Zephyr heals Shade's wounds by the pigeons and puts him to sleep with a mysterious leaf. When Shade wakes, he sees humans for the first time: praying in the cathedral. When his wound has healed, Zephyr tells them that he has encountered Frieda and the Silverwing colony, and instructs them to follow the cathedral star. Zephyr escorts them to the outskirts of the city, where he reveals that he is a seer and predicts of a great journey by Shade to bring back the sun to bats and that Shade's father, Cassiel, is alive. Shade and Marina leave the cathedral and Zephyr behind and fly out of the city. A short way south, Shade and Marina encounter an owl, who attempts to kill them. Before the owl can, he is eaten by two carnivorous bats: Goth and Throbb. Goth and Throbb are responsible for the death of the two pigeon soldiers and, like Marina, both are banded. Shade offers to escort Goth and Throbb south in return for Goth and Throbb's protection from owls. Goth and Throbb agree, but Goth secretly formulates a plan to bring the Silverwings' to the south, where they would provide an endless array of slaves. Goth is worried about Marina, who might affect Shade, and instructs Throbb to kill her. However Throbb mistakes another Brightwing bat for Marina and Shade sees Throbb eating it. Throbb then chases after Shade, who returns to their makeshift roost to warn Marina. Goth suspects that Shade know what they are doing and follows them. Shade and Marina are rescued by a human airplane which shoots darts into Goth and Throbb. Shade and Marina escape, and Goth is supposedly dead. Part Three Soon both Shade and Marina feel the full impact of winter as they head towards the mountains. They find the Graywing colony that they had encountered outside the city eaten by owls. Knowing that it was dangerous in the skies, Shade and Marina seek refuge in an abandoned Human cabin. There, they meet thousands of banded bats, led by the bat Scirocco. Scirocco explains to Marina that the banded bats are meant to be turned into humans to win back the sun. Shade and Marina disbelieve him, until Scirocco actually turns into a human before their eyes, using echos to conjure the illusion. Scirocco invites Marina to stay with the banded bats, and she initially accepts. But when Shade leaves to set off on his own, Marina joins him. This was just as well, because, unbenownst to them, Goth and Throbb are still alive and have eaten Scirocco and most of his bats, while using their bands as hunting trophies. Soon Shade recognizes another of Ariel's landmarks: a valley in the shape of a wolf's head. In the valley, Shade and Marina see Goth and Throbb overhead. Knowing that they are still alive, Shade and Marina take refuge on the sewers of a human town. Unfortunately they are captured by the resident rats, who take them to their leader Prince Remus. Remus believes that they are the ones who had eaten countless rats and other animals (in fact it was Goth and Throbb), and sentence them to drowning. Before the rats drown them, Remus's brother Romulus calls for them, and Remus relents. Romulus explains that Remus's kingdom is on the edge of collapse and desertion and mutiny are commonplace. Romulus shows Shade and Marina that he has proto-wings on his arms, the reason that Remus imprisoned, claimed by his brother that he is a freak. Romulus helps Shade and Marina escape by uncovering a secret tunnel he uses to get to the human town, and hopes they can meet again someday. Outside the tunnel Shade and Marina are sighted and caught by Goth and Throbb, who threaten to eat them unless Shade guides them to Hibernaculum. Shade reluctantly agrees, and Goth tries to tempt him with meat and the promise that Zotz, the Vampyrum Spectrum god, will allow him to grow bigger. Shade is tempted because he is tired of being small, but refuses to eat meat. However, the next day Shade relents and asks for Goth to take him to the jungle in exchange for guiding them to Hibernaculum. Goth accepts, and believes Shade is honest. While out hunting, Shade discovers the leaves Zephyr used to put him to sleep. Secretively, Shade is creating a plan to let him and Marina escape from Goth and Throbb. He chews the leaf he found and pretends to be eating meat that he asked for to drizzle the leaf juice onto the meat so that Goth and Throbb will both fall asleep after eating the drugged meat. While Goth and Throbb are sleeping, Shade then leads Marina outside and they fly in the light of day. Very soon Shade and Marina encounter yet another owl, which Shade scares away by singing a picture of Goth into its head. Ironically Goth and Throbb recover sooner than Shade expected and are following them yet again. Shade and Marina spot a thunderhead and dive straight into it. Goth and Throbb follow, and in the ensuing melee Goth steals Marina's band. This is disastrous for Goth, as the thunder is attracted to his and Throbb's metal bands they stole and subsequently electrocute him and Throbb. Throbb is turned to ashes before Shade and Marina's eyes, but Goth survives for another day. Shade and Marina continue down a river to a waterfall: Ariel's last landmark. There, they discover Hibernaculum, a cave hidden where the waterfall meets the ocean. Shade reunites with the Silverwings, and they also adopt Marina. Shade tells the news that the owls have closed the skies because of Goth and Throbb's murders, and Frieda is relieved that the Silverwings arrived at Hibernaculum just ahead of the news. Frieda then prepares a journey to find out about the truth of the bands and to find Cassiel for Shade's sake. A debate ensues, as Bathsheba refuses to go, considering it too dangerous, but most of the Silverwings, including Chinook, are ready to help Shade. Shade finally sets down to sleep, knowing that the journey is only beginning. |
4395803 | /m/0b_zs4 | The Pale Horseman | Bernard Cornwell | 10/3/2005 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | 876 - 878: Uhtred, bored with the peace between Alfred and the Danish king Guthrum, goes off raiding into Cornwall. He comes across a settlement ruled by the British king Peredur, who hires Uhtred and his men to fight an invading Danish force led by Svein of the White Horse. Uhtred and Svein however ally to kill Peredur and pillage his settlement, and Uhtred carries off Peredur's wife, the shadow queen Iseult. A monk named Asser who was at Peredur's court witnesses the betrayal and escapes to Dyfed in Wales. Uhtred and Svein then sail up the coast to Land's End where they part ways. Svein goes to Cynuit, where Ubba was killed previously, and Uhtred to the coast of Wales where he raids a ship laden with treasure. He returns to his estate and pious wife Mildrith, using his hoard of treasure to build a great hall and relieve his debt to the church. The Witan summons Uhtred to an audience with King Alfred in Cippanhamm, where he is accused of using the king's ship to raid the Britons with whom Wessex is at peace based on the testimony of Asser, who has made his way to Alfred's court, and wrongfully accused of attacking the Cynuit abbey on the false testimony of the warrior Steapa Snotor, who is loyal to Uhtred's enemy Odda the Younger. To settle the dispute, a fight to the death is ordered between Uhtred and Steapa. During the duel, Uhtred carries only his sword, Serpent-Breath, whereas Steapa is fully armoured. The duel is cut short when Guthrum's Danes attack and the crowd is scattered. Uhtred, Leofric, and Iseult hide in the fields until nightfall when they enter Cippanhamm and free their friend Eanflæd at the Tornake Tavern. The four of them wander for a few weeks until they reach the swamps of Athelney. As they enter the marsh, Guthrum himself attacks Uhtred. Uhtred makes a fighting escape onto a boat that carries him, Leofric, and another passenger to an island within the swamp. The passenger insists that Uhtred should have left a Danish warrior alive, and turns out to be King Alfred himself. Uthred becomes Alfred's bodyguard and for a few months they hide in the swamp until enough men have joined Alfred's army. They then fight at the Battle of Ethandun and Alfred takes back Wessex, with Uhtred being instrumental in the death of Svein of the White Horse. However, during the battle, Leofric and Iseult are both killed. |
4395955 | /m/0b_z_t | The Last Enchantment | Mary Stewart | 1979-01 | {"/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | This novel covers the time from when Arthur Pendragon first becomes king to the time Merlin, now getting on in years, begins to lose his powers and becomes a sort of master spy to assist King Arthur as he begins the task of uniting all of Britain. Arthur is now King and hard at work establishing Camelot as the center of government and authority. A few ambitious lords from other parts of Britain have designs on Arthur's throne, and Merlin is kept busy preventing them from doing so. Having unwisely taken Morgause(his half-sister) to his bed as a very young man after his first battle and victory, Arthur is now the father of Mordred. Merlin foresees that Mordred will be the cause of Arthur's death, but doesn't understand how it will happen. He spends a great deal of time traveling in disguise and observing Morgause's scheming and intrigue. Somewhere along the line, Merlin takes on a female apprentice, Niniane. When she first appears she is disguised as a boy, and Merlin initially takes her for the reincarnation of a child he had seen some years before whom he would have chosen as apprentice, but who died unexpectedly. Niniane is not quite as gifted as Merlin himself, but he teaches her everything he knows, and they fall in love despite their age difference. As he gives her the secrets of his psychic abilities and how to control them, he seems to lose them himself. In a depleted, weakened condition, he takes ill and falls into a coma, and is believed to be dead. Niniane has him buried within the crystal cave, where he awakes some time later. He escapes after a few weeks, through a combination of chance luck and ingenious planning, and travels incognito to let Arthur know he is still alive. Niniane takes Merlin's place as the court wizard-seer, while Merlin retires to the crystal cave and lives a quiet and happy life as a hermit, much like his old master in the first volume of the series. |
4395999 | /m/0b__1l | Shane | Jack Schaefer | 1949 | {"/m/0hfjk": "Western", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The story is set 19th century Wyoming when it was still open to the Homestead Act of 1862. It is narrated by the homesteader's son Bob. The original unclaimed land was used by a cattle driver named Luke Fletcher before the homestead was claimed by Bob's father, Joe Starrett along with many other homesteaders. Luke Fletcher settled there first, although only so much land could be claimed as a homestead (only 160 acres). Luke Fletcher's herd is at the verge of expanding to the point which the homesteads in the area are proving to be an interference. Shane is the mysterious stranger who comes into the lives of the homesteaders. He is tougher than the farmers who homestead the land. He helps them avoid the intimidation to abandon their farms to Fletcher. With Shane's help the farmers are able to resist Fletcher. |
4396362 | /m/0b__j9 | Planet X | Michael Jan Friedman | 1998-05 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | The story takes place after the events of Second Contact, which involved the TNG crew being transported to the Marvel Universe, where they aid the X-Men against Kang the Conqueror. However, a mysterious force (later revealed, to the reader, to be the entity Q) causes the X-Men to be dragged into the Star Trek universe (depicted both in the novel and on the final page of Second Contact); though this happens to the X-Men immediately (from their point of view) after parting with the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise-E, a noticeable period of time has passed for the crew since returning to their own timeline. The X-Men and Enterprise crew face a problem all too familiar to the Marvel mutants: a planet where some of the population have been spontaneously developing destructive, and often uncontrollable, super-powers, causing them to be quarantined and shunned by their fellow citizens—until, that is, one of the "Transformed" with the power to cause earthquakes escapes and leads his fellow super-powered outcasts in a revolution. Matters worsen when it is discovered that these beings had been genetically engineered by an aggressive alien race as living weapons, and now their creators were coming to collect them by force. When the Enterprise is dispatched by the Federation to assist in investigating the Transformed crisis, they are attacked by a ship belonging to this other race, its weapons proving powerful enough to deplete the Enterprises shields in just two hits. Working with the X-Men, the Enterprise crew manage to disable the ship, Nightcrawler teleporting himself and Data over to the enemy ship through its shields- Data being selected due to his knowledge of alien technology and his inability to get tired ensuring that he would not be negatively affected by Nightcrawler's abilities- and allowing them to shut down the ship's defenses long enough for a team including Worf, Banshee and Archangel to transport over and do further damage. With the ship disabled, the X-Men join the away teams down on the planet, with Storm soon defeating the rogue leader of the Transformed, even as Data and Nightcrawler manage to convince the other Transformed to listen to them by demonstrating how they also differ from those around them but are still willing to trust others. The crisis resolved, Dr. Crusher- aided by a hologram of Professor X created based on information acquired from the mansion's computers during the Enterprises visit to the X-Men's universe- manages to develop a cure for the Transformed before the X-Men are sent back to their reality. It is revealed at the end that this situation had been at least partly caused by Q and Uatu the Watcher, Q having manipulated events to send the X-Men through to the 'Trekverse' to help the Enterprise deal with the Transformed crisis. |
4398570 | /m/09v4tyg | De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae | null | null | null | The first part consists of Gildas' explanation for his work and a brief narrative of Roman Britain from its conquest under the principate to Gildas' time: :Concerning her obstinacy, subjection and rebellion, about her second subjection and harsh servitude; concerning religion, of persecution, the holy martyrs, many heresies, of tyrants, of two plundering races, concerning the defense and a further devastation, of a second vengeance and a third devastation, concerning hunger, of the letter to Agitius [usually identified with the patrician Aëtius], of victory, of crimes, of enemies suddenly announced, a memorable plague, a council, an enemy more savage than the first, the subversion of cities, concerning those whose survived, and concerning the final victory of our country that has been granted to our time by the will of God. Part I is particularly notable as the earliest source to mention Aurelius Ambrosius, an important figure of British tradition credited with turning the tide against the Anglo-Saxon conquest. It also contains the earliest mention of the Britons' victory at the Battle of Mons Badonicus. The second part consists of a condemnation of five British kings, and as it is the only contemporary information about them, it is of particular interest to scholars of British history. Gildas swathes the condemnations in allegorical beasts from the Christian Apocalypse and the biblical Book of Daniel, likening the kings to the beasts described there: a lion, a leopard, a bear, and a dragon. The description is repeated in fewer words in the Book of Revelation: :And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority. Revelation 13-2 (underlining added) The kings excoriated by Gildas are: * "Constantine the tyrannical whelp of the unclean lioness of Damnonia". * "thou lion's whelp Aurelius Conanus". * "Vortipore ... who like to the spotted leopard ... tyrant of the Demetians". * "Cuneglasse ... thou bear". * "dragon of the island ... maglocune". In the course of his condemnations, Gildas makes passing reference to the other beasts mentioned in the Apocalypse, such as the eagle, serpent, calf, and wolf. The ancient meaning of the allegories is a matter of debate and opinion to the present day. A dissection of the original biblical meaning of the allegories by the sometimes controversial 18th century writer Emanuel Swedenborg is given in the Explanation of his Apocalypse Revealed. A different perspective is given in James Ratton's The Apocalypse of St. John: A Commentary on the Greek Text. The reason for Gildas' disaffection for these individuals is unknown. He was selective in his choice of kings, as he had no comments concerning the kings of the other British kingdoms that were thriving at the time, such as Rheged, Gododdin, Elmet, Pengwern/Powys, or the kingdoms of modern-day southern England. That he chose only the kings associated with one king's pre-eminence (Maglocune, the "dragon") suggests a reason other than his claim of moral outrage over personal depravity. Neither outrage nor a doctrinal dispute would seem to justify beginning the condemnation of the five kings with a personal attack against Constantine's mother (the "unclean lioness"). Maelgwn (Maglocune), King of Gwynedd, receives the most sweeping condemnation and is described almost as a high king over the other kings (the power-giving dragon of the Apocalypse). The Isle of Anglesey was the base of power of the kings of Gwynedd, so describing Maelgwn as the 'dragon of the island' is appropriate. His pre-eminence over other kings is confirmed indirectly in other sources. For example, Maelgwn was a generous contributor to the cause of Christianity throughout Wales, implying a responsibility beyond the boundaries of his own kingdom. He made donations to support Saint Brynach in Dyfed, Saint Cadoc in Gwynllwg, Saint Cybi in Anglesey, Saint Padarn in Ceredigion, and Saint Tydecho in Powys. He is also associated with the foundation of Bangor. Constantine is obscure. His Damnonia is generally identified with Dumnonia, a kingdom in southwestern Britain. A number of later works refer to a king of this name in the area, but there is no contemporary evidence. Additionally, Damnonia may refer to the territory of the Damnonii, a tribe described by Ptolemy as living in what is now southwestern Scotland. The Damnonii were the predecessors to the later kingdom of Alt Clut, which was known to have had a longstanding relationship with Gwynedd and its kings, something not true of Dumnonia. Cuneglasse is the Cynglas (modern Welsh: Cynlas) of the royal genealogies, the son of Owain Whitetooth son of Einion son of Cunedda. He is associated with the southern Gwynedd region of Penllyn, and he was the ancestor of a later King of Gwynedd, Caradog ap Meirion. One of his brothers was Saint Seiriol. Aurelius Conanus, or Aurelius Caninus, cannot be connected to any particular region of Britain. John Edward Lloyd suggests a connection between this king and the degenerate descendants of the great hero Aurelius Ambrosius mentioned previously by Gildas; if this is true his kingdom may have been located somewhere in territory subsequently taken by the Anglo-Saxons. If the form Caninus should be connected with the Cuna(g)nus found in 6th-century writings, the result in the later royal genealogies would be Cynan, a commonly occurring name. However, this is a speculation. Vortiporius (Vortipore, Old Welsh Guortepir) was a king of Demetia (Dyfed) who is well-attested in both Welsh and Irish genealogies, the son of Aircol. Though it is not easily supportable on linguistic grounds, some scholars maintain that he is mentioned on a memorial stone (discovered in 1895) bearing an inscriptions in both Latin and ogham. The Latin inscription reads Memoria Voteporigis protictoris. The ogham inscription consists of a Primitive Irish spelling of the name: Votecorigas. If the man mentioned in both inscriptions was the same as Gildas' Vortiporius, we would expect the Latin and Irish forms to have been spelled *Vorteporigis and *Vortecorigas, respectively; the difference in spelling has led some to suggest that they are not the same person, though it is possible that they were related. The third part begins with the words, "Britain has priests, but they are fools; numerous ministers, but they are shameless; clerics, but they are wily plunderers." Gildas continues his jeremiad against the clergy of his age, but does not explicitly mention any names in this section, and so does not cast any light on the history of the Christian church in this period. |
4399108 | /m/0c03_d | The Golden Spiders | Rex Stout | 1953 | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/028v3": "Detective fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | Pete Drossos, a twelve year old from the neighborhood, rings Wolfe's doorbell one evening and interrupts his after dinner coffee. Wolfe has just thrown a tantrum, occasioned by Fritz's choice of herbs to garnish the entree. Archie regards Wolfe's behavior as childish, and so to twit him, Archie admits Pete – who says, "I gotta case." Turning Archie's prank against him, Wolfe invites Pete to tell his story. He observes that Archie, who had been about to leave to watch a billiards match, will now have to stay and take detailed notes concerning Pete's case. Pete has quite a tale. It seems that he was working the wipe racket when a woman driver with a male passenger mouthed an appeal to him: "Help. Get a cop." Pete had the presence of mind to note the time and the car's tag. Later, Pete reflected that the car was a Caddy and the driver was wearing gold earrings, shaped like spiders. So there might be money involved, and he decided to enlist Wolfe's assistance. Hearing all this, Wolfe tells Archie to phone the police, give them the tag number, and suggest a routine check. After Archie phones the precinct, Wolfe lectures Pete at length on the attributes of a successful detective, among which are a robust ego and integrity in the matter of fees. The conference ends when Pete has to return home. The next evening, Sergeant Purley Stebbins appears on the stoop. Admitted to the office, Stebbins wants to know why Archie reported a tag number the night before. Archie wants to know why Stebbins wants to know. Stebbins reveals that a boy named Peter Drossos was struck and killed, two hours earlier, by a Cadillac with that tag number. After Archie reviews Pete's story for Stebbins, Pete's mother rings the doorbell. In the ambulance just prior to his death, Pete asked his mother to give Wolfe the $4.30 he has saved. Embarrassed to keep the money, Wolfe tells Archie to donate it to charity, but Archie suggests that they use it to buy an ad in the Times seeking information about a woman driving a Cadillac and wearing spider earrings. The ad gets two responses. First Inspector Cramer arrives, wanting to know what they're up to. Archie explains, and Cramer then wants to know if they've ever heard of Matthew Birch: there is evidence to indicate that Birch, an agent of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, was also struck and killed by the Cadillac that killed Pete. The other response is from a woman named Laura Fromm, a young and wealthy widow. She comes to the brownstone wearing gold earrings shaped like spiders, and wants information about Pete, but she won't say why. She retains Wolfe to provide help and advice, but first she wants to do some investigating herself. Wolfe satisfies himself that she is not the woman who asked Pete to get a cop, accepts her retainer, and warns her to beware – two people have already been murdered. Mrs. Fromm apparently ignores Wolfe's advice, for the next day Wolfe and Archie learn that her body has been found, run over by car. They soon hear from a lawyer named Dennis Horan, counsel for Mrs. Fromm's favorite charity, Assadip. He wants to know about the check that Mrs. Fromm gave Wolfe as a retainer. He starts to warn Wolfe that outstanding checks written by a deceased person do not clear the issuing bank, but Wolfe informs Horan that the check has already been certified, and therefore will clear. Horan wants to know how Wolfe can justify keeping the retainer. Wolfe responds that Horan is not his mentor in propriety and ethics, but that he intends to earn it. Archie heads for the Gazette to get information on Mrs. Fromm's death and on her associates. He learns that a few hours after meeting with Wolfe, she had attended a dinner party at the Horan apartment with several friends and associates, and after she left the party she was not seen until the discovery of her body. Seeking more information about Mrs. Fromm's activities after she left Wolfe's office, Archie scams his way, dressed as a mortician, into the Fromm household to question Jean Estey, Mrs. Fromm's personal secretary. He learns only that Mrs. Fromm had done nothing out of the ordinary, merely dictating some letters before dressing for the dinner party. Wolfe gathers Saul Panzer, Orrie Cather and Fred Durkin to assist in his investigation. It's possible that there is a connection between Mrs. Fromm's death and Assadip, so Saul will pose as a refugee seeking Assadip's assistance, to see if anything unexpected results. Orrie will try to trace the spider earrings worn by the woman Pete saw in the car, and subsequently by Mrs. Fromm. Fred will explore Wolfe's conjecture that Matthew Birch was the passenger Pete saw in the Cadillac. As the 'teers leave the brownstone, two lawyers arrive: Dennis Horan, counsel for Assadip, and James Albert Maddox, personal counsel for Mrs. Fromm — they are at odds over which of them has standing to represent Mrs. Fromm's interests. Maddox wants Wolfe to disgorge the $10,000 retainer that Mrs. Fromm paid him. Maddox implies that he will not pursue the funds if Wolfe will tell him the substance of his conversation with Mrs. Fromm. Wolfe refuses, and Maddox storms out, threatening to replevy the money. With Horan still present, Wolfe telephones the police, reports Maddox's behavior, hints that Maddox tried to bribe him, and asks that the information be given to Inspector Cramer. Horan nearly accuses Wolfe of slander, and then also leaves. A couple of days later, Saul, Orrie and Fred each report progress. Orrie has tracked down the owner of a jewelry store where the spider earrings were once on display. Saul, after successfully posing at Assadip as a displaced person, has been visited by a man who demands money from him; Saul is now following the extortionist. And Fred has made contact with someone who knew Birch, but it sounds like he's in trouble. Archie sends Orrie to help Saul, and then goes to back Fred up. When Archie catches up with Fred, he finds him in the basement of a public garage, relieved of his gun, and tied to a chair. A couple of goons, Egan and Ervin, are getting ready to torture him for information. In a spate of violence that is very rare in the Wolfe series, Archie shoots a gun out of Egan's hand, kicks Ervin in the stomach and slams Egan into a wall. With the goons disabled, Archie unties Fred and goes back up to the garage, where he encounters Saul and Orrie. It turns out that it was Egan who tried to extort money from Saul, and Saul and Orrie have followed him to the garage. It's apparent that there's a blackmail operation going on: Egan carries a notebook filled with hundreds of names, including Leopold Heim, the alias that Saul used at Assadip. It also looks like Birch had something to do with the scheme, and Archie wants more information from Egan. The book's plot continues with a scene even more rare in the series than the gun play: Archie, with help from Saul and Fred, proceeds to torture Egan. Egan's legs are twisted around one another and put under enough stress to make his face go gray. Although it is generally conceded that torture does not elicit dependable information, Archie believes what he hears: that Birch ran the blackmailing racket, that Egan saw Birch with a woman in a Cadillac on the same day that Pete wiped its windshield, and that Egan gets his leads via the phone, from a woman who identifies herself with the catchphrase, "Said a spider to a fly." Then Horan unexpectedly shows up at the garage. Although he claims that Mrs. Fromm, before her murder, had asked him to investigate the activities there, it is clear that Horan has been a participant in the blackmail operation and showed up to help Egan. All involved – Archie, the 'teers, Egan, Ervin and Horan – adjourn to the brownstone for the remainder of the night, to await Cramer's arrival the next morning. Egan is sewn up tight, for his assault on Fred, his attempt to blackmail Saul, and for the notebook with the names of blackmail victims in his possession. To avoid being implicated in Mrs. Fromm's death, he gives up Horan, who used his association with Assadip to obtain the names of recent immigrants, vulnerable people who would be easy to blackmail. Wolfe maneuvers Horan and Egan – with the assistance of the proprietor of a store in Newark – into identifying the other participant in the blackmail ring, the murderer of Pete Drossos, Matthew Birch and Laura Fromm. |
4399486 | /m/0c04td | Too Many Cooks | Rex Stout | null | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/028v3": "Detective fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | Wolfe accepts an invitation to address Les Quinze Maîtres, an international group of master chefs that is holding its quinquennial meeting in West Virginia. The Kanawha Spa resort (possibly based on the famous actual resort The Greenbrier) is located there, and the current dean of the group, Louis Servan, is the resort's chef de cuisine. Wolfe has been invited by Servan to speak on the subject of Contributions Américaines à la Haute Cuisine. As a courtesy to Wolfe, his oldest friend, Marko Vukcic, has invited Archie to the gathering so that he can accompany Wolfe. Wolfe is siderodromophobic, but suppresses his anxiety enough to take the 14-hour train ride from New York to Kanawha Spa. On the way, Vukcik visits Wolfe's Pullman compartment, to introduce him to Jerome Berin, another member of the group. Berin is the originator of saucisse minuit, a sausage whose closely guarded recipe Wolfe covets. But things do not go smoothly with Berin. It comes out that Berin is hostile to Wolfe because he lives in the US, where Phillip Laszio also lives. Laszio, another member of Les Quinze Maîtres, seems to have made theft a habit. According to Berin, Laszio stole the secret of kidneys mountain style from a friend of Berin's and claimed it as his own. Laszio stole his wife Dina from Marko Vukcic and he disparages Vukcic's roast duck Mr. Richards. He stole his position at New York's Hotel Churchill from Leon Blanc, another of the master chefs. He serves something that he calls saucisse minuit at the Churchill. Berin, in full flood, threatens to kill Laszio. Hoping to acquire Berin's secret, Wolfe adopts with Berin the obsequious line that he uses some years later in an attempt to wheedle a black orchid plant from Lewis Hewitt. Berin regards Wolfe's proposal that he sell the recipe to Wolfe with astonishment and scorn. Disgusted by Wolfe's behavior, Archie leaves the Pullman for the club car, where he finds Berin's beautiful daughter Constanza. Things progress nicely with Constanza until Archie perceives that his acquisitive instinct has been awakened, and he decides to call a halt to the progress. Constanza manages to acquaint herself with another man in the club car by spilling her ginger ale on him. The man is Barry Tolman, the prosecuting attorney for the county where Kanawha Spa is located. Archie leaves the two in the club car to get better acquainted. (Their budding relationship continues as a minor subplot throughout the book.) The next night, at the resort, Archie mingles with the chefs and their guests in a parlor off the dining room and adjacent kitchen. He notices that Laszio does appear to inspire hard feelings. First Rossi comes running into the parlor, carrying a steaming dish and shrieking that it had curdled – Laszio suggests that the eggs might have been old, thus insulting both Rossi and their host. Then he stares with disapproval at his wife, who is dancing with another chef. Blanc deals with Laszio by avoiding him, and Berin does so by glaring at him. That night, after dinner, a taste test takes place. A properly prepared Printemps dressing must contain a variety of seasonings: chervil, tarragon, chives, shallots, and so on. Laszio prepares nine dishes of it, each missing a different ingredient. The masters, and Wolfe, are to taste from each dish and mark down which seasoning is missing from that dish. The tasting takes place in the dining room, with only Laszio and the current taster present. The test begins. After the first five chefs have finished tasting, it's Berin's turn. When he returns from the dining room to the parlor, Vukcic, who is up next, is dancing with Dina. He continues to do so for several minutes, interfering with the progress of the test. Servan finally convinces Vukcic to take his turn. Then, after Vallenko and Rossi, it's Wolfe's turn. After a few minutes, Wolfe calls Archie into the dining room. Archie enters, and Wolfe shows him Laszio's body, hidden behind a room divider with a knife in his back. The authorities are called, including Barry Tolman, the prosecuting attorney who Archie and Constanza met on the train. After hours of inquiry, Tolman decides to arrest Berin, who has already expressed a motive to kill Laszio. Furthermore, all the chefs who preceded Berin in the test saw Laszio alive and well in the dining room, but Vukcic and the other chefs who followed Berin did not. And, at Wolfe's suggestion, Tolman compares the chefs' answers to the taste test. No one other than Berin got more than two of the nine seasonings wrong, but Berin missed seven: Tolman's inference is that the murder left Berin so distraught that he couldn't judge correctly. Meantime, Wolfe has had a visit from Raymond Liggett, Laszio's employer at the Churchill, and Alberto Malfi, Laszio's first assistant. Liggett has read of the murder in New York's morning papers and flown, with Malfi, to West Virginia to consult with Wolfe. Liggett needs to replace Laszio as soon as possible with another culinary luminary – Berin, if at all possible. Wolfe refuses to intercede for Liggett, but the question is rendered moot when Tolman arrests Berin. Wolfe decides to do what he can to find evidence exonerating Berin. He has two reasons: having seen Berin return from the dining room after taking his turn tasting the sauce, he does not believe that Berin could have just committed murder – his demeanor is too calm. And he sees a way to put Berin in his debt. In one of the best known scenes in the series, Wolfe meets with 14 black men, each of them a member of either the kitchen or the wait staff. A witness to the crime's aftermath has told Wolfe that she saw a black man, dressed in the livery worn by the resort's workers, in the dining room at the time that the murder occurred. The man was holding a finger to his lips, hushing another black man who was peering through the door between the dining room and the pantry. Wolfe wants to explore that statement with the kitchen and wait staff. In contrast to the treatment the men receive from the prosecuting attorney and, particularly, the sheriff, Wolfe offers them courtesy and civility. Even that approach is bootless, though, until Wolfe makes an appeal to their sense of equity. He is looking for the man who was seen in the dining room, and says this: :But if you shield him because he is your color, there is a great deal to say. You are rendering your race a serious disservice. You are helping to perpetuate and aggravate the very exclusions which you justly resent. The ideal human agreement is one in which distinctions of race and color and religion are totally disregarded; anyone helping to preserve those distinctions is postponing that ideal; and you are certainly helping to preserve them. This speech so impresses Paul Whipple that he blurts out what he saw in the dining room from his vantage point in the pantry: a white man in blackface, warning him to be silent. This information is sufficient to get Berin released from custody. Having accomplished his objective — to put Berin in his debt – Wolfe turns his attention to the speech he is to give. While rehearsing the speech in his room, however, Wolfe is wounded by a bullet, shot through an open window. The bullet tears his cheek open but does no other damage, and a local doctor is able to stitch the wound. But now Wolfe, enraged, returns his attention to Laszio's murder: clearly, the same person who killed Laszio tried to kill Wolfe, and Wolfe intends to deliver the murderer to Tolman. He initiates further inquiries, carried out mainly by Saul Panzer, and later presides over a dinner for the remaining members of Les Quinze Maîtres composed exclusively of American cuisine. The Maîtres are overwhelmed by the quality of the dishes and Wolfe, in another famous scene, has the chefs responsible brought to the room to be applauded by the diners — all are black men. After the meal and despite the handicap of the facial wound, Wolfe delivers his speech regarding American cuisine, and — to the surprise of the gathered masters — continues by delivering the evidence that will convict Laszio's murderer and Wolfe's assailant. On the train returning to New York, Wolfe shames Berin into disclosing to him the recipe for saucisse minuit. |
4399546 | /m/0c04yk | Lonestar Legacy | null | null | null | The books generally follow the life of Jerusalem Ann Hardin and the Hardin Family, who are living on a farm in Arkansas Territory near Arkadelphia in 1831. Whilst out with his sister, Brodie Hardin is confronted by the Brattons, a rival family, when Brodie and the Brattons get into a fight a mysterious stranger called Clay Taliferro (pronounced Tolliver) steps in and saves Brodie's life. Clay ends up staying with the Hardins and helping out on the farm, one day Jerusalem decides to move to Texas and Clay takes them there. The family set up home but soon they are facing Comanche raids and all sorts of problems. Jerusalem and Clay develop a love for each other and eventually marry and have their own children. The books also follow aspects of the Texas Revolution the battles at Goliad and Alamo are described. |
4399984 | /m/0c05kz | The Dark Room | R. K. Narayan | 1938 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The central character of this novel is Savitri, a submissive housewife, who is married to Ramani, an employee of the Engladia Insurance Company. They have three children, Kamala, Sumati and Babu. Savitri is a typical housewife of the India of those times, very much dominated and neglected by her husband. There is a dark room in their house where Savitri retires whenever her husband's harshness seems unbearable to her. Savitri's husband has a torrid affair with a newly recruited employee in his firm. Savitri learns about it and threatens to leave her husband's home. Ramani, in his arrogance, does not pay heed to the threat. But the fire ignited inside Savitri is strong enough to remain steadfast on her decision and leaves after a bitter quarrel. She tries unsuccessfully to commit suicide by drowning in a river. After some twists, typical to Narayan's style, such as taking up a caretaker job in a temple, Savitri ultimately cannot bear living without her children, so comes back, thereby deciding to live with the burden. |
4400285 | /m/0c0634 | The Shell Seekers | Rosamunde Pilcher | 1987 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/01qxvh": "Romance novel"} | Shifting in time, the novel tells the story of Penelope Keeling, the daughter of unconventional parents (an artist father and his much-younger French wife), examining her past and her relationships with her adult children. When the novel opens, Penelope is in her 60s and has just been discharged from the hospital after what was seemingly a heart attack. Penelope's life from young womanhood to the present is revealed in pieces, from her own point-of-view and those of her children. Much of the forward impetus of the novel involves the work of her father, including a painting called "The Shell Seekers," given to Penelope as a wedding present. Pilcher also wrote a spin off novel to The Shell Seekers called September which was published in 1990. |
4402378 | /m/0c09_g | Dust to Dust | Tami Hoag | null | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | Andy Fallon, Internal Affairs cop and son of police legend, "Iron" Mike Fallon, is found hanging nude in his bedroom, facing a mirror with the word "sorry" printed on it. Was it a suicide, an erotic accident, or murder? Sam Kovac and Nikki Liska, two of Minneapolis' toughest detectives are told to exploit the case, call it an accident and move on. But Kovac isn't convinced and when Iron Mike is found dead a few days later, another apparent suicide, Kovac and Liska stop listening to the brass, put their careers on the line and start their own investigation. As they begin to dig, they uncover cover ups, a connection to a twenty year old case and a killer who wants to keep the secrets of the past dead and buried. |
4404389 | /m/0c0fyz | The Child of the Cavern | Jules Verne | 1877-04 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel", "/m/08sdrw": "Adventure novel"} | Covering a time span of over ten years, this novel follows the fortunes of the mining community of Aberfoyle near Stirling, Scotland. Receiving a letter from an old colleague, mining engineer James Starr sets off for the old Aberfoyle mine, thought to have been mined out ten years earlier. Starr finds mine overman Simon Ford and his family living in a cottage deep inside the mine; he is astonished to find that Ford has made a discovery of the presence of a large vein of coal. Accompanying Simon Ford are his wife, Madge, and adult son, Harry. From the outset, mysterious and unexplained happenings start to occur around the main characters, attributed initially to goblins and firemaidens. Soon after the discovery of the new vein of coal, the community is revitalised with a whole town growing up around the underground lake called Loch Malcolm. Suspicious of a malevolent force at work, Harry continues his explorations of the cavern system, where down a deep shaft, he discovers a young orphan girl named Nell. Over the course of the next few years Nell is adopted by Simon and Madge but reveals nothing of where she came from, only that she had never been out of the mine. Eventually, when Harry and Nell announce their marriage, the mysterious occurrences come to a head. It becomes clear that all of the happenings have been caused by Silfax, another former employee of the mine, who along with his trained owl has inhabited the mine since its closure. |
4405772 | /m/0c0jsr | The Doorbell Rang | Rex Stout | null | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/028v3": "Detective fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | Mrs. Rachel Bruner inherited a large real estate investment business from her husband, and has run it successfully for some time. She has read The FBI Nobody Knows and thinks it should get a wider distribution than it has so far. Mrs. Bruner has attracted the Bureau's attention by buying 10,000 copies of the book and sending them to persons of influence, including cabinet members, Supreme Court justices, members of Congress, various state legislators, heads of corporations and banks, and so on. Mrs. Bruner believes that, in retaliation, the FBI is following her and her family, that it has tapped her phones, and that it has questioned some of her employees. She blames the Bureau's director, J. Edgar Hoover, and she wants Wolfe to stop him. Wolfe accepts the job, over Archie's objections. Archie believes that the task is an impossible one and that taking it on will make a powerful enemy of the FBI. But Mrs. Bruner has offered a $100,000 retainer, and will pay both expenses and a fee to be determined by Wolfe, contingent on a successful outcome. Wolfe will not return the retainer. To do so would be to imply that he is afraid of what he terms a "bully." Wolfe plans to get evidence of FBI malfeasance and use it to force the FBI to leave Mrs. Bruner alone. At first, Archie pursues various leads with little success, but then Doc Vollmer conveys to Archie a message that calls him to a meeting in a hotel room, and that warns him to "be sure you're loose." Although suspicious of being set up by the FBI, Archie goes to the hotel room, where he finds Inspector Cramer and a carton of milk. Cramer has news, but he doesn't want it known that he's passed it along to Wolfe – hence the secret meeting. The FBI knows by now that Wolfe has accepted Mrs. Bruner's job and it has asked the state government to revoke Wolfe's and Archie's licenses to do business as private investigators. In turn, the state has asked the Police Commissioner for whatever negative information he has on Wolfe, and the Commissioner has asked Cramer for a report. Cramer knows that Wolfe has already annoyed the FBI, but before he writes the report he wants the full picture. Archie surmises that Cramer brought the milk, Archie's beverage of choice, to show that he's not eager to cooperate with the FBI's plan to harass Wolfe. Archie is at first undecided. Normally he would check with Wolfe before opening up to Cramer, but he can't – their phone's surely tapped. Archie's intelligence, guided by experience, tells him to empty the bag for Cramer, and he does so. Then Cramer completes his own agenda by giving Archie some unpublished information about the recent, unsolved murder of Morris Althaus, shot to death in his apartment. Althaus was a free-lance magazine writer and it is known that he had been preparing an article on the FBI. However, neither a draft of an article nor background information was found in his apartment. (Not even the bullet that killed him was found, although evidence indicates that the bullet passed through his chest, hit the wall and fell to the floor.) Furthermore, an eyewitness saw men leaving the scene and got their car's license number, which Cramer says belongs to the FBI. Cramer's inference is that FBI agents entered Althaus' apartment for a search, that they were surprised to find him there, that Althaus threatened them with his own gun and that they shot him. Cramer has tried to get the FBI's cooperation in his investigation, but its special agent in charge in New York, Richard Wragg, stonewalls him. With no evidence and no cooperation from the FBI, Cramer is both blocked and seriously angry. Later, in conference with Wolfe, Archie conjectures that Cramer "… knew we had stung them somehow, and he had a murder he couldn't tag them for, and he decided to hand it to you." Archie and Wolfe agree that, even if they were able to establish that the FBI was responsible for Althaus' death, it wouldn't help them complete their job for Mrs. Bruner. The only leverage they would have would be to trade their silence about the murder for the FBI's agreement to stop harassing Mrs. Bruner. That's not Wolfe's style. So Wolfe chooses to demonstrate instead that the FBI did not kill Althaus. But he still needs leverage, and he decides that the best way to obtain it is to entice the FBI into an illegal entry. Wolfe enlists the help of his old friend Lewis Hewitt, a millionaire orchid fancier with an estate on Long Island. Hewitt will host a dinner of the Ten for Aristology, a group of gourmets (one that also figures in "Poison à la Carte"). The publicity given the newspapers states that Wolfe and Archie will attend and that Fritz will prepare the dinner. Two actors who strongly resemble Wolfe and Archie in superficial physical respects go in their place, thereby giving any FBI agents who might be watching the brownstone the impression that it is unoccupied. In fact it is not: Wolfe and Archie remain hidden in the darkened house; also present are Saul Panzer, Fred Durkin and Orrie Cather, who were smuggled, along with the actors, into the house the day before. Meantime, Archie, acting on his own, has located evidence pointing to the identity of Althaus' actual murderer. To secure the evidence, though, he has to leave it roughly where he found it. The situation preys on Archie's nerves: the timing of Wolfe's trap forces Archie to wait for a couple of days, and he worries that the murderer will decide to dispose of the evidence permanently. Wolfe's plan to trap the FBI works as intended, and Wolfe catches two of its agents inside his house, with witnesses who can testify that they broke in. He allows the agents to leave, but only after appropriating their credentials, which FBI agents are permitted to display but not to relinquish. When Archie later describes this scene to Inspector Cramer, he sees a rare and broad smile crease the Inspector's face. The credentials provide the leverage Wolfe needs to complete his job for Mrs Bruner. Wragg comes to Wolfe's office. Wolfe engages to leave the credentials in a safe deposit box and take no action against the FBI, if the harassment of Mrs. Bruner, her family and her employees stops. Wragg agrees. And as to the murder, Archie is at last able to tell Cramer that the FBI did not in fact kill Althaus, and where the evidence identifying Althaus' murderer can be found. Wragg then hands over the missing bullet, taken by the agents who searched the apartment, so that Cramer can close the case without having to put any of Wragg's men on the witness stand at a trial. In the final scene, a new visitor arrives at the front door. Though he is not mentioned by name, Archie refers to him as "the big fish," suggesting that J. Edgar Hoover has come in person to retrieve the agents' credentials. Wolfe refuses to let him in, leaving him to keep ringing the doorbell. |
4406412 | /m/0c0kxp | Take a Thief | Mercedes Lackey | null | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Skif's parents are dead, and he lives with his horrible uncle, who does not make much of an attempt to take care of him. Because of this, Skif turns to thievery so that he can obtain food. One day, after dressing up like a page and stealing food from Lord Orthallen's table, he hides in the laundry room. There he inadvertently meets with a fellow and more experienced thief, and begs to be trained in the art. The boy gives in, and Skif finds himself living permanently with him, other boys and Bazie (their teacher). Eventually Skif becomes a master at the trade, and is glad for good food and clothes. One night after a successful theft, Skif comes home to find his house in flames and his comrades dead. In need of money and a home, Skif steals a beautiful white horse, only to find out she is a Companion and he is her Chosen. This means that the two are linked for life, and must work together to aid Valdemar. Skif figures that being a Herald is better than nothing, and travels with his new Companion, Cymry, to the Herald's Collegium. There the circumstances of his life improve, and Skif finds friends, books, a comfortable bed, and good education. However, he still feels that one thing is missing from his life: revenge for the lives of his friends and beloved mentor Bazie. In the end Skif helps Herald Alberich, the weaponsmaster, take the criminal down, and earns his name as a hero of Valdemar. |
4410079 | /m/0c0rw0 | The President Vanishes | Rex Stout | 9/17/1934 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | The book concerns the mysterious disappearance of the President of the United States, who was facing a serious political crisis, perhaps even impeachment, over his handling of a foreign situation, namely the impending war (what we would now call World War II). The disappearance of the president seems like a kidnapping, but no ransom is demanded. Although not revealed in detail until near the end, it is fairly apparent from an early stage that the president has staged his own disappearance to counter an impending military coup staged by an upstart army of fascist "grey shirts" allied with a small coterie of industrialists (similar to the Business Plot). The aim of all this is to involve the United States in a European war when none of the combatants has attacked American territory. |
4410367 | /m/0c0s8f | Bad for Business | Rex Stout | null | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/028v3": "Detective fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | Amy Duncan is a private investigator for the firm of Bonner and Raffray (see The Hand in the Glove for more complete information about Dol Bonner and this company) and the youngest of four women on what is called the "siren squad". Her detective work is based on the theory that most men get careless eventually around pretty women, especially those with chartreuse eyes like hers, and she's been trying to encourage a handsome young man named Leonard Cliff to get careless when she gets knocked down (harmlessly) by a car driven by private investigator Tecumseh Fox. He learns of her assignment, which is to investigate the possibility the company of which Cliff is a vice-president, a large food conglomerate, has been putting quinine into jars of food sold by her uncle's company, Tingley's Tidbits; someone certainly has, and it's bad for business. After a further series of coincidences involving her boss, Cliff and Fox, she is fired and goes to visit her uncle after working hours—she finds him murdered in his office and is promptly knocked unconscious without seeing her assailant. Fox and the police both investigate the company, including its sales manager Sol Fry and production manager G. (for Gwendolyn) Yates, but reserve their suspicions for Tingley's son Phil, who has crackpot ideas about reforming the economic system, and Guthrie Judd, who owns the food conglomerate. Since the quinine problems began, Mr. Tingley has been taking samples from the production line, and the latest sample jar is missing, but so are some documents that relate to the personal lives of Phil Tingley and Guthrie Judd. Fox tracks down the documents and learns Judd's secret, but it brings him no closer to the identity of the murderer. The only thing that does so is remembering a chance remark made by one of the suspects that leads directly to the missing sample jar and the guilty party. |
4411125 | /m/0c0tr9 | Murder in E-Minor | Robert Goldsborough | 3/1/1986 | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/028v3": "Detective fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | The final Wolfe book written by Stout, A Family Affair, ends with the disgrace and suicide of one of the Wolfe team. As the new book opens, Wolfe has been in a state of virtual retirement for a while, although a good word from Inspector Cramer has allowed them to remain licensed private investigators in good standing, although inactive. Several of Stout's Wolfe novels made it clear that Wolfe was Montenegrin, and had once been involved in what would today be called terrorist activities against the oppressors of his homeland (in early days of the 20th century, those would be the Austro-Hungarian Empire). Hard as it is to see in the present-day corpulent agoraphobic crime-solving genius in Manhattan, he was once a man of action in Montenegro and the surrounding area. A few of his comrades from that era also survive: the present conductor of the New York Symphony Orchestra, Milan Stevans (name now anglicized from Milos Stefanović), and Milan's long-estranged wife, Alexandra Adjari, now living in London. Stevans became the guardian of his great-niece Maria Radovich after the death of her parents. The niece appeals to Wolfe to help her solve a problem. Her great-uncle has been receiving threatening notes. He has thrown them away, but she recovered them and has brought them to Wolfe. Since Wolfe is semi-retired, she gives Archie an ancient photograph showing her uncle, Wolfe, and other comrades. Although Maria's uncle saved Wolfe's life in a shootout at Cetinje fifty years earlier, a love triangle also developed between Wolfe, Milos, and Alexandra, with the result that Wolfe and Stefanović have had no contact for many years even though they have been living in the same borough for the past few years. Therefore, it is up to Maria to seek help. Archie slides the photo into the stack of morning mail and is gratified at Wolfe's reaction when he finds it. Wolfe sees Maria and undertakes to try to help, but is skeptical of what he can accomplish without her uncle's cooperation. Furthermore, Maria's own cooperation is cast into doubt as it is clear that she is shielding a person she suspects of having sent the notes. It soon develops that there is conflict between her uncle and Gerald (Jerry) Milner, a young violinist with the orchestra who wants to marry Maria. Wolfe feels honor-bound to accept Maria as a token client because of Milos' action in Cetinje despite the rancor that developed in later years. Wolfe invites long-time press friend/collaborator Lon Cohen from the fictional New York Gazette over for dinner (prepared as always by Fritz Brenner) and serves Cohen's favorite brandy. From Lon, Wolfe learns that in recent years, the New York Symphony has had more than its share of troubles. An idea formed in the mind of the Gazette's music critic and others that the Orchestra had faltered under the previous two music directors. Milan had been brought in to revive the fortunes of the orchestra, but the ultimate result was strife with the players and other members of upper management. Soon, Milan is killed, and Jerry Milner becomes the prime suspect. After this point, the plot explores the characters in the symphony orchestra, from its chairman (who owns the company that makes Wolfe's favorite beer), other musicians who came into conflict with Stevens, and other people connected with the orchestra. |
4412193 | /m/0c0wyw | Swan Song | Robert R. McCammon | 1987 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/05hgj": "Novel", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/0hc1z": "Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction", "/m/026ny": "Dystopia"} | The president of the United States and his advisers are discussing how the Soviets are building up their forces for a nuclear strike. The relationship between the Soviet and American governments has deteriorated badly. Several months earlier, the war in Afghanistan ended with the Soviets launching mustard gas and other nerve agents at Kabul. India and Pakistan destroy each other in a nuclear war, Iran launches Soviet-supplied nuclear weapons on Iraq, and Soviet and American ships play cat and mouse in the Atlantic. With increased reports of submarines off the west coast of the United States, every base switches to DEFCON 1. In New York City, Sister Creep, a homeless woman suffering from depression ever since her daughter died in a car crash, wanders the subway system. While she is below ground in a tunnel, the bombs begin to fall. She narrowly escapes with her life. A wrestler named Josh Hutchins, popularly dubbed "Black Frankenstein", is traveling to a match in Garden City, Kansas, when his vehicle breaks down at a gas station called PawPaw's. Josh meets a nine-year-old girl named Sue Wanda (Swan) and her mother. Swan's mother ran away with Swan when her husband used the family's money to buy beer. The cornfields around the station catch fire as missiles begin to fall, and Josh realizes that a war has begun. They take shelter in PawPaw's basement. Roland Croninger is a thirteen year old boy who likes to call himself a "King's Knight", a role in a game that he invented himself. His parents take him to Blue Dome Mountain in Idaho, a civilian fallout shelter. Colonel James "Jimbo" Macklin, meanwhile, a Vietnam veteran, controls the Blue Dome. When the missiles begin falling, they begin to damage Blue Dome Mountain. Macklin falls into a deep hole and, while trapped, is reminded of his experiences in Vietnam. In New York City, Sister Creep begins to walk around the remains of a New York ravaged by radioactive thunderstorms and tornadoes. While walking around, she finds a glass ring with jewels encased in the glass. Seeing it, she picks it up, believing it is important. She is surprised to see an undamaged building. Entering, she meets "The Man With The Scarlet Eye". She runs away and the building collapses. Sister is soon met by other survivors. They make their way through the hazardous Holland Tunnel, eventually scrabbling their way to New Jersey. In Blue Dome Mountain, Roland awakens in the cafeteria and is unable to find his mother and father. He is then picked up by one of Macklin's men who leads Roland to Macklin. Macklin is at the bottom of a deep hole. Roland, with a butcher knife and lighter, begins to climb down to Macklin and finds that his arm is stuck in a wall. He is forced to amputate the arm and cauterize it with a smoldering portion of desk found in the room. After Macklin's rescue, the pair must figure out how to break through the area where the food is stored. They find that the entrance to the food stores is blocked by rubble. Macklin oversees as the survivors remove the rubble, which soon collapses on top of the laborers. Simultaneously, Roland is searching through the cafeteria for scraps of food. He is then challenged by one of Colonel Macklin's former men, Schorr. Schorr has gone insane and taken up arms against Macklin, who he believes knew that this would happen and should have prevented it by ensuring the quality of the fallout shelter. Roland slices Schorr's left cheek and murders his two followers. In Kansas, Swan's mother dies, as does PawPaw. Josh discovers a gopher hole and starts to dig their way out. He notices that there was grass growing where Swan slept. He starts to realize that she has special powers. After that they reach the surface. Sister Creep and her party start to head for Pittsburgh, but are interrupted by a man named Doyle Halland. He says he was a priest who prayed for the dying and the dead. Doyle keeps looking at Sister's bag, and she shows him the glass ring. While Sister goes on a short excursion with another survivor, Doyle brutally murders all the other survivors. Sister and her companion return to find Doyle and the corpses. Doyle then says that he had known her all along and had been following her from New York; he was "The Man With the Scarlet Eye." Sister injures Doyle and escapes. Back in the Blue Dome, Colonel Macklin, Roland, and Warner sleep in the gym. Soon Schorr's men start to pound the door while yelling that they need food but Macklin refuses to help. They start throwing Molotov cocktails and begin to break the door open. As they charge for the food, Roland begins to shoot them and one of them grabs his neck. Unknown to Roland the man was his father, and Roland blows off his entire head. A woman steals Roland's gun, but Macklin finds a vent to the outside world. While climbing through the vents, Roland realizes that the woman who stole his weapon was his mother, but he continues on. They reach the surface and begin to walk. Meanwhile, Josh and Swan reach a town called Sullivan, where they meet Leona Skelton. Her husband, Davy, is on his deathbed, sick from radiation poisoning. Leona tells the future with globes and tarot cards, and after Josh falls asleep, she reads Swan's cards. She predicts she is going to face the Devil. When Davy dies, Josh digs a grave for him. Afterwards, they make their way to Matheson, a small town away from Sullivan. On their way they stop at the Jaspin farm. Josh discovers that the people in there were brutally murdered. Meanwhile, Swan goes into the cornfield and finds a horse, which she brings with them. Sister and her last survivor, Artie, begin making their way west. But on the way they are attacked by wolves and are saved by Paul, a mountain man. They follow Paul into the woods to his cabin, where there are more survivors. A few hours in, they keep saying that they should "do it". It turns out that they want to go on the radio, searching for a voice. Sister is shocked and slaps Paul saying that he gets a sick pleasure from it, but he says it keeps them from going crazy. They then decide to leave in Paul's truck. Near Salt Lake, Utah, Colonel Macklin and Roland find Shelia Fontana. She has no burn marks on her. Roland has sex with her, and they make their way toward the Fat Man. In Salt Lake, there are two kinds of people: Dirtwarts and Regulars. Dirtwarts country is where Roland and Colonel Macklin live and the Regulars are people with guns, food, water, and other resources. The Fat Man leads them. They go into Regular country and there they meet the Fat Man at his trailer. They have a deal where they get a place and they give him some drugs found in Shelia's bag. The Fat Man's men come to get the couple out. But one of the men kills the couple's baby when they refuse to go. Soon after this, Macklin soaks his arm in the Salt Lake for it to heal. At the same time, the Fat Man calls Roland to his trailer. But the Fat Man puts the drugs into the soda that Roland drank and attempts to rape him. Roland kills the Fat Man when he burns his face with a kerosene lamp. Soon after, Macklin, Roland, and Shiela take control of the camp. Josh and Swan make it to Matheson and find a supermarket with all the lights on and stocked with food. It turns out to be a trap for the insane people from a nearby asylum. There, Josh must play a game where he must fight through the market to Swan and Leona. He manages to get through to them, but the insane leader decides to kill Swan. Just then, a terrier that was following them attacks him and they escape, but Leona sacrifices herself to allow time for Josh and Swan to escape. Josh and Swan, Mule, and the Terrier (now named Killer) find an abandoned circus train and befriend Rusty, a ex-rodeo rider and clown. Seven years later, people are surviving in small settlements and wandering groups. Some people have been afflicted by tumor-like growths which appear only on the head and grow, merging into a fleshy helmet that limits breathing, speaking, and sight. This is commonly called “Job’s Mask”. A nuclear winter has made America a wasteland; the sun has not come out in years, and there is still radiation in the rain. The ground is poisoned by toxic rain and no plants grow. Macklin and Roland Croninger have forged their people into the “Army of Excellence”. Their goal is to purge the countryside of the disfigured, lead the country in rebuilding and getting revenge on the Russians. The Army of Excellence, or AOE, is over 4,000 strong and is pushing east, capturing and destroying settlements and seizing stockpiles of food, water, and ammunition. Both Macklin and Croninger have Job’s Mask and hide it under bandages. They hear about another army and decimate it. They torture a man named Brother Timothy and find out that the other army was heading to Warwick Mountain in West Virginia. Brother Timothy claims that God sheltered him for a few days on a mountaintop there and he had a silver key, a phrase, and a black box that could destroy the world. While they do not know precisely what that means, the AOE decide to head to West Virginia. Initially devoted to Macklin, Croninger eventually gains dominance over Macklin, calling himself the real “King”, while Macklin is just a figurehead. Sheila Fontaine is still with the AOE as an RL or “Recreation Lady” providing sexual companionship to the upper echelons of the AOE, including Macklin and Croninger. She is tormented by guilt in the deaths of Rudy and the baby that was killed to provide space for her. Sister and Paul are still together and have been crisscrossing the midwest, following her visions. Sister has Job’s Mask. They have dodged the Man with the Scarlet Eye several times and wander, trading for food and supplies. They meet up with a group of boys from an orphanage, led by a 17-year-old boy named Robin Oakes. A doctor uses one of the spikes from the glass ring to successfully operate on Robin’s younger brother. The ring eventually leads the group to a town called Mary’s Rest. Swan, Josh, and Rusty are traveling entertainers. Rusty performs magic and music while Josh wrestles as the “Masked Mephisto” and performs feats of strength. Swan usually hides in the wagon or in a barn when they come to settlements because her Job’s Mask is so extensive that she is blind and uses Crybaby as a walking stick to feel her way around. Josh has Job’s Mask too, but he hides it under his wrestling mask. They stop at a house in the middle of a stripped orchard. All the trees for a distance around are cut down, but one lone tree is left standing. The couple in the house explain that the one tree was a special apple tree that they just didn’t have the heart to cut down. Swan wanders out to the tree, places her hands on it and is shocked to feel life still in the tree. It calls to her unique ability with plants, which has been neglected due to the lack of living plants in the world. She responds and ‘wakes’ the tree up. The next morning, the tree is covered with blossoms. Everyone is amazed. Swan, Josh, and Rusty decide to continue on to the close-by settlement of Mary’s Rest. The Man with the Scarlet Eye has been searching for Sister and her magical glass ring all this time. He finds out about Swan and decides that she is a threat to him. He hears that she is heading to a place called Mary’s Rest and decides to meet her there. At Mary’s Rest, Swan finds the body of a child who was scrabbling in the dirt when he died. Swan finds the corn that the child was trying to plant and decides to honor the child’s memory by finishing what the child started; she starts planting the corn using her special ability to encourage the ground to be fertile and the seeds to grow. She hurts her hands digging in the frozen ground and passes out. Josh finds her and carries her back to the house they are staying in. While she is unconscious, the Man with the Scarlet Eye finds her and almost kills her. Rusty interferes and saves her but is fatally burned. Paul and Sister arrive in town. Sister realizes that the ring has been leading her to Swan. When Swan touches the ring, it blazes with light. She envisions a land covered with plants, orchards, fruit, and flowers, and knows this is her life’s goal. She loses consciousness again, but this time she is very fevered. Swan’s hands heal almost immediately and her Job’s Mask breaks up and falls off, revealing a beautiful woman with fiery red hair. Other people’s Job’s Masks begin falling off, too, and what lies beneath reflects their true souls – most beautiful and strong, but there are some monsters, too. Josh develops a close relationship with a local woman, Glory, and her son Aaron. Despite a prickly start, Swan and Robin begin to fall in love. Aaron figures out how to use the dowsing rod Crybaby and it indicates a source of fresh untainted water. The man with the apple tree drives into town with a truckload of ripe apples and tosses them to a happy crowd. Swan and the residents of Mary’s Rest decide to plant an apple orchard to go along with the cornfield, which sprung up almost overnight and is growing vigorously. The Man with the Scarlet Eye introduces himself as “Friend” to the Army of Excellence and diverts them to Mary’s Rest with promises of clean water and Swan’s ability to grow food. They attack the town. Many residents, including Paul, are killed, and the AOE take Josh, Sister, Swan, Robin, and others captive. Swan and Sister are brought to Macklin, whose Mask has fallen off to reveal a hideous death’s head. Friend attempts to get the location of the glass ring from Sister, but is unable to get past her mental guards. Even under threat of the torture of her friends, Swan refuses to do anything for the AOE. She and Sister are thrown in with Sheila. Robin and Josh are kept as leverage on Swan and the AOE continues towards Warwick Mountain. Several weeks later, the AOE runs out of supplies and a much reduced army arrives at Warwick Mountain. Croninger’s Job’s Mask reveals a twisted horror which he continues to hide under bandages. He shifts his allegiance to Friend. Brother Timothy guides Sister, Swan, Friend, Macklin and Croninger to “God’s” bunker. Sister notices God’s cufflinks and recognizes him as the president, who crashed close by and was brought to the bunker by people who have since died. He has since gone insane. The bunker is revealed to be a location to launch a global final strike of nuclear missiles from satellite platforms. It is powered by hydro-electricity. The president has been waiting for any indication that the world is going to good or evil. Friend sees this as an opportunity to destroy the world and convinces the president to begin the launch sequence. Friend then kills the president, gloats about the situation, reveals his true face, tells Roland "I have always walked alone" and leaves, presumably to find a place to watch the destruction. Sister fights with Croninger, who shoots her and almost shoots Swan before being attacked by a conscience-stricken Macklin. They take each other down. Swan figures out the deactivation sequence and disarms the launch computer. She and Sister are rescued by Josh and Robin, who broke out of captivity shortly after the AOE arrived at Warwick Mountain. They leave the bunker, locking it behind them and throwing away the key. Mortally wounded, Sister notices her shadow and begs to be taken where she can see the sun. Josh, Swan, and Robin take her to a clearing where they watch the end of the nuclear winter as the clouds break up and the sun comes out. Sister tells Swan to work fast to wake up the earth. She then dies. Swan, Josh, and Robin bury her and climb down the mountain. They find the AOE in chaos and they leave in a truck with Sheila and some other people. They come across a farmer and his family planting seeds who offers them hospitality. Josh tells Swan that she needs to start her work here, but he is going ahead to Mary’s Rest. He arrives to the welcoming arms of Glory and Aaron. The story ends with humanity struggling back toward civilization, building settlements, and restoring order. The armies of violence become disarrayed and dissolve away. Swan’s ability to wake up the earth is the stuff of legends. She and Robin eventually make it to Mary’s Rest and have twins named Joshua and Sister. Swan continues her work healing the land, fostering cooperation, and bringing hope to humankind. |
4412934 | /m/0c0y82 | The Man Who Would Be Queen | J. Michael Bailey | 2003 | {"/m/01p4b_": "Popular science"} | The Man Who Would Be Queen is divided into three sections: The Boy Who Would Be Princess, The Man He Might Become, and Women Who Once Were Boys. It starts with an anecdote about a child Bailey calls "Danny." Bailey writes of Danny's mother, who has been frustrated by other therapists she has seen about her son's "feminine" behavior. Bailey discusses psychologist and sexologist Kenneth Zucker's work with children whose parents have noticed significant gender-atypical behaviors. Bailey uses the anecdote about Danny to describe gender identity disorder, a label applied to males with significant feminine behaviors and females with significant masculine behaviors, such as cross-dressing. For example, this class includes boys that prefer to play with dolls and regularly identify with female characters in stories or movies, and girls that prefer to play with toy cars and identify with male characters. This section of the book also discusses some case studies of men who were, for varying reasons, reassigned to the female sex shortly after their birth, and emphasizes the fact that, despite this, they tended to exhibit typically male characteristics and often identified as men. The second section deals primarily with gay men, including a suggested link between childhood GID and male homosexuality later in life. Bailey discusses whether homosexuality is a congenitally or possibly even genetically related phenomenon. This discussion includes references to Bailey's studies as well as those of neuroscientist Simon LeVay and geneticist Dean Hamer. He also discusses the behavior of gay men and its stereotypically masculine and feminine qualities. In the third section, Bailey summarizes a taxonomy of transsexual women that was proposed by Ray Blanchard about fifteen years earlier. According to Blanchard, there are two types of transsexual women: one described as an extreme form of male homosexuality, the other being motivated by a sexual interest in having a female body. Bailey also discusses the process by which transition from male to female occurs. On the last page of the book, Bailey meets "Danny", who no longer has gender identity disorder, and is living as a gay man. |
4414204 | /m/0c0__n | The Setting Sun | null | null | null | The story revolves around an aristocrat family who lost all of their money after World War II. The family consists of three people - Kazuko, Naoji and their mother. Naoji is a soldier in the South Pacific and is absent throughout much of the beginning of the novel. Kazuko was married once before, but divorced. The story starts out in the family's old house, with Kazuko's mother eating rationed food. Then Kazuko has a flashback to a time when she tried to burn snake eggs, thinking that they were viper eggs. It is revealed that at the time of Kazuko's father's death, there were many snakes present. Therefore, snakes have become ominous in her mother's eyes. After recalling the time Kazuko burned the eggs, she reveals that she feels a snake is growing inside of her own chest. The family eventually moves to the countryside and Kazuko begins to work in the fields. She claims to be growing into a "coarse woman" because of this. Naoji eventually returns, but is addicted to opium and is cruel to his mother and sister. He also goes out every night drinking. Kazuko finds Naoji's "Moonflower Journal," which he wrote when he had narcotic poisoning. It consists of pages upon pages of unconnected gripes about the world, and how people always lie. Kazuko falls for a novelist named Mr. Uehara, and writes three letters to him, claiming to love a man named M.C., while addressing the letter to him with two combinations of M.C. after his name. “My Chekhov” and “My Child”, showing that he was in fact the one she is referring to in the letters. He never responds. Soon after, her mother is diagnosed with tuberculosis. Kazuko finds a black snake on the porch and remembers how her father died when one was present. She yells at it, claiming to have already felt its vengeance, but it doesn’t go away. Her mother eventually passes away. After an outing with Mr. Uehara six years after she met him, she realizes that he also is not in the best health and calls him a victim. That morning, Kazuko finds out that her brother Naoji has committed suicide. In his suicide note, he reveals his reasons for not wanting to live anymore, and claims that humans have the right to choose whether or not they want to live or die. He also tells Kazuko about a woman he was in love with, but had difficulty writing her name. He finally reveals that her name is Suga. His last request is that he be buried in his mother's hemp kimono, something he had wanted to wear the next summer. In the last chapter, Kazuko claims that people keep leaving her. The story ends with a letter to Mr. Uehara. She reveals that she is pregnant, and that she will happily raise the child on her own. She has thrown away the old morality and is embracing a new way of life, very much like what all of Japan was going through. She says that they are "victims of a transitional period", and ends the letter addressing Mr. Uehara once again as M.C., My Comedian. |
4414851 | /m/0c10yg | Budding Prospects | T. Coraghessan Boyle | 5/3/1984 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Felix Nasmyth, the first person narrator, is a young man who, as he tells readers right at the beginning of the book, has "always been a quitter." Without any hopes for the future, he is persuaded by one of his few friends to take part in a "summer camp"—a secluded rural area in Mendocino County, California-and grow marijuana on a large scale. The illegal business venture seems doomed from the start, but for once Nasmyth decides to prove something to himself and follow through. In the end, after many misadventures, the venture is a failure. At the same time Nasmyth has made the acquaintance of a lovely girl and has fallen in love with her. He ends his narrative on an optimistic note, returning to the girl with plans to "plant a little seed." |
4420466 | /m/0c1c0j | The Rise of Silas Lapham | William Dean Howells | 1885 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The novel begins with Silas Lapham being interviewed for a newspaper profile, during which he explains his financial success in the mineral paint business. The Lapham family is somewhat self-conscious in their sudden rise on the social ladder and often fumble in their attempts at following etiquette norms. They decide to build a new home in the fashionable Beacon Hill neighborhood, and Lapham spares no expense ensuring it is at the height of fashion. Tom Corey, a young man from a well-respected high-class family, shows an interest in the Lapham girls; Mr. and Mrs. Lapham assume he is attracted to Irene, the beautiful younger daughter. Corey joins the Lapham's paint business in an attempt to find his place in the world, rather than rely on the savings of his father Bromfield Corey. The younger Corey, however, eventually reveals his love for Penelope, the older and more plain-looking daughter with an unusual sense of humor. Though Irene has feelings for Tom Corey, she feels it would be inappropriate to act on her feelings because her sister had assumed their marriage was inevitable. Silas Lapham's former business partner Milton K. Rogers reappears in his life, asking for money for a series of schemes. Mrs. Lapham urges her husband to support the man, whom he had pushed out of the paint company in what was deemed an inappropriate manner. Lapham's dealings with Rogers, however, result in a substantial financial loss. His major asset, the new home on Beacon Street, burns down before its completion. The Laphams are humbly forced to move to their ancestral home in the countryside, where the mineral paint was first developed. |
4420564 | /m/0c1c82 | Black Sun Rising | Celia S. Friedman | 11/1/1991 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | As they make their way north, they encounter a man by the name of Gerald Tarrant, who marks himself as the servant of the Hunter, a powerful Adept who lives in the middle of a vortex of Fae. He accompanies them for a time, for unexplained reasons. One night as the party rests at an inn near the Forest, they are accosted by the Soul Eaters responsible for Ciani's current condition. In the immense confusion of the battle, not helped by the mysterious appearance of a hooded woman who utilized the Tidal Fae, Tarrant loses self-control, and accidentally feeds upon the vulnerable Ciani, sapping her of her remaining memories. In a rage, Damien attempts to confront a strangely weakened Tarrant, who flees with Ciani. The two remaining of the party rush off to rescue Ciani from where she must have been taken; the Forest. The Priest and the Sorcerer manage to combat the dread creatures that feed on the Dark Fae swirling around the Forest, a winded Damien and a mortally wounded Senzei stumble upon an immense castle; a castle Damien eventually recognizes to be of Church-design. The Hunter's servants welcome them inside, and ask them to wait for their Master. To the surprise of all, the Hunter is none other than Gerald Tarrant himself; furthermore, Tarrant reveals himself to be the former Neocount of Merentha, and Prophet of the Church for Human Unification on Erna, Damien's church. While Damien buckles under this revelation, Zen succumbs to wounds he sustained from the dark beasts of the Forest, which the Hunter offers to cleanse. As payment, Tarrant demands to be allowed to accompany the three of them on their journey. The Hunter is an insurmountably arrogant man; the assault by the Soul Eaters made him feed upon Ciani, a woman he vowed not to harm. Ironically, part of the forces that protect his existence is his honor, and reneging on any vow he makes could destroy him. He refused to allow anyone to make a fool of him, for which he seeks to find the Master of the Soul Eaters in order to punish him. Damien grows conflicted: on the one hand, the oaths of his Order demand that he do what he can to destroy this evil standing before him, and entering into a pact with him would be the blackest anathema; yet without the Hunter's help, it was very likely that the three of them would not survive to find Ciani's violators. With a heavy heart, he accepts. The group then begin their way to the Rakhlands: a land inhabited by an intelligent and indigenous species of Erna called the Rakh. The Rakh are somewhat feline in appearance, but are very much humanoid, having evolved rapidly from their smaller, cat-like ancestors thanks to the appearance of the humans. They are primarily hostile to humans, given the latter's attempt at eradicating their race some hundreds of years ago. To enter the Rakhlands, the party must cross the Canopy, an odd anomaly in the Fae, where it fluctuates in intensity and power randomly and rapidly. As Gerald Tarrant relies upon the Fae to live, this crossing nearly kills him. While he survived, he is hopelessly weakened, and would require months to heal under normal circumstances. Knowing this, Damien volunteers to feed Tarrant, as the Adept would be useless in his current condition, and the group needed him to survive. Tarrant reluctantly accepts, chafing at the idea of having to rely on another for his continued existence, and establishes a link between them that would allow the Hunter to feed on Damien's fears. The Keeper sends a fae-born creature, Calesta, who uses Senzei's longing to be an Adept as a means to kill him. Calesta traps Tarrant with an image of his murdered wife, and binds him over a subterranean fire, where the Keeper of Souls feeds off his pain. Damien then must make a decision: should he rescue the Hunter, and unleash his evil power over the world again, or should he leave him to his fate and try to defeat the Keeper of Souls without an Adept's power? He ultimately decides to save Tarrant and worry about the consequences later. They defeat the Keeper of Souls by triggering an earthquake in the fault zone upon which the palace is built. As the party flees the Soul Eaters, they end up trapped in a dead-end tunnel. Tarrant collapses the tunnel, forming an escape route for Damien, Ciani, and Hesseth, exposing the Soul Eaters - and himself - to the killing sun. Damien and Ciani return with Hesseth to the rakh village, where Ciani chooses to stay. Damien is ready to head back to the human lands when he receives a surprising visitor: Gerald Tarrant, who had somehow managed to survive his exposure to sunlight. Damien asks the Hunter to join him in his journey to the Eastern Continent of Erna, where he believes the corruption that turned rakh into Soul Eaters originates. Tarrant refuses; he has been badly burned by the sun, and doesn't relish the thought of traveling miles above the earth fae, which cannot be reached through deep water, with the man who has sworn to kill him. But, after a visit from Calesta nearly results in the breaking of an oath he had sworn long ago, the Hunter changes his mind and goes with Damien. Their experiences in the Eastern Continent are documented in the next book, When True Night Falls. |
4420688 | /m/0c1cgq | When True Night Falls | Celia S. Friedman | 10/1/1993 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | In When True Night Falls, Damien, Hesseth, and Tarrant land on the shores of the Eastern Continent where the order of the Church have managed to subdue the unconscious working of the Fae. Consequently the technology of the civilization is far more advanced than the Western Continent as is seen by the casual use of explosive weapons and fireworks. While conversing with various leaders, the group learns that only women are allowed to rise to the highest ranks in the Eastern Church. Many rarely see the Matria or holy women of the Church except for odd snippets of time and it is discovered by the group that the Matria and holy women are in fact rakh disguised with tidal fae. After learning of the corruption starting on the Eastern Continent the group manage to trace it south, to the crystal palace of the Immortal Prince, and his Iezu servant, Calesta. Along the way, they rescue a young girl, Jenseny, whose father was killed and impersonated by the Prince's rakh servants. Jenseny is driven near to madness by events she has seen and her rare ability to see and control tidal fae. While scared and untrustful she manages to form a bond with Hesseth who is unable to bear children as was ritual to the rakh who journey away from their homes to mingle with humans. The Prince makes a deal with Tarrant; in return for immortality, the Hunter must lead Hesseth, Damien, and Jenseny into a trap. But there was one catch to the deal: the Immortal Prince's plans include the corruption of the Church, and the former Prophet is not willing to accept that. Meanwhile Damien, Hesseth and Jenseny cross a seemingly endless desert populated with scraggly white trees and skeletons. Damien is hesitant to cross the desert as the skeletons indicate some form of predator but sees nothing that could possibly pose a true threat. The group decides to cross and settle down for the night under a tree. Damien and Hesseth awaken to find that the tree's roots have begun to grow into their bodies. While at first they cannot move, they both eventually break free of the trees and find that Jenseny's body has also been invaded by the roots. Damien cut away the roots but feared that they might still be harmful to the young girl. The trio keeps traveling without rest to avoid the roots of the trees. They finally find rest on a granite outcropping. That evening when Gerald returns, he kills the roots of the tree that are still inside Jenseny. Damien then Heals the wounds that are left when Gerald is finished. Soon afterwards the group notice that there are large quadrupeds headed towards them with the intent purpose of killing them. In the escape that follows, Hesseth willingly gives up her life to save Jenseny - feeling that Jenseny was much akin to a child of her own and thereby willing to possess the greatest honor in sacrifice. Tarrant joins the group at nightfall and leads Damien and Jenseny into the trap in the Prince's lands but finds a way to smuggle a coldfire-worked knife into Damien's hands. Damien attempts to kill the Prince, but the Prince's soul jumps into the body of his rakh captain. Jenseny finds the coldfire knife, and, hiding it, makes a deal with the Immortal Prince: he can have her body, and with it, her ability to work the tidal fae, a newly evolved human trait. The Prince agrees, but just as he is entering her body, Jenseny weaves a bond between herself and the Prince, and sacrifices herself to kill the Prince. Following the Prince's death, Damien and Gerald Tarrant return north where civil unrest has broken out due to the revealing of the corruption in the Church. The new leader of the Church plans to purge the Eastern Continent which in turn infuriates Tarrant as that was not Tarrant's conception of the Church. However in Tarrant's confrontation with the new leader, Tarrant accidentally shares a "divining" of the possible fall of the Church thereby bringing the new leader to his senses and stopping the slaughter of thousands of innocent lives. By doing so, Tarrant breaks his oath to the Unnamed and endangers his life in the process - a fact Calesta is quick to catch on to. |
4421036 | /m/0c1c_g | Wing Commander: False Colors | Andrew Keith | 12/1/1998 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | The opening chapter centers on Commander Donald Graham, Chief Engineer of a Confederation cruiser, the TCS Juneau. She and her sister ship, the TCS Dover, are hotly engaged with the Kilrathi carrier KIS Karga, a Bhantkara-class super-carrier, whose group has launched a retaliatory strike against the Landreich. The Colonials and "Confees" together have succeeded in destroying most of the battle group, with the Karga retreating towards a backwater star system called Vaku, where the Juneau and Dover catch her. The Dover is lost and the Juneau crippled in weapons and engines, but the Karga is doomed: her shields are knocked out, consigning her crew to death from the Vaku system's bizarre high-level radiation. Admiral Largka Cakg dai Nokhtak of the Karga activates his ship's self-destruct and gives orders to ram the Juneau, hoping for an honorable end. The Juneau is crushed, with her surviving crew evacuating, but the Karga's main computer suffers a massive failure. The Kilrathi survivors commit zu'kara (ritual suicide), save a small team of specialists whom the Admiral evacuates aboard the only available shuttle. Murragh Cakg dai Nokhtak, nephew of the Admiral, is assigned as the group's leader. In the end both groups of survivors head for the only habitable planet of the Vaku system... Back on Earth, Jason "Bear" Bondarevsky, now a retired Commodore of the Terran Confederation Navy, is waiting for an upcoming meeting with Admiral Vance Richards, a well known Confederation Intelligence officer who has recently joined the ranks of the Free Republic of Landreich Navy. He is meeting with Richards to join the Landreich himself. In the company of Richards, Janet "Sparks" McCullough, who has faithfully taken care of Bondarevsky while he recuperated from the wounds suffered when the TCS Coventry was hit during the Behemoth mission, and a young Landreich officer by the name of Aengus Harper, Bondarevsky embarks for his new assignment with the FRLN. Along the way they are joined by Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn who also accepts to serve for the FRLN, albeit he is not fully committing to the Landreich, preferring to remain a Confederation officer. Once the group reaches the capital of the Landreich, they are welcomed by President Max Kruger who wastes no time in enlisting the former Confed officers into a secret effort he has nicknamed "Project Goliath." Tensions are growing between the Landreich and the nearest Kilrathi province, whose governor, Ukar dai Ragark, seems to be ambitious enough to start a new war against humanity. With this in mind, Kruger wants to salvage the derelict hulk of the KIS Karga, which his forces have recently discovered, and refit it for service in the FRLN. This mission is top secret, as Kruger wants to keep it secret from internal opposition who may hamper his attempt to recover the Karga. The Goliath team leaves for Vaku with the FRLS Independence carrier battle group, escorting a factory ship and a tender that will help salvage the Kilrathi carrier in deep space. On board the Independence Bondarevsky meets his former comrades Etienne "Doomsday" Montclair and Kevin "Lone Wolf" Tolwyn (the latter being Independence's Wing Commander) and also discovers that Independence is actually the TCS Tarawa, now recommissioned with the FRLN. In Kilrathi space, Ukar dai Ragark is introducing to his brethren the plan for the renewal of the conflict with the humans. He will unleash his fleet against the Landreich and then move to Earth to achieve what Thrakhath never did: destroy the Confederation. To reach this goal, Ragark has a secret weapon of sorts in Captain Dawx Jhorrad and his ship, the powerful dreadnought KIS Vorgath. To complicate matters, Terran "Peace Commissioner" Clark Williams is plotting alongside a number of other conspirators to restart the conflict: his "Belisarius Group" seeks to gain power through a military coup against the Confed government. They will launch their coup once Belisarius manages to have the Landreich crushed by Ragark's fleet under the civilian government's nose. In the Vaku system, Bondarevsky and the Goliath team investigate the remains of the Karga: the ship is badly damaged and will require a great deal of effort to make space-worthy again. Just as the team discovers some evidence of the battle's survivors, an unidentified ship appears nearby. After a few tense moments, the craft is found to be a Confed shuttle from Juneau, carrying both human and Kilrathi survivors: apparently the two groups managed to cooperate for survival on Vaku's marginally habitable world thanks to the efforts of their leaders, Commander Graham and Murragh. The survivors alert Bondarevsky that the carrier was rigged for explosion and reactivating the ship's computer will likely restart the self-destruct sequence; this convinces Richards and Bondarevsky to scrap the whole refit operation. Admiral Tolwyn doesn't agree and has Kruger back him up, ordering the Karga refitted, no matter the danger. Bondarevsky confronts his old mentor who reveals him the reason behind his decisions: shortly after the Battle of Earth he was approached by Belisarius, but declined to join their ranks. Instead Tolwyn tried to end the war with the Kilrathi as fast as he could, removing Belisarius's only excuse for conspiracy against the civilian government. Tolwyn believes the refitted Karga they will scare Ragark into behaving, keep the Landreich intact, and ruin Belisarius' plans once more. Bondarevsky is still dubious, but with Murragh's help, the Karga's self-destruct sequence is terminated and the refit begins in earnest. Back on Landreich, Commissioner Williams finds out about the "Goliath project" and arranges a raid against the Karga: Zach Banfeld, the leader of the Guild (an association of merchants/pirates), will attack with his makeshift carrier and fighter squadron. They will only disable the tender that provides shielding for the Kilrathi derelict, however, meaning Vaku's radiation, not human hands, will bring an end to the Colonials. Confident that Karga's engines are offline, Banfeld mounts an ambush on the carrier. While his forces succeed in destroying the tender, Karga was, by coincidence, testing its combat shields, and its crew is saved. Landreich fighters repel the Guild forces and the refit goes on. Banfeld then decides to travel to Baka Kar, the capital of Ragark's province, to convince the Kilrathi to attack. Once there, however, he notices the dreadnought KIS Vorgath and flees back to Landreich with the Kilrathi in pursuit. He stumbles upon an FRL battle group, which convinces the Kilrathi to retreat. Badly injured, Banfeld still manages to warn Kruger of the threat from the dreadnought. Kruger needs to take the Vorgath out of action, but Ragark is threatening an attack against a distant outpost of the Landreich and Kruger must stay there to meet the Kilrathi armada. In the end it is decide that the newly refitted Karga, now FRLS Mjollnir, disguised as a returning Kilrathi ship, will have to infiltrate Baka Kar, attack and cripple the Vorgath and escape back to Landreich. Under Tolwyn's command, Mjollnir manages to successfully disable the Vorgath and damage the orbital docking station, ruining Ragark's and Belisaruius's plans in one fell swoop. However Mjollnir and its fighter wing are trapped in the system by the return of Ragark's fleet; the Kilrathi despot has returned to investigate rumors about the returning Karga. All seems lost, but at the very last moment Kruger leads the whole FRLN fleet to Baka Kar; outmaneuvered, Ragark is forced to let the humans retreat safely. In the epilogue, Bondarevsky decides to remain in the FRLN aboard Mjollnir while Tolwyn returns to the Confederation after he has been appointed Chief of the "Strategic Readiness Agency". The Admiral hints at his secret "Black Lance" project, but feels Bondarevsky would not want to be part of it and decides not to tell him the whole truth. |
4424682 | /m/0c1m72 | Dragons' Wrath | Justin Richards | null | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | Bernice meets the Time Lord Irving Braxiatel and soon becomes involved in the hunt for a jewel thief who is after a rare artefact. |
4425162 | /m/0c1n77 | A Northern Light | Jennifer Donnelly | 4/1/2003 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature", "/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | A Northern Lights feisty sixteen-year-old narrator Mathilda "Mattie" Gokey has strong morals and is highly intelligent. She lives in the Adirondack Mountains of northern New York—the "North Woods" in her words—during 1906. Mattie dreams of going to Barnard College in New York City. While she is smart enough to go, she is not allowed. Her mother died and her brother Lawton left home because of a fight with their father. Later in the story the reader discovers that Lawton thinks his father killed their mother by working her too hard, giving her cancer. There is no one to work on the farm except Mattie and her three younger sisters, Abby, Lou, and Beth. Her family struggles with money, so they can't send a girl with two good working hands to college. Mattie's passion is reading and writing. Every day, she looks up a new word in her dictionary so that she can educate herself and become more articulate. Her best friend, Weaver Smith, is also intelligent and has large aspirations. Weaver is African-American and is as strong in math as Mattie is in literature. Weaver is the one who shows Mattie's writings to their teacher, Mrs. Wilcox, which prompts her to send an application to Barnard for Mattie. The application yields a "full scholarship" to Barnard but when she does the math she knows she can't afford to buy the books and a train ticket, or to leave her father with her three young sisters to run the farm. Mattie soon finds out that Mrs. Wilcox clandestinely writes feminist poetry, which is unwelcome in the world of literature. She writes about the lack of rights for women, which is a sensitive subject at the turn of the century. Many people think poorly of her but she keeps writing, encouraging Mattie to do the same. Mattie doesn't give up completely on going to college. Mother had made her promise to pursue knowledge, and Mattie intends to. She cleans her rich and nosy Aunt Josie's house every week and tries to ask her for money, but Aunt Josie tells Mattie she is being selfish to try and leave the farm and the family, like her brother Lawton. Aunt Josie refuses to give Mattie money. Mattie, a romantic, is jealous of her friend, Minnie's, loving relationship with her husband Jim. Later on in the novel, Mattie helps Minnie give birth to her twins. The novel is written in alternating chapters from the past and present. In the past, Mattie is explains her life on the farm; in the present she works at The Glenmore, a hotel on Big Moose Lake, to earn money during the summer. The body of Grace Brown is found in the lake near the hotel. Earlier that day, Grace had asked Mattie to burn a pack of letters. Mattie didn't have to time to burn them. She is drawn in by the mystery of what they might say, and she begins to read them. They reveal some shocking information about Grace's lover, Chester Gillette, who checked into the hotel as Carl Grahm. Grace was pregnant with Chester's child at the time, so he killed her. Royal Loomis is also a major part of this story. He has recently developed a crush on Mattie, but she can't figure out why. She thinks she is plain, bookish, and too smart for her own good. Even though Mattie knows she likes Royal, she continues to push him away because she doesn't think he likes her for the right reasons. Despite the rejection, it draws Royal even closer. Still young and naive, Royal's continuous advances make Mattie nervous, but she can't resist. She compares Royal to the characters in books she reads, and makes herself think that he is as heroic as the literary characters. He tries to connect with her by giving her a book. Unfortunately he chooses to give her a cookbook, which is a backhanded gift that shows he wants her to be just like other girls. Mattie is more confused than ever with Royal's insincere advances. Unfortunately, all of the mixed feelings that she has for Royal end up being pointless because in the end, he only likes her because he wanted to get a part of her land. Emmie Hubbard is Mattie's lonely, poor, and depressed neighbor who has seven children. Emmie is having an affair with a married man, Mr. Loomis (Royal's father). Royal resents the Hubbards. He thinks that his father treats them better than his own family. After Weaver's house was set on fire by the same people that murdered his father -taking all of his saved money with it- Emmie steps up and invites Weaver's mother to stay with her in her home. Now Emmie has a good, strong-willed woman to clean her up and help her with a business to make money. Weaver's mother has a place to stay where she is needed. In the end, Mattie makes the incredibly difficult choice to leave the North Woods and go to school in New York City. She leaves in the morning, and the only person she tells is Weaver. She writes three letters, one to her father, one to Royal, and one to Weaver's mother. To her father, she leaves two dollars and a promise that she will keep in touch. To Royal she leaves the ring that he gave to her when he proposed. Finally, to Weaver's mother she leaves just enough money to pay off Emmie's taxes. She also gives Weaver money for a train ticket to college. As her closest friend, Weaver does not want her to leave but he understands that she is going to make a better life for herself. Though she feels incredibly guilty for leaving, she can't help but also feel excited, scared, and willing. She has made her peace with Grace because she decided to show the letters to the world so now every one can see the true, tragic story of Grace Brown. She is now ready to leave it behind, and keep her life in the North Woods as a memory. |
4425997 | /m/0c1pn7 | Under Western Eyes | Joseph Conrad | 1911 | {"/m/037mh8": "Philosophy", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/05hgj": "Novel", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | As in many of Conrad's stories, the first-person narrator is somewhat removed from the action of the story; in this case, it is an old English professor of languages residing in Geneva, who has received the personal record of a young orphaned Russian student named Razumov. Razumov is a studious and career-motivated young man who keeps himself largely aloof from his peers. One day when he returns home, he finds a student acquaintance named Victor Haldin hiding in his apartment. Haldin informs Razumov that he has just committed a political assassination (which Conrad modeled after the real-life assassination of Vyacheslav von Plehve) and evaded the police. This news causes the single-minded Razumov to panic, as he has no sympathy for Haldin's actions and feels that all he has worked for is slipping away. Haldin requests Razumov to contact someone named Ziemianitch, who may be able to help Haldin escape successfully. Razumov is panic-stricken, but after much soul-searching agrees to help Haldin—primarily with the intention of getting him out of his apartment. When Razumov finds Ziemianitch in a drunken stupor and unable to assist Haldin he temporarily snaps. Then, in a panic stricken state of confusion, Razumov proceeds to go to the one person that may be able to assist him, his sponsor at the university. They decide to betray Haldin. Accordingly, they go to the chief of police, General T (whom Conrad modeled after real-life Petersburg police chief Fyodor Trepov). Subsequently a trap is laid for Haldin, and Razumov finds himself taking the first step to becoming a secret agent, although at this time he has no such intention. The narrative then shifts to Geneva where Natalia Haldin, the sister of the executed revolutionary, receives the tragic news via the professor of languages, who has become her tutor and friend and who reads of Victor Haldin's demise in the English newspaper. In his last correspondence to his sister, Victor Haldin mentioned a certain serious young man named Razumov who was kind to him. Nathalie soon learns that Razumov is scheduled to arrive in Switzerland, and she impatiently awaits the arrival of her late brother's final friend. Razumov comes distressed to Geneva, though he is received warmly by the Russian revolutionist community there, who are planning an insurgency in the Baltic regions. No one knows that Razumov betrayed Haldin, and that he has been sent as a secret agent of the Tsarist regime. Though he is supposed to be penetrating the revolutionary colony in order to access its secrets, Razumov is unable to contain his fits of aggression and sneering toward the left-wing leaders, who are puzzled but continue to trust the young man. It is ultimately revealed that the cause of Razumov's outbursts is his love for Natalie Haldin, who he sees on her daily walks. Never having experienced any kind of warmth or affection from another person, he is long unable to recognize the emotion in himself; when he finally does, he reveals the truth to Natalie and to the revolutionaries, and suffers the consequences for his betrayal. (When Conrad began writing, he planned to have Razumov marry Natalie, have a child, and finally confess years later.) |
4426099 | /m/0c1px5 | Acorna's People | Elizabeth Ann Scarborough | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | In the book, Acorna has finally been reunited with her people - the Linyaari -and has travelled to the new homeworld of her people Narhii - Vhiliinyar to learn about her lost culture. However, she is distinctly different from her people due to her unusual upbringing, and most are not accepting of her. The only people who really befriend her are her aunt, Neeva and her shipmates, and the oldest Linyaari Grandam Naadiina, as well as the young girl named Maati. All of her friends on the ship Balakiire are called away on Acorna's first day on her planet, to investigate the loss of communication with certain off-world Linyaari colonies. This loss of communication soon spreads, and more ships are launched, but all join the missing and soon the fate of her spacefaring friends is placed in Acorna's hands. |
4426152 | /m/0c1p__ | Acorna's World | Elizabeth Ann Scarborough | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | Having come to understand her Linyaari past, Acorna has become a member of the crew of the Condor, a salvage ship. The crew consists of the mildly eccentric Captain Becker, the ship's feline first mate RK (otherwise known as Roadkill), and Aari, a Linyaari who is still scarred physically and emotionally from his capture and subsequent torture by the Khleevi. While searching space for salvage, they come across the wreck of a ship with information indicating that the Khleevi are on the move in that sector of space, and may come to the Linyaari homeworld of Narhii-Viliinyar before long. Acorna and her friends must now warn their people and find a way to stop the oncoming Khleevi horde. |
4427536 | /m/0c1sh2 | Stumbling on Happiness | Daniel Gilbert | 2006 | {"/m/05qfh": "Psychology", "/m/05h83": "Non-fiction"} | Gilbert's central thesis is that, through perception and cognitive biases, people imagine the future poorly, in particular what will make them happy. He argues that imagination fails in three ways: # Imagination tends to add and remove details, but people do not realize that key details may be fabricated or missing from the imagined scenario. # Imagined futures (and pasts) are more like the present than they actually will be (or were). # Imagination fails to realize that things will feel different once they actually happen -- most notably, the psychological immune system will make bad things feel not so bad as they are imagined to feel. The advice Gilbert offers is to use other people's experiences to predict the future, instead of imagining it. It is surprising how similar people are in much of their experiences, he says. He does not expect too many people to heed this advice, as our culture, accompanied by various thinking tendencies, is against this method of decision making. Also, Gilbert covers the topic of 'filling in' or the frequent use of patterns, by the mind, to connect events which we do actually recall with other events we expect or anticipate fit into the expected experience. This 'filling in' is also used by our eyes and optic nerves to remove our blind spot or scotoma, and instead substitute what our mind expects to be present in the blind spot. This accessible book is written for the layperson, generally avoiding abstruse terminology and explaining common quirks of reasoning through the simple experiments that exploited them (this excludes the term "super-replicator"). |
4433706 | /m/0c24c4 | The Case of the Late Pig | Margery Allingham | 1937 | {"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | As Lugg is reading aloud the obituaries one morning, he comes across one for an old school nemesis of Campion. Remarkably, an anonymous letter inviting Campion to the funeral has also appeared in the morning post. R.I. “Pig” Peters is dead. So says the doctor that treated him. Five months later, Campion receives a panicked call from a friend, something about a murder. Campion drives down to the friend’s home where her father reveals the most assuredly dead body of R.I. “Pig” Peters, his head caved in no more than 12 hours earlier. Amazingly enough, some of the visitors from Peters' first funeral also appear, along with some not-so-grieving acquaintances of the late Pig. The little village is becoming very crowded. Now begins Campion’s search, which leads to a missing body, a grisly scarecrow and one too many beers for Lugg before he discovers the madman that planned more than a few murders. This is the only story told from Campion's point-of-view. |
4433774 | /m/0c24jc | The 13 Clocks | James Thurber | 1/1/1950 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The evil Duke of Coffin Castle lives with his good and beautiful niece, the princess Saralinda. A few days before Saralinda's twenty-first birthday, Prince Zorn of Zorna arrives in the town disguised as a minstrel named Xingu. After meeting an enigmatic character known as the Golux, who declares his intention to help Zorn rescue the Princess, Zorn gets himself arrested and imprisoned. The Duke gives Zorn the task of finding a thousand jewels. However, the Duke was aware of Zorn's identity all along; therefore, to prevent Zorn from simply traveling to his father's kingdom and back again, the Duke only allows him 99 hours to complete the task. To complicate things further, the Duke commands that when Zorn returns, the thirteen irrevocably frozen clocks in the castle must all be striking five. Zorn and the Golux travel to the home of Hagga, a woman with the ability to weep jewels, only to discover that she was made to weep so much that she is no longer able to cry. As the realization that they have failed sets in, Hagga begins to laugh inexplicably until she cries, producing an abundance of jewels. The Golux counts out a thousand, and they return to the castle after thanking her. At the castle, the Duke reveals to his servant Hark that he kidnapped Saralinda as a child and that she is not actually his niece. Under the conditions of a spell cast on the Duke as he fled with the Princess, the Duke may not marry Saralinda until she is twenty-one; furthermore, the spell prophecies that the Duke will be destroyed and Saralinda saved by a man whose name begins with x and doesn't. Hark reminds the confident Duke that Zorn was called Xingu while he was posing as a minstrel, and therefore he is the man mentioned in the spell. While the furious Duke and his men are fighting Zorn, the Golux and the Princess sneak throughout the castle to each of the thirteen clocks, using Saralinda's beauty and warmth to start them once more. Presented with the thousand jewels and the sound of the thirteen clocks striking, the Duke is forced to admit defeat. Zorn and the Princess happily depart to the distant shores of ever after. A fortnight later, while the Duke is gloating over his jewels, they melt back into Hagga's tears. The angry Duke is then confronted by a nightmarish creature called the Todal, sent by the devil to punish him. Faced with his failure and the loss of his jewels, the wrathful Duke attacks the Todal. The story ends with Hark entering an empty room to find the Duke's sword on the floor and a puddle of tears dripping from the table; he can just make out the sound of someone laughing. |
4433885 | /m/0c24sn | Bones of the Moon | Jonathan Carroll | 5/31/1987 | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Living in New York, Cullen James's best wishes were being fulfilled. Her best friend marries her; she travels in Europe; she has a baby daughter. But strange dreams begin to intrude. By night, in dreams, she begins to visit a strange land called Rondua, where the sea is full of fish with mysterious names, where she and a huge, behatted dog escort a young boy named Pepsi across places such as the Northern Stroke, the Mountains of Coin and Brick, the Plain of Forgotten Machines. As her days become more disjointed and episodic, her dreams grow in intensity, and she learns more about the adversary she and her dream friends race against, searching for the last of the Bones of the Moon. Bit by bit, the events in Rondua start affecting her life on earth, intersecting in unpleasant, then frightening ways. |
4435553 | /m/0c2730 | Two Years' Vacation | Jules Verne | 1888 | {"/m/08sdrw": "Adventure novel"} | The story starts with a group of schoolboys aged between eight and Fourteen on board a schooner moored at Auckland, New Zealand, and preparing to set off on a six-week vacation. With the exception of the oldest boy Gordon, an American, and Briant and Jack, two French brothers, all the boys are British. While the schooner's crew are ashore, the moorings are cast off under unknown circumstances and the ship drifts to sea, where it is caught by a storm. Twenty-two days later, the boys find themselves cast upon the shore of an uncharted island, which they name "Chairman Island." They go on many adventures and even catch wild animals while trying to survive. They remain there for the next two years until a passing ship sinks in the close vicinity of the island. The ship had been taken over by mutineers, intent on trafficking weapons, alcohol, and drugs. With the aid of two of the surviving members of the original crew, the boys are able to defeat the mutineers and make their escape from the island, which they find out is close to the Chilean coast (Hanover-Island located at 50°56’ S, 74°47’ W). The struggles for survival and dominance amongst the boys were to be echoed in William Golding's Lord of the Flies, written some 66 years later. |
4438055 | /m/0c2d6w | Tau Zero | Poul Anderson | 1970 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | Tau Zero follows the crew of the starship Leonora Christine, a colonization vessel crewed by 25 men and 25 women aiming to reach a distant star system. The ship is powered by a Bussard ramjet, which was proposed shortly before Anderson wrote the book. This engine is not capable of faster-than-light travel, and so the voyage is subject to relativity and time dilation: the crew will spend 5 years on board, but 33 years will pass on the Earth before they arrive at their destination. The ship accelerates during the first half of the journey and decelerates during the second. However, it collides with a nebula before the half-way point, damaging the deceleration module. Since the engines must be kept running to provide particle/radiation shielding, and because of the hard radiation produced by the engines, the crew can neither repair the decelerator nor turn off the accelerator. The text consists of narrative prose interspersed with paragraphs in which Anderson explains the scientific basis of relativity, time dilation, the ship's mechanics and details of the cosmos outside. As there is no hope of completing the original mission, the crew increase acceleration even more; they need to leave the Milky Way altogether in order to reach a region where the local gas density, and the concomitant radiation hazard, are low enough that they can repair the decelerator. The ship's ever-increasing velocity brings the time dilation to extreme levels and takes the crew further and further away from any possibility of contact with humanity. The initial plan is to locate and land on a suitable planet in another galaxy. Millions of years would have passed since their departure, and in any case they would be millions of light years from Earth. However, they find the vacuum of intergalactic space insufficient for safety; they must instead travel to a region between superclusters of galaxies to make repairs. They do, but the extremely thinly spread matter is then too dispersed to use for deceleration. They must wait, flying free but essentially without the ability to change course, until they randomly encounter enough galactic matter to try to decelerate enough to search for habitable planets. To make the waiting time shorter, they continue accelerating through the first several galaxies they encounter, more and more closely approaching the speed of light with tau decreasing closer and closer to zero. The storyline is similar to that of the long poem and later opera Aniara, in which the ship was unable to stop and doomed to travel endlessly, but Tau Zero has a more upbeat ending (albeit one that does not conform to modern thinking on the evolution of the universe). By the time the ship is repaired, tau has decreased to less than a billionth and the crew experience "billion-year cycles which passed as moments". But by the time that they are ready to attempt to find a future home, they realize that the universe is approaching a big crunch. The universe collapses into a cosmic egg (which the starship survives because there is still enough uncondensed hydrogen for maneuvering, outside the monobloc) and then explodes in a new big bang. The voyagers then decelerate, examining potential star systems. They eventually disembark at a planet with a habitat suitably similar to Earth, on which the vegetation has a vivid bluish-green color. |
4439345 | /m/0c2gx1 | Big Planet | Jack Vance | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | Big Planet had been colonized hundreds of years prior to the start of the novel by misfits, faddists, cultists and anti-government advocates from Earth. It devolved into a large number of technologically backward societies, many of them ruled by petty tyrants and prey to internecine warfare. Investigators from Earth, headed by protagonist Claude Glystra, arrive to start putting things right – to stop the importation of arms and halt Big Planet's slave trade – only to have their starship sabotaged. It crashes near a quaint village called Jubilith, and Glystra, one of the survivors, awakens to the jewel-bright morning light of a flowery mountain slope--with a view "vast beyond Earthly conception." Unfortunately, Jubilith is near the territory of Charley Lysidder, the Bajarnum of Beaujolais, one of the worst and most ambitious of tyrants. The survivors attempt to reach the only safe spot on Big Planet, Earth Enclave, forty thousand miles away. Already at odds with each other, the dwindling team begins to revert to the social level of the rest of Big Planet as Lysidder tries to pick them off. Among the many societies benign or bizarre that Glystra and his companions encounter along the wind-driven monoline (their version of the yellow brick road), is the quasi-utopian society of Kirstendale. At first, it appears to be based on snobbish principles, but an odd twist reveals it to be surprisingly egalitarian. |
4440621 | /m/0c2k5h | A Long Way from Chicago | Richard Peck | 9/1/1998 | {"/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The stories involve several vacations. Two children, Joey and Mary Alice Dowdel, spend time every summer with their resilient grandmother in rural Illinois. "Shotgun Cheatham's Last Night Above Ground - 1929" (originally printed in Twelve Shots: Stories About Guns, 1997). The first summer the children go to their grandmother's house alone a reporter is doing a report on a resident of the town who has just died, Shotgun Cheatham. Grandma holds an open house for Shotgun and lies to the reporter by saying he was a war hero. Grandma's enemy, Effie Wilcox, comes too but then the coffin begins to move. Ms. Wilcox and the reporter run out, but it turns out that it was the cat who moved the coffin. "The Mouse in the Milk - 1930." The next summer, the Cowgill boys are tormenting the town and blow up Grandma's mailbox. Grandma tells one of the boys she won't be home for her daily milk delivery, knowing the boys would try to steal something from her. That night she turns the lights off and waits for them to come and steal; she catches them and has Joey get their parents. Grandma tells Mr. Cowgill that if his boys won't stop she'll tell everyone that she found a mouse in her milk, running his business to the ground. "A One-Woman Crime Wave - 1931". Grandma uses fish traps (which are illegal) to get catfish from the lake while using the sheriff's boat (which she stole) to feed to drifters. "The Day of Judgment - 1932". Grandma's gooseberry pie goes up against Rupert Pennypacker's for her town's honor and a flight in a biplane. Grandma switches the nameplates on the pies at the last minute. Rupert Pennypacker wins the contest with Grandma's pie, but Grandma still finds a way to get Joey a ride. "The Phantom Brakeman - 1933". Mismatched families of local lovers converge on Grandma's house and she uses an old ghost story to aid them. Vandalia Eubanks and Junior Stubbs run away together with the help of "The Phantom Brakeman" (Joey) and Grandma. "Things with Wings - 1934". While Joey is having a love affair with a Hudson Terraplane 8, Grandma is finding a way to force banker Mr. Weidenbach to return Mrs. Effie Wilcox to her foreclosed home with rumors of Abe Lincoln. "Centennial Summer - 1935". Grandma has a showdown with Mrs. Weidenbach about whose family has the most talent and the county's oldest living veteran. "The Troop Train - 1942". Joey joins the army air corps because he loves airplanes. He sends a telegram to Grandma telling her that he was passing through her town. When the train comes by, Joey sees Grandma's house lit up and Grandma herself waving to each and every cart passing by, hoping that he would see her, too. Joey waves back and goes off to fight in World War II. |
4442073 | /m/0c2mfg | Expendable | James Alan Gardner | 1997 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | The year is 2452. Festina Ramos is an Explorer, assigned to the Technocracy Fleet ship Jacaranda. Her specific physical "qualification" for her job is a large port-wine birthmark on her right cheek. She and her fellow Explorer and partner Yarrun Derigha (who is missing half his jaw) are the two Explorers assigned to the ship; they lead the isolated existence typical of Explorers, isolated from the healthy and attractive members of the fleet as from the "beautiful people" of the larger society. Then Festina and Yarrun are plunged into a crisis: they are assigned to escort a Fleet admiral named Chee to planet Melaquin. Melaquin is the great question mark in the Technocracy's domain: for forty years Explorers have landed there, only to lose contact and disappear, cause unknown. The High Council has now acquired the habit of sending its troublesome admirals to Melaquin in the company of a team of Explorers, to rid itself of embarrassments without scandal or controversy. The fact that Explorers are lost in the process is accepted—since Explorers are expendable. Admiral Chee is precisely the kind of embarrassment the high council wants to dispose of, quickly and quietly. Well beyond the century mark in age, when doses of Youthboost are no longer effective in prolonging his life and health, he is "clearly unstable, possibly senile"—or else "suffering from Don't-give-a-shit-itis". Though they try to avoid the duty, and then concoct a plan of escape from their apparent sentence to oblivion, Festina and Yarrun must accompany Chee to the surface of Melaqiuin. There, things go quickly and badly wrong: Festina accidentally kills Yarrun while attempting an emergency tracheotomy, Chee dies of a stroke, and Festina is cut off from her ship, alone on Melaquin. The planet reveals itself to be amazingly Earth-like—so much so that it is clearly not natural, but a result of terraforming and genetic modification. Festina quickly meets one of the inhabitants of the planet—"A nude woman made of glass...like an Art Deco figurine." Their meeting does not go as the Explorer corps intends for first-contact situations. Eventually, though, the two establish contact; the glass woman introduces herself: "My name is Oar. An oar is an implement used to propel boats." She has learned English from the previous Explorers who came to the planet. A product of sophisticated genetic engineering, she is human, but flawlessly beautiful and possessing enhanced strength and intelligence; yet she has the emotional maturity of a spoiled child. Through Oar, Festina gains contact with the dying subsurface civilization that lingers on Melaquin, begins to unravel the mysteries of the planet, and pursues the trail of the Explorers who came before her. Now "friends", Festina and Oar set off in search of the other Explorers and the truth behind Admiral Chee and the high council's involvement with Melaquin. The two find the Explorers building a spaceship; if the Explorers can get to interstellar space and send a distress call, the rules of the League may mandate that they be rescued and returned to society—if the Fleet does not stop them first. In due course Festina meets an old flame (a cross between a schoolgirl crush and the love of her life), who reveals himself to be a profound danger instead of a welcome ally. Oar sacrifices herself for her friend, and Festina manages to return to the Fleet and the Technocracy in a way she could never have anticipated. |
4445142 | /m/0c2s_1 | The Hedgehog and the Fox | Isaiah Berlin | 1953 | null | Berlin expands upon this idea to divide writers and thinkers into two categories: hedgehogs, who view the world through the lens of a single defining idea (examples given include Plato, Lucretius, Dante, Pascal, Hegel, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Ibsen, and Proust) and foxes who draw on a wide variety of experiences and for whom the world cannot be boiled down to a single idea (examples given include Herodotus, Aristotle, Erasmus, Shakespeare, Montaigne, Molière, Goethe, Pushkin, Balzac, Joyce, Anderson). Turning to Tolstoy, Berlin contends that at first glance, Tolstoy escapes definition into one of these two groups. He postulates, rather, that while Tolstoy's talents are those of a fox, his beliefs are that one ought to be a hedgehog, and thus Tolstoy's own voluminous assessments of his own work are misleading. Berlin goes on to use this idea of Tolstoy as a basis for an analysis of the theory of history that Tolstoy presents in his novel War and Peace. The essay has been published separately and as part of the collection Russian Thinkers, edited by Henry Hardy and Aileen Kelly. |
4447261 | /m/0c2ytm | The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin | Beatrix Potter | 1903-08 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Squirrel Nutkin, his brother Twinkleberry, and their many cousins sail to Owl Island on little rafts they have constructed of twigs. They offer resident owl Old Brown a gift and ask his permission to do their nut-collecting on his island. Nutkin however dances about impertinently singing a silly riddle. Old Brown pays no attention to Nutkin, but permits the squirrels to go about their work. Every day for six days, the squirrels offer gifts to Old Brown, and every day as well, Nutkin taunts the owl with another sing-song riddle. Eventually, Nutkin annoys Old Brown once too often. The owl seizes Nutkin and tries to skin him alive. Nutkin escapes, but not without losing most of his tail. |
4450814 | /m/0c33q8 | Mr. Mixie Dough | null | null | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | The story is about Mr. Mixie Dough, who "lives away up in the sky in a place called "Behind-The-Clouds-Town". But unhappiness creeps over the town because the King Misty "cannot get a Happiness cake for his little boy's birthday." Mr. Mixie Dough, along with all of the other bakers, compete in making a "Happiness birthday cake" for the King's son's birthday. Many bakers offer their cakes to the King only to find that he is not happy with the result. That is until Mr. Mixie Dough presents his cake. The King smiled after the very first bite and announced "SIR Mixie Dough, the baker man... shall be made Royal Baker to the King and shall bake us a Happiness cake every day." There are short sing-songs throughout the story and a recipe for the Happiness Cake. Much of the book is made up of full-page drawings of colorful Goofs preparing and baking the Happiness cake for King Misty. Pictographs appear between words (such as a drawing of clouds after the word clouds; a silhouette of Mr. Mixie Dough). There is no UPC, nor is there an ISBN printed on the book. Mr. Mixie Dough is now a rare collector's item that has been sold for $100-$750, depending on condition. |
4451267 | /m/0c34ct | Twilight | Stephenie Meyer | 10/5/2005 | {"/m/0kflf": "Vampire fiction", "/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature", "/m/01qxvh": "Romance novel", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Isabella "Bella" Swan moves from sunny Phoenix, Arizona to rainy Forks, Washington to live with her father, Charlie, while her mother, Renée, travels with her new husband, Phil Dwyer, a minor league baseball player. Bella attracts much attention at her new school and is quickly befriended by several students. Much to her dismay, several boys compete for shy Bella's attention. When Bella is seated next to Edward Cullen in class on her first day of school, Edward seems utterly repulsed by her. He disappears for a few days, but warms up to Bella upon his return; their newfound relationship reaches a climax when Bella is nearly crushed by a classmate's van in the school parking lot. Edward saves Bella when he instantaneously appears next to her and stops the van with his bare hands. Bella becomes determined to discover how Edward saved her life, and constantly pesters him with questions. After a family friend, Jacob Black, tells her the local tribal legends, Bella concludes that Edward and his family are vampires who drink animal blood rather than human. Edward confesses that he initially avoided Bella because the scent of her blood was too desirable to him. Over time, Edward and Bella fall in love. Their relationship is affected when a nomadic vampire coven arrives in Forks. James, a tracker vampire who is intrigued by the Cullens' relationship with a human, wants to hunt Bella for sport. The Cullens attempt to distract James by separating Bella and Edward, and send Bella to hide in a hotel in Phoenix. There, Bella receives a phone call from James, who claims to be holding her mother captive. When Bella surrenders herself, James attacks her. Before James can kill her, Edward, along with the other Cullens, rescues her and destroy James, but not before James bites Bella's hand. Edward successfully sucks the poison from her bloodstream and prevents her from becoming a vampire, after which she is taken to a hospital. Upon returning to Forks, Bella and Edward attend their school prom, and Bella expresses her desire to become a vampire, but Edward refuses. |
4451714 | /m/0c3530 | Halo: Ghosts of Onyx | Eric S. Nylund | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | The story begins with a group of SPARTAN-IIIs being deployed to a Covenant fleet refueling depot in the year 2545. The soldiers destroy the facility, but all save two of the three hundred SPARTANs are killed. The narrative then moves back to 2531, where SPARTAN-IIs are deployed against human insurrectionists; though the team is almost captured, the timely intervention of Kurt-051 allows the team to complete their mission. Meanwhile, Colonel James Ackerson meets with the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI). Ackerson announces his plan to create a new breed of SPARTANs which retains much of the supersoldiers' effectiveness, without the high price tag of the SPARTAN-II program. These SPARTAN-IIIs are trained by Franklin Mendez, as well as Kurt-051. With his death staged by ONI, Kurt-051 is placed in full charge of SPARTAN-III training, under the name and rank of Lieutenant Kurt Ambrose. The SPARTAN-III project is carried out on a secret ONI planet named Onyx, where there is also an archaeological excavation of ancient Forerunner ruins in an area known as "Zone 67". When a company of SPARTAN-IIIs goes missing in Zone 67, it is declared off-limits to all personnel. Like the SPARTAN-IIs, the SPARTAN-III candidates undergo radical cybernetic and biological enhancements and are outfitted with special armor to increase their abilities. The first SPARTAN-III company proves highly successful, but is wiped out when ordered to destroy a Covenant orbital shipyard in 2537. Shaken by the massacre of his troops, Kurt improves the training regimen for his next batch of SPARTAN-III recruits, but they too are all killed in action so Kurt, in an effort to reduce casualties, institutes illegal biological modifications on the third company of SPARTANs. While conducting a training exercise near Zone 67, UNSC personnel find themselves under attack by alien robotic drones. Meanwhile, Dr. Catherine Halsey, the SPARTAN-II project's creator, along with the SPARTAN Kelly-087 arrive in the Onyx system. As they near the surface of the planet they are attacked by more robot drones and crash, meeting up with the human survivors of the attacks. Halsey identifies the robotic drones as Forerunner Sentinels from the artificial intelligence Cortana's logs of the events of Halo: Combat Evolved. Halsey sends a message back to Earth, which is under attack by Covenant; in response, Lord Hood sends the SPARTAN-IIs Fred-104, Linda-058, and Will-043 to Onyx. At the Forerunner ringworld Delta Halo, the Covenant are in the midst of a war. Elites intercept Halsey's distress signal and learn of the existence of Onyx and its Forerunner technology. Both the Covenant and the UNSC forces which arrive at Onyx are attacked by Sentinels. The entire UNSC fleet at Onyx is destroyed by the ensuing battle, save for one stealth ship, the Dusk, which stays hidden, observing the events. The remaining human forces on Onyx discover a Forerunner city being rapidly uncovered by the Sentinels, and are guided into a massive sphere by Dr. Halsey. She determines that the entire planet is actually a "Shield World" constructed by the Forerunners to protect themselves from the firing of the Halo ringworlds, which are designed to eradicate all sentient life. Fighting off Covenant pursuers, the humans discover an entrance leading to a Dyson Sphere. Kurt remains behind in order to detonate two nuclear weapons to stop the Covenant from following the humans into the Sphere. Hiding at a distance from Onyx, the Dusk watches as Onyx's surface rips apart to reveal that the entire world is constructed of Sentinels, all connected together to provide an impenetrable defense around the Dyson Sphere at the heart of the planet. The Sentinels annihilate the remaining Covenant fleet vessels orbiting the planet and the Prowler retreats. Fred, now inside the Dyson Sphere, takes command of the survivors and orders everyone to search for method of escape. |
4455728 | /m/0c3ds_ | Manalive | G. K. Chesterton | 1912 | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/02yq81": "Comic novel", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01z4y": "Comedy"} | This is a book in two parts. The first, “The Enigma of Innocent Smith,” concerns the arrival of a new tenant at Beacon House, a London boarding establishment. Like Mary Poppins, this man (who is tentatively identified by lodger Arthur Inglewood as an ex-schoolmate named Innocent Smith) is accompanied by a great wind, and he breathes new life into the household with his games and antics. During his first day in residence the eccentric Smith creates the High Court of Beacon; arranges to elope with Mary Gray, paid companion to heiress Rosamund Hunt; inspires Inglewood to declare his love for Diana Duke, the landlady’s niece; and prompts a reconciliation between jaded journalist Michael Moon and Rosamund. However, when the household is at its happiest two doctors appear with awful news: Smith is wanted on charges of burglary, desertion of a spouse, polygamy, and attempted murder. The fact that Smith almost immediately fires several shots from a revolver at Inglewood’s friend Dr. Herbert Warner seems to confirm the worst. Before Smith can be taken to a jail or an asylum, Michael Moon declares that the case falls under the purview of the High Court of Beacon and suggests that the household investigate the matter before involving the authorities or the press. The second part, “The Explanations of Innocent Smith,” follows the trial. The prosecution consists of Moses Gould, a merrily cynical Jew who lives at Beacon House and considers Smith at best a fool and at worst a scoundrel, and Dr. Cyrus Pym, an American criminal specialist called in by Dr. Warner; Michael Moon and Arthur Inglewood act for the defense. The evidence consists of correspondence from people who witnessed or participated in the exploits that led to the charges against Smith. In every case, the defendant is revealed to be, as his first name states, innocent. He fires bullets near people to make them value life; the house he breaks into is his own; he travels around the world only to return with renewed appreciation for his house and family; and the women he absconded with are actually his wife Mary, posing as a spinster under different aliases so they may repeatedly re-enact their courtship. Smith is, needless to say, acquitted on all charges. |
4456060 | /m/0c3fct | Marius the Epicurean | Walter Pater | 1885 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/037mh8": "Philosophy"} | Marius, a sensitive only child of a patrician family, growing up near Luna in rural Etruria, is impressed by the traditions and rituals of the ancestral religion of the Lares, by his natural surroundings, and by a boyhood visit to a sanctuary of Aesculapius. His childhood ends with the death of his mother (he had early lost his father) and with his departure for boarding school in Pisae. As a youth he is befriended by and falls under the influence of a brilliant, hedonistic older boy, Flavianus, who awakens in him a love of literature (the two read with delight the story of Cupid and Psyche in Apuleius, and Pater in due course makes Flavian, who is "an ardent student of words, of the literary art", the author of the Pervigilium Veneris). Flavian falls ill during the Festival of Isis and Marius tends him during his long death-agony (end of 'Part the First'). Grown to manhood, Marius now embraces the philosophy of the 'flux' of Heraclitus and the Epicureanism (or Cyrenaicism) of Aristippus. He journeys to Rome (166 AD), encountering by chance on the way a blithesome young knight, Cornelius, who becomes a friend. Marius explores Rome in awe, and, "as a youth of great attainments in Greek letters and philosophy", is appointed amanuensis to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Aurelius's Meditations on Stoicism and on Plato, and the public lectures of the rhetorician Fronto, open Marius' eyes to the narrowness of Epicureanism. Aurelius's indifference, however, to the cruelty to animals in the amphitheatre, and later to the torments inflicted on people there, causes Marius to question the values of Stoicism (end of 'Part the Second'). Disillusioned with Rome and the imperial court which seem "like some stifling forest of bronze-work, transformed as if by malign enchantment out of the living trees", puzzled by the source of Cornelius's serenity, still Epicurean by temperament but seeking a more satisfying life-philosophy, Marius makes repeated visits alone to the Campagna and Alban Hills, on one occasion experiencing in the Sabine Hills a sort of spiritual "epiphany" on a perfect day of peace and beauty (end of 'Part the Third'). Later he is taken by Cornelius to a household in the Campagna centred on a charismatic young widow, Cecilia, where prevails an atmosphere of peace and love, gradually revealing itself as a new religion with liturgy and rituals that appeal aesthetically and emotionally to Marius. The sense of purposeful community there, set against the persecution of Christians by the authorities and the competing philosophical systems in Rome, contributes to Marius' mood of isolation and emotional failure. Overshadowed by thoughts of mortality he revisits home and pays his respects to the family dead, burying their funerary urns, and sets out again for Rome in Cornelius's company. On the way the two are arrested as part of a sweep of suspected Christians. It emerges that only one of the young men is of this sect, and Marius, unbeknown to Cornelius, makes their captors believe it is he. Cornelius is set free, deceived into thinking that Marius will follow shortly. The latter endures hardship and exhaustion as he journeys captive towards Rome, falls ill, and dying is abandoned by his captors. "Had there been one to listen just then," Pater comments, "there would have come, from the very depth of his desolation, an eloquent utterance at last, on the irony of men's fates, on the singular accidents of life and death." Marius is tended in his last days by some poor country people, secret believers who ironically take him to be one of their own. Though he has shown little interest in the doctrines of the new faith and dies more or less in ignorance of them, he is nevertheless, Pater implies, "a soul naturally Christian" (anima naturaliter christiana ) and he finds peace in his final hours as he reviews his life (end of 'Part the Fourth'). |
4456074 | /m/0c3ffj | Left Behind | Tim LaHaye | 12/31/1995 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/0d6gr": "Reference", "/m/0hc1z": "Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/026ny": "Dystopia"} | The story takes place during the Rapture. Millions of people suddenly vanish and frantic "survivors" of the disappearances begin their search for their friends and families, as well as answers to what has happened. Among them are pilot Rayford Steele, his daughter Chloe Steele, and pastor Bruce Barnes, who begin to discover that the Rapture has taken place. Meanwhile, a young journalist, Cameron "Buck" Williams, follows an unknown, but charming, Romanian politician named Nicolae Carpathia, who quickly attracts millions of followers - seemingly overnight. |
4456093 | /m/0c3fh9 | Amber and Ashes | Margaret Weis | null | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Amber and Ashes is set in Krynn shortly after the death of Takhisis at the end of the War of Souls. Magic is back, and so are the gods. But the gods are vying for supremacy, and the war has caused widespread misery, uprooting entire nations and changing the balance of power on Ansalon. The mysterious warrior-woman Mina, brooding on her failure and the loss of her goddess, makes a pact with evil in a seductive guise. As a strange vampiric cult spreads throughout the fragile world, unlikely heroes—a wayward monk and a kender who can communicate with the dead—join forces to try to uproot the cause of the growing evil. It begins with Chemosh talking to himself in an abandoned temple about his plans to rule the pantheon and obtaining living servants as opposed to the dead. Shortly after, Mina and Galdar are seen. Mina is grieving the death of Takhisis and is about to kill herself when Chemosh intervenes and makes her his lover. It is then that the plot to create the Beloved of Chemosh begins. |
4456185 | /m/0c3fn6 | Adventures of Mottel the Cantor's Son | Sholem Aleichem | null | null | The novel is a first person narrative presented by a boy who, at the outset, is not quite nine years old. He is a member of a Jewish family in a shtetl in Russia and chronicles the daily life of his family and friends. The first volume describes the hardships, poverty, and fears that lead to a decision to emigrate to the United States. The second volume relates their experiences from the immigrant perspective. The narrative presents almost every episode in a humorous manner, even when the events are quite serious. Motl’s father, the village’s cantor, passes away after a long illness. Motl discovers that being fatherless confers on him certain social privileges, and the more ready forgiveness of the adult community for his pranks. (Although there are repeated references to Motl being an orphan, the term is not used in its present-day sense. His mother is a major figure throughout the entire work.) His older brother Elyahu, recently married, tries to lift the family out of poverty through a series of get-rich-quick schemes he learns from a book, to which Motl is a willing accomplice. However, this effort does not have the desired effect. Together with a group of friends, they depart for America. The route to New York, via Antwerp and London's Whitechapel, is lined with danger, con-artists, other refugees, unfamiliar customs, and a long ocean crossing. At first America only seems to offer new problems, in the form of the austere immigration control on Ellis Island, the sweatshops of the Lower East Side, and the labor riots that often broke out as workers took to the streets to protest working conditions. Life in New York affords Motl unanticipated new experiences (such as smoking and watching Charlie Chaplin movies), and slowly, the family begins to prosper. In the last chapters they buy a grocery store and appear to be moving toward ever greater material comfort. Motl is described as having a natural talent for drawing cartoons - sometimes getting into trouble with people feeling insulted by his depiction of them. Some episodes indicate that the author intended to have the character enter a journalistic career. |
4458075 | /m/0c3jsn | The Whole Family | null | 10/15/1908 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | In the rather pedestrian opening chapter Howells introduces the Talbert family, middle-class New England proprietors of a silverplate works that turns out ice-pitchers and other mundane household items. Daughter Peggy Talbert has just returned from her coeducational college engaged to a harmless but rather weak young man named Harry Goward. It was Howells' intention that each of the eleven subsequent authors would examine the impact of Peggy's engagement on a different member of the Talbert family. But the very next chapter, by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, immediately sent the novel careening off Howell's intended trajectory. Freeman made her assigned character, the "old-maid aunt" Elizabeth Talbert, into anything but a quiet old spinster. Instead she created Aunt Elizabeth as an older but vibrant and sexually attractive woman who doesn't mind getting noticed by Peggy's fiancé. This was, as project editor Elizabeth Jordan later wrote, the "explosion of a bombshell on our literary hearthstone." Howells, never particularly comfortable with frank sexuality, recoiled from Freeman's spicy conception of a character he had intended as a harmless old lady. Contributor Henry Van Dyke, who would eventually write the concluding chapter, reacted in a half-humorous, half-worried letter to Jordan: :Heavens! What a catastrophe! Who would have thought that the old maiden aunt would go mad in the second chapter? Poor lady. Red hair and a pink hat and boys in beau knots all over the costume. What will Mr. Howells say? For my part I think it distinctly crewel work to put a respectable spinster into such a hattitude before the world. As subsequent critics have pointed out, the rest of the novel became an effort by the later writers to cope somehow with this introduction of Aunt Elizabeth as a sexual competitor with Peggy for her fiancee's affections. Although some of the writers had their doubts about Freeman's work, at least her reimagination of the spinster aunt gave the book a narrative impetus. Eventually, after many twists and turns introduced by the subsequent contributors, Harry Goward is dismissed as a suitor, Aunt Elizabeth is sent off to New York City, and a more suitable mate for Peggy is found in a college professor named Stillman Dane. Peggy marries Dane and the couple sails off to Europe with Peggy's brother Charles and his wife Lorraine for a honeymoon tour. |
4458318 | /m/0c3k9r | The Unconsoled | Kazuo Ishiguro | 1995 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The novel takes place over a period of three days. It is about Ryder, a famous pianist who arrives in a central European city to perform a concert. However, he appears to have lost most of his memory and finds his new environment surreal and dreamlike. He struggles to fulfill his commitments before Thursday night's performance. |
4459510 | /m/0c3mqg | The Face of the Waters | Robert Silverberg | 1991 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | The Face of the Waters takes place in the far future, on a penal colony, inhabited by convicts and their progeny. The planet is Hydros, an ocean planet whose inhabitants live on artificial floating islands. After a human offense against the natives of Hydros, the human population of the island of Sorve are ordered to leave. Forbidden on all other islands, in a flotilla of ships they seek the semi-mythical island of the Face of the Waters. During their journey they are forced to learn more about themselves, leading to questions about both religion and the purpose of Man. At the end of the novel Robert Silverberg addresses what it means to be human. fr:La Face des eaux |
4459608 | /m/0c3my4 | The Werewolf of Paris | Guy Endore | 1933 | {"/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction", "/m/03npn": "Horror"} | Like much Gothic fiction, The Werewolf of Paris opens with a frame story in which the author explains his struggle with the fantastic elements of his tale. Here the narrator, an anonymous American working on his doctoral research in Paris, discovers a manuscript in the hands of some trash-pickers. He describes it as "the Galliez report: thirty four sheets of closely written French, an unsolicited defense of Sergeant Bertrand Caillet at the latter's court-martial in 1871." A descendant of the cursed Pitamont clan, which destroyed itself in a long feud with the neighboring Pitavals, Bertrand is born one Christmas Eve to an adolescent girl who had been raped by a priest, Father Pitamont. Bertrand grows up with strange sadistic and sexual desires which are usually expressed as dreams. Sometimes the dreams are memories of actual experiences in which he had transformed into a wolf. His step-uncle, Aymar Galliez, who raises the boy (along with his mother Josephine and a servant Françoise), soon learns of Bertrand's affliction. Bertrand flees to Paris after his assault on a prostitute, his incestuous union with his mother, and his murder of a friend in their home village. Aymar tries to find Bertrand by studying the details of local crimes, such as the mutilation of corpses and various murders. Bertrand joins the National Guard during the Franco-Prussian War, doing little fighting and finding love from a girl who volunteers at a canteen, the beautiful and wealthy Mlle. Sophie de Blumenberg. Masochistic and obsessed with death, Sophie helps Bertrand avoid the violent effects of his transformation by allowing him to cut into her flesh in order to suck her blood. Aymar finds Bertrand in Paris during the Paris Commune, but thinking that love has cured Bertrand, he decides not to take action. Fearing that he'll accidentally kill Sophie, Bertrand goes out one night to feed on someone else. He is caught attacking a fellow soldier and arrested. Aymar supports burning Bertrand at the stake, and provides the court with a summary of Bertrand's crimes, but the court sentences him to treatment at the infirmary of La Santé prison. Aymar transfers Bertrand to an asylum after the reactionary Versaillists have retaken Paris, with great loss of life among the Communards, who are executed en masse. Unbeknownst to Aymar, Bertrand suffers in a small cell, drugged when he is visited by his uncle. Bertrand eventually commits suicide by jumping from the building with another inmate whom he delusionally believes is Sophie. Their deaths are similar to a suicide fantasy that Bertrand and Sophie enjoyed; the real Sophie had previously committed suicide on her own, unable to deal with her separation from Bertrand. The narrative proper is followed by a grisly appendix citing a municipal report on the cemeteries of Paris. The report indicates that the grave of one "Sieur C ... (Bertrand)" contained the body "of a dog, which despite 8 years in the ground was still incompletely destroyed." |
4459865 | /m/0c3nf0 | Fire Time | Poul Anderson | 1974 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Fire Time takes place on the planet Ishtar, whose peculiar orbit around three stars (Bel, Ea, and Anu) results in the "Fire Time", a dramatic increase in heat every thousand years. As the northern hemisphere heats up, large numbers of Ishtarians flee south, leading to a collapse of civilization. The presence of visitors from Earth (also engaged in their own war off-planet) raises the prospect of changing the dynamics of history. |
4461762 | /m/0c3r2h | Thank You For Smoking: A Novel | Christopher Buckley | 5/17/1994 | {"/m/06nbt": "Satire", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Nick is the chief spokesman for the Academy of Tobacco Studies, a tobacco industry lobbying firm that promotes the benefits of cigarettes. He utilizes high-profile media events and intentionally provocative rhetoric in order to highlight what his clients view as an unfair crusade against tobacco and nicotine products. The political satire is heightened by Naylor's informal association with lobbyists from other industries that are subjected to routine vilification in the media, e.g. Polly Bailey, a lobbyist for the alcohol/spirits industry, and Bobby Jay Bliss, who represents the firearms industry. Collectively, they form what is known as the M.O.D. Squad, a reference to the title of a police drama, although in this case, "M.O.D." stands for "Merchants Of Death". A pivotal point in the plot occurs when Naylor is kidnapped by a clandestine group who attempt to kill him by covering him with nicotine patches. The search for the perpetrators of the crime leads to surprising results. In this respect, the plot mirrors one of Buckley's other satirical novels, Little Green Men. |
4464645 | /m/0c3y1z | A Turning Point in National History | null | null | null | The first two-thirds of the book describes how the USA changed from a force for good in the world, in general, and a transatlantic ally of Europe, into a solitary force, after it effectively unilaterally broke its alliances by largely withdrawing from the United Nations and assorted international agreements and organisations, and consequently invading Iraq. Europeans, especially in the Netherlands, are having a difficult time coming to grips with, and even acknowledging, this new situation. The authors say part of the problem is that the media is effectively controlled by the USA, introducing terms like 'rogue states', thereby suggesting there are such states. The authors suggest that Europe should change its orientation from the USA to the UN and rising powers like China and use diplomacy instead of brute force, thus continuing the process the USA started, but has recently turned its back upon. In the world, Europe has more authority than it realises and within Europe the Netherlands is in a good position to effect such a change as one of the founding nations of the European Union (and international law) and a country that has always had a very international outlook (for trade purposes). According to the book Germany, France and Spain no longer follow the USA, as shown by their reaction to the Iraq war. According to the authors, once this new world order is established, the USA may once again take its place in it. |
4468492 | /m/0c4487 | Snow | Orhan Pamuk | 2002 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Though most of the early part of the story is told in the third person from Ka's point of view, an omniscient narrator sometimes makes his presence known, posing as a friend of Ka's who is telling the story based on Ka's journals and correspondence. This narrator sometimes provides the reader with information before Ka knows it or foreshadows later events in the story. At times, the action seems somewhat dream-like. Ka is a poet, who returns to Turkey after 12 years of political exile in Germany. He has several motives, first, as a journalist, to investigate a spate of suicides but also in the hope of meeting a woman he used to know. Heavy snow cuts off the town for about three days during which time Ka is in conversation with a former communist, a secularist, a fascist nationalist, a possible Islamic extremist, Islamic moderates, young Kurds, the military, the Secret Service, the police and in particular, an actor-revolutionary. In the midst of this, love and passion are to be found. Temporarily closed off from the world, a farcical coup is staged and linked melodramatically to a stage play. The main discussion concerns the interface of secularism and belief but there are references to all of Turkey's twentieth century history. |
4473306 | /m/0c4d_b | The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher | Beatrix Potter | 1906 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Jeremy Fisher is a frog who lives in a damp little house amongst the buttercups at the edge of a pond. His larder and back passage are "slippy-sloppy" with water, but he likes getting his feet wet; no one ever scolds and he never catches cold. One day, Jeremy finds it raining and decides to go fishing. Should he catch more than five minnows, he will invite his friends to dinner. He puts on a Macintosh and shiny goloshes, takes his rod and basket, and sets off with "enormous hops" to the place where he keeps his lily-pad boat. He poles to a place he knows is good for minnows. Once there, he sits cross-legged on his lily-pad and arranges his tackle. He has "the dearest little red float". His rod is a stalk of grass and his line a horsehair. An hour passes without a nibble. He takes a break and lunches on a butterfly sandwich. A water beetle tweaks his toe, and rats rustling about in the rushes force him to seek a safer location. He drops his line into the water and immediately has a bite. It is not a minnow but little Jack Sharp, a stickleback. The fish escapes but not before Jeremy pricks his fingers on Jack's spines. A shoal of little fishes come to the surface to laugh at Jeremy. Jeremy sucks his sore fingers, but a trout rises from the water and seizes him with a snap (Mr. Jeremy screams, "OW-OW-OW!!!"). The trout dives to the bottom, but finds the Macintosh tasteless and spits Jeremy out, swallowing only his goloshes. Jeremy bounces "up to the surface of the water, like a cork and the bubbles out of a soda water bottle", and swims to the pond's edge. He scrambles up the bank and hops home through the meadow, quite sure he will never go fishing again. In the last few pages, Jeremy has put sticking plaster on his fingers and welcomes his friends, Sir Isaac Newton, a newt, and Alderman Ptolemy Tortoise, a tortoise who eats salad. Isaac wears a black and gold waistcoat and Ptolemy brings a salad in a string bag. Jeremy has prepared roasted grasshopper with ladybird sauce. The narrator describes the dish as a "frog treat", but thinks "it must have been nasty!" |
4474012 | /m/0c4g5r | The Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse | Beatrix Potter | 1910 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Mrs. Tittlemouse is a tale in which no humans play a part and one in which events are treated as though they have occurred since time immemorial and far from human observance. It is a simple story, and one likely to appeal to young children. Mrs. Tittlemouse is a "most terribly tidy little mouse always sweeping and dusting the soft sandy floors" in the "yards and yards" of passages and storerooms, nut-cellars, and seed-cellars in her "funny house" amongst the roots of a hedge. She has a kitchen, a parlour, a pantry, a larder, and a bedroom where she keeps her dust-pan and brush next to her little box bed. She tries to keep her house tidy, but insect intruders leave dirty footprints on the floors and all sorts of messes about the place. A beetle is shooed away, a ladybird is exorcised with "Fly away home! Your house is on fire!", and a spider inquiring after Miss Muffet is turned away with little ceremony. In a distant passage, Mrs. Tittlemouse meets Babbitty Bumble, a bumble bee who has taken up residence with three or four other bees in one of the empty storerooms. Mrs. Tittlemouse tries to pull out their nest but they buzz fiercely at her, and she retreats to deal with the matter after dinner. In her parlour, she finds her toad neighbour Mr. Jackson sitting before the fire in her rocking chair. Mr. Jackson lives in "a drain below the hedge, in a very dirty wet ditch". His coat tails drip with water and he leaves wet footmarks on Mrs. Tittlemouse's parlour floor. She follows him about with a mop and dish-cloth. Mr. Jackson stays for dinner, but the food is not to his pleasing, and he rummages about the cupboard searching for the honey he can smell. He discovers a butterfly in the sugar bowl, but when he finds the bees, he makes a big mess pulling out their nest. Mrs. Tittlemouse fears she "shall go distracted" as a result of the turmoil and takes refuge in the nut-cellar. When she finally ventures forth, she discovers everybody has left but her house is a mess. She takes some moss, beeswax, and twigs to partly close up her front door to keep Mr. Jackson out. Exhausted, she goes to bed wondering if her house will ever be tidy again. The fastidious little mouse spends a fortnight spring cleaning. She rubs the furniture with beeswax and polishes her little tin spoons, then holds a party for five other little wood-mice wearing their Regency finery. Mr. Jackson attends but is forced to sit outside because Mrs. Tittlemouse has narrowed her door. He takes no offence at being excluded from the parlour. Acorn-cupfuls of honeydew are passed through the window to him and he toasts Mrs. Tittlemouse's good health. |
4474248 | /m/0c4gjt | The Tale of Ginger and Pickles | Beatrix Potter | 1909 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Ginger, a yellow tomcat, and Pickles, a terrier, are partners in operating a village shop that offers a variety of goods including red spotty handkerchiefs, "sugar, snuff, and goloshes". Ginger inspires fear in their mouse customers and Pickles their rabbit customers. Ginger's mouth waters as the mice leave the shop with their parcels. The two extend unlimited credit to customers who never pay. The till remains empty. The shopkeepers are forced to eat their own goods. Pickles cannot afford a dog license and is frightened of the policeman (a German doll with a stitched-on hat). He is certain he will receive a summons. When the policeman delivers the rates and taxes at the New Year, Ginger and Pickles decided to close shop thus creating great inconvenience for the villagers. Ginger grows stout living comfortably in a warren and is shown in one illustration setting traps. Pickles becomes a gamekeeper. In the tale's lengthy coda, Tabitha Twitchit, the proprietor of the only other village shop, exploits the situation and raises the prices of everything in her shop. She refuses to give credit. Mr. Dormouse and his daughter Miss Dormouse sell peppermints and candles, but the candles "behave very strangely in warm weather" and Miss Dormouse refuses to accept the return of candle ends from disgruntled customers. Finally, Sally Henny-penny sends out a printed poster announcing her intention to re-open the shop. The villagers are delighted and overwhelm the shop on its first day. Sally gets flustered counting out change and insists on being paid cash but offers an assortment of bargains to the delight of everybody. Potter put a crowd of familiar characters from the Peter Rabbit universe into the tale such as Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, Samuel Whiskers and Peter himself. It would prove a clever marketing device. From the literary angle, the many familiar characters create tension and suspense for the reader as most are the natural prey of the eponymous merchants. The reader wonders if the two shopkeepers will control their predatory instincts long enough to make a sale. |
4474624 | /m/0c4h2s | The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle | Beatrix Potter | 1905 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | A little girl named Lucie lives on a farm called Little-town. She is a good little girl, but has lost three pocket handkerchiefs and a pinafore. She questions Tabby Kitten and Sally Henny-penny about them, but they know nothing. Lucie mounts a stile and spies some white cloths lying in the grass high on a hill behind the farm. She scrambles up the hill along a steep path-way which ends under a big rock. She finds a little door in the hillside, and hears someone singing behind it: :Lily-white and clean, oh! :With little frills between, oh! :Smooth and hot – red rusty spot :Never here be seen, oh! She knocks. A frightened voice cries out, "Who's that?" Lucie opens the door, and discovers a low-ceilinged kitchen. Everything is tiny, even the pots and pans. At the table stands a short, stout person wearing a tucked-up print gown, an apron, and a striped petticoat. She is ironing. Her little black nose goes sniffle, sniffle, snuffle, and her eyes go twinkle, twinkle, and beneath her little white cap are prickles! She is Mrs. Tiggy-winkle, the animals' laundress and "an excellent clear-starcher". She keeps busy with her work. She has found Lucy's lost things, and launders them for her. She also shows Lucie items belonging to Mrs. Tiggywinkle's animal customers. The laundered clothing is tied up in bundles and Lucie's handkerchiefs are neatly folded into her clean pinafore. They set off together down the path to return the fresh laundry to the little animals and birds in the neighbourhood. At the bottom of the hill, Lucie mounts the stile and turns to thank Mrs. Tiggy-winkle. "But what a very odd thing!" Mrs. Tiggy-winkle is "running running running up the hill". Her cap, shawl, and print gown are nowhere to be seen. How small and brown she has grown – and covered with prickles! "Why! Mrs. Tiggy-winkle [is] nothing but a HEDGEHOG!" The narrator tells the reader that some thought Lucie had fallen asleep on the stile and dreamed the encounter, but if so, then how could she have three clean handkerchiefs and a laundered pinafore? "Besides," the narrator assures the reader, "I have seen that door into the back of the hill called Catbells – and besides I am very well acquainted with dear Mrs. Tiggy-winkle!" |
4476944 | /m/0c4mf5 | Sister Alice | Robert Reed | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | The story is about a child growing up in a cold planet Earth around 10 million years from now. He travels from being a young boy playing war with his friends to a semi-god still playing war, but with a universe at stake. Godlike powers were withdrawn from most humans after a catastrophic war between 'human gods' almost destroyed humanity itself. A small subset of selected families were permitted to retain these powers in the service of humanity. Each family was born from a small number of individuals, chosen after competitive selection and extensive and exhaustive vetting. Each family had psychological tendencies that predisposed its work for humanity to follow certain directions. The tensions between families erupt when the drive to 'improve' unleashes forces which threaten death and destruction on a galactic scale. Born of one of these god like families, one boy is forced into the role of saviour or destroyer, hunted and vilified, he must save himself, his family, and the galaxy. |
4477201 | /m/0c4mtr | Brightly Burning | Mercedes Lackey | 5/1/2000 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | The novel which focuses on what could be called the tragedy of the Valdemaran Herald Lavan Firestorm. A boy (Lavan) from a mercantile family born with frightening abilities is misunderstood by his peers and family. The book begins when Lavan's father decides to move the family from the countryside to the city of Haven. Lavan finds himself stuck in a mercantile school he does not care for and with nasty bullies for senior students. Life does not seem good for Lavan as he becomes the target of the leader of the Seniors. All this changes when quite suddenly during a bout of heavy-handed bullying a huge fire started around Lavan causing the storage room to burn, along with several of the students who had been bullying him. The constant bullying had finally thrown open Lavan's innate ability to create and control fires, called Firestarting. After the fire, he is brought to the palace complex, given some medical attention (from the effect of the bullying and burns from the fire - his abilities do not protect him from fire's harm), and questioned about the event. He becomes agitated, and large torches nearby are set on fire. With the fires raging out of control, a Companion named Kalira "chooses" Lavan. Companions are spirits of Valdemar who choose people to become Heralds, who roam the land dispensing justice. Lavan in a single moment of panic and rage becomes a Herald Trainee. The book goes to tell of Lavan's time as a Herald-trainee to his reluctant experience as a Herald. Much of the book speaks of the teenager's inability to control his own power. Due to the constant bullying, Lavan's power to start fires is intricately connected to his rage and anger. Without his Companion, Lavan has no way to control his Firestarter powers. It is also mentioned that Kalira and Lavan are Lifebonded, or soulmates. This is regarded with astonishment by many, as Lifebonds rarely happen, especially among Heralds-and even less frequently when one is a Companion. Elanor, Lavan's Herald mentor's daughter, learns of this later on in the book-much to her dismay, as she believes that she is in love with Lavan. Soon Lavan's strange power is needed as the neighbouring country Karse begins to invade Valdemaran borders not just with enemy soldiers but unexplainable horrors of the night. Only Lavan Firestorm is able to combat this strange threat. The books ends with Lavan's rather violent death right after crossbow bolts/arrows hit Kalira and she is wounded mortally. |
4477244 | /m/0c4mxj | Lord Emsworth Acts for the Best | P. G. Wodehouse | 1926-06 | {"/m/0707q": "Short story", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Beach, long-serving butler at Blandings, is considering handing in his notice after 18 years, unable to bear the shame of his master Lord Emsworth's rather disreputable new beard. His Lordship himself, unaware of these ructions below stairs, is worried by a telegram from his younger son Freddie, who is back in London from America. Visiting Freddie, Emsworth learns that the boy has fallen out with his wife Aggie; having written a scenario for Hollywood to impress her, he tried to persuade a prominent starlet to promote it for him; however, he is seen dining with the girl by Jane Yorke, a friend of his wife. Yorke tells Aggie she has seen Freddie with another girl, and she promptly leaves him. Freddie tries to persuade his father to plead with her on his behalf, convinced by his movie knowledge that an appeal from a white-haired old father never fails, but Emsworth refuses. Later, however, realising the danger of Freddie returning to Blandings if his marriage is not patched up, he relents, and pays a call at the lady's hotel. Finding the door to her room open, he potters vaguely in, and is chased into the bedroom by a small yapping dog, only to find she is in the bath. Her friend Jane Yorke holds him up with a gun, believing him to be a burglar, and while he is trying to explain himself, and Freddie, Freddie himself enters disguised as an old man with a white beard. Seeing a cable from Hollywood accepting his scenario, Aggie believes Freddie's story and forgives him, to Jane's disgust. Jane is ejected, and Emsworth, on hearing that he looks like Freddie in his false beard, decides to shave off his own, much to Beach's relief. |
4479377 | /m/0c4rn1 | The Enigma of Japanese Power | Karel van Wolferen | null | null | At over 500 pages long, the book is quite dense. By dividing the book into consistent sections, the author has allowed readers to digest it in sections. Of these, sections dealing with education, the elusive Japanese state, the all-pervasive bureaucracy, the middle class, ritual in society, and the press are regarded as the most important. Overall, Van Wolferen creates an image of a state where a complicated political-corporate relationship retards progress, and where the citizens forgo the social rights enjoyed in other developed countries out of a collective fear of foreign domination. Van Wolferen defines this image across various aspects of Japanese culture, and chronicles its origin through the history of the nation. He frequently cites examples, giving the book 57 pages of endnotes. Throughout, the author points out inefficiencies in the system, and compares it unfavorably to the standard Western system. Van Wolferen states examples that demonstrate the nature of power in Japan and how it is wielded. Japanese power is described as being held by a loose group of unaccountable elites who operate behind the scenes. Because this power is loosely held, those who wield it escape responsibility for the consequences when things go wrong as there is no one who can be held accountable. In particular, the author criticizes large Japanese businesses, and the Liberal Democratic Party, which he describes as being neither liberal nor democratic. |
4480130 | /m/0c4t3j | The Messiah Of Morris Avenue | null | null | null | In the near future, Christianity has dominated everything, including politics, television, the Internet, and film. The leaders of the semi-theocracy include Reverend Jimmy, a televangelist who is the spiritual advisor to the President, and Pastor Bob, a laid-back reverend who is obsessed with golf and competes with Jimmy for spiritual dominance. Ironically, though Jimmy says he has spoken to God about almost everything, their teachings are the opposite of Jesus Christ's ideas of peace, love, and forgiveness towards everyone. Jimmy even claims on his program that bombing Europe will bring the Second Coming. However, a jaded ex-reporter, Johnny Greco, bitter towards Jimmy, has already found it, in an Irish-Hispanic Catholic named Jay, who performs incredible miracles of healing sick people, preaches against what Christianity has become, and values peace, tolerance, and love for all humans. Dismissive at first, he soon begins to believe in what Jay is saying, and begins to think that Jay truly is "the real deal". Unfortunately for Jay, things happen as they previously did and Jay, some of his closest apostles and Revrend Jim (who Jay converts) are killed. However, Jay's apostles continue to spread the word of his actions and teachings and form a new religion. The book ends: THE END AND THE BEGINNING |
4481110 | /m/0c4vnr | The Promise | Chaim Potok | 8/12/1969 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | This conflict becomes a personal issue for Reuven because his Talmud teacher for his final school year is a zealously religious, rigid and angry rabbi by the name of Jacob Kalman. Reuven's father is a well-known teacher and author who writes books on modern methods of studying the Talmud, and Reuven finds himself caught in the middle as his teacher tries to force him to choose between his father's way and Rav Kalman. The conflict deepens through Reuven's relationship with Michael Gordon, the deeply troubled adolescent son of Abraham Gordon, a well-known author who has been excommunicated for his books which question the very foundations of Judaism. The lives of the three families, the Malters, the Saunders and the Gordons, become intertwined when Abraham Gordon seeks out Danny Saunders to treat his mentally ill son. A bond develops between Reuven and Michael on the ground of the parallel in their lives: being caught in the middle of their modernist fathers' battles with the defenders of the Jewish faith. Danny also has to deal with the conflict between the traditional and the modern when he falls in love with Michael's cousin Rachel, a decidedly modern young Jewish woman. He is also faced with the formidable task of treating Michael, who resists therapy and who faces imminent institutionalization because of his violent behavior. The two friends, Reuven and Danny, help each other through their struggles, and the story is brought to a shattering climax as together they help Michael to face the source of his distress. Through his struggle, Reuven finds his own identity by taking from each world, the traditional and the modern, what has meaning for him and by asserting with love and respect his right to take his place among his people as a teacher. |
4481878 | /m/0c4wtd | The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck | Beatrix Potter | 1908-07 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The tale begins in a farmyard which is home to a duck called Jemima Puddle-duck. She wants to hatch her own eggs, but the farmer's wife believes ducks make poor sitters and routinely confiscates their eggs to allow the hens to incubate them. Jemima tries to hide her eggs, but they are always found and carried away. She sets off along the road in poke bonnet and shawl to find a safe place away from the farm to lay her eggs. At the top of a hill, she spies a distant wood, flies to it, and waddles about until she discovers an appropriate nesting place. However, a charming gentleman with "black prick ears and sandy-coloured whiskers" persuades her to nest in a shed at his home. Jemima is led to his "tumble-down shed" (which is curiously filled with feathers), and makes herself a nest with little ado. Jemima lays her eggs, and the fox suggests a dinner party to mark the event. He asks her to collect the traditional herbs used in stuffing a duck, telling her the seasonings will be used for an omelette. Jemima sets about her errand, but the farm collie, Kep, meets her as she carries onions from the farm kitchen. She reveals her errand, and Kep sees through the fox's plan at once. With the help of two fox-hound puppies, Kep rescues Jemima and the "foxy-whiskered gentleman" is chased away and never seen again. However, the hungry fox-hounds eat Jemima's eggs. Jemima is escorted back to the farm in tears over her lost eggs, but, in time, lays more eggs and successfully hatches four ducklings. |
4482013 | /m/0c4x0q | The Tailor of Gloucester | Beatrix Potter | 1903 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | A tailor in Gloucester sends his cat Simpkin to buy food and a twist of cherry-coloured silk to complete a waistcoat commissioned by the mayor for his wedding on Christmas morning. While Simpkin is gone, the tailor finds mice the cat has imprisoned under teacups. The mice are released and scamper away. When Simpkin returns and finds his mice gone, he hides the twist in anger. The tailor falls ill and is unable to complete the waistcoat, but, upon returning to his shop, he is surprised to find the waistcoat finished. The work has been done by the grateful mice. However, one buttonhole remains unfinished because there was "no more twist!" Simpkin gives the tailor the twist to complete the work and the success of the waistcoat makes the tailor's fortune. |
4482031 | /m/0c4x11 | The Sleeping Father | Matthew Sharpe | null | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The Schwartzes live their ordinary lives in the aptly named (and fictional) small town of Bellwether, Connecticut. When she thinks her two children do not need her any longer, Lila Schwartz, a sexually active woman, leaves behind her family, calls herself Lila Munroe and moves to California, where she trains, and later works, as a lawyer. Faced with the dual challenge of having to raise two teenage kids while remaining successful in his demanding job as a publicist and speech writer, Bernard Schwartz more and more relies on medication to cope with everyday life. The real trouble begins when he accidentally swallows two incompatible antidepressants and falls into a coma shortly thereafter. While he is unconscious Bernard Schwartz has a stroke. When he wakes up again he is seriously handicapped—his speech is slurred, his walk is unsteady and his memory is permanently impaired. Similar to a child, he has to learn the meanings of many words. Instead of going to school, Chris teaches his father as best as he can. In spite of his enforced preoccupation with his "sleeping" father, Chris Schwartz notices that his own life goes on without any major change. Still a virgin, he fantasizes about having sex with Lisa Danmeyer, Bernard's neurologist and actually has his first sexual encounter ever at his father's rehab centre with a sexy speech pathologist who performs fellatio on him. At the same time Cathy, his 16 year-old sister, is on the brink of abandoning her Jewish roots and converting to Roman Catholicism. However, she also develops a crush on Francis Dial, her brother's best friend and classmate. Chris cannot believe that his younger sister might have sex before he does, but in the end this is exactly what happens, an unwanted teenage pregnancy being the result of their union. At first the young lovers are unsure whether Cathy should have an abortion or not, but Cathy soon makes up her mind to keep the baby. |
4482189 | /m/0c4xbl | The Tale of Tom Kitten | Beatrix Potter | 1907 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The tale begins with three feline siblings – Mittens, Tom Kitten, and Moppet – tumbling about the doorstep and playing in the dust. Their mother, Mrs. Tabitha Twitchit, expects "fine company" for tea so she fetches the children indoors to wash and dress them before her friends arrive. Tom is "very naughty" and scratches his mother while she grooms him. Tabitha dresses Moppet and Mittens in clean pinafores and tuckers, and Tom in "all sorts of elegant uncomfortable clothes" taken from a chest of drawers. Tom is fat and bursts several buttons, but his mother sews them back on again. Tabitha turns her kittens into the garden to keep them out of the way while she makes hot buttered toast for the party. She tells them to keep their frocks clean, then returns to her work. Moppet and Mittens soon have their pinafores smeared with grass stains. They climb upon the garden wall and lose some of their clothing in the ascent. Tom has a more difficult time gaining the top of the wall "breaking the ferns, and shedding buttons right and left". He is dishevelled when he reaches the top of the wall, and loses his hat, but his sisters try to pull him together. The rest of his buttons burst. Three Puddle-ducks come marching along the road – "pit pat paddle pat! pit pat waddle pat!" Jemima Puddle-duck and Rebeccah put on some of the dropped clothing. The kittens lose the rest of their clothing descending the wall. Moppet invites Mr. Drake Puddle-duck to help dress Tom. He picks up various articles of Tom's clothing and "he put[s] them on himself!" The three ducks set off up the road just as Tabitha approaches and discovers her three children with no clothes on. She pulls them off the wall, "smacks" them, and takes them back to the house. "My friends will arrive in a minute, and you are not fit to be seen; I am affronted!" she says. Tabitha sends her kittens upstairs, and tells her guests the kittens are in bed with the measles. However, "the dignity and repose of the tea party" is disturbed by the "very extraordinary noises overhead" as the playful kittens romp in a bedroom. An illustration depicts the bedroom in complete disorder and Tom in his mother's bonnet. The author interrupts to promise the reader she will make a larger book about Tom some day. In the last pages, the Puddle-ducks have lost the kittens' clothing in a pond, and they have been looking for them ever since. |
4484806 | /m/0c4_zc | De Re Metallica | Georg Agricola | 1556 | {"/m/05h83": "Non-fiction"} | The book consists of a preface and twelve chapters, labelled books I to XII, without titles. It also has numerous woodcuts that provide annotated diagrams illustrating equipment and processes described in the text. Agricola addresses the book to prominent German aristocrats, the most important of whom were Maurice, Elector of Saxony and his brother Augustus, who were his main patrons. He then describes the works of ancient and contemporary writers on mining and metallurgy, the chief ancient source being Pliny the Elder. Agricola describes several books contemporary to him, the chief being a booklet by Calbus of Freiberg in German. The works of alchemists are then described. Agricola does not reject the idea of alchemy, but notes that alchemical writings are obscure and that we do not read of any of the masters who became rich. He then describes fraudulent alchemists, who deserve the death penalty. Agricola completes his introduction by explaining that, since no other author has described the art of metals completely, he has written this work, setting forth his scheme for twelve books. Finally, he again directly addresses his audience of German princes, explaining the wealth that can be gained from this art. This book consists of the arguments used against the art and Agricola's counter arguments. He explains that mining and prospecting are not just a matter of luck and hard work; there is specialized knowledge that must be learned. A miner should have knowledge of philosophy, medicine, astronomy, surveying, arithmetic, architecture, drawing and law, though few are masters of the whole craft and most are specialists. This section is full of classical references and shows Agricola's classical education to its fullest. The arguments range from philosophical objections to gold and silver as being intrinsically worthless, to the danger of mining to its workers and its destruction of the areas in which it is carried out. He argues that without metals, no other activity such as architecture or agriculture are possible. The dangers to miners are dismissed; most deaths and injuries are caused by carelessness and other occupations are hazardous too. Clearing woods for fuel is advantageous as the land can be farmed. Mines tend to be in mountains and gloomy valleys with little economic value. The loss of food from the forests destroyed can be replaced by purchase from profits, and metals have been placed underground by God and man is right to extract and use them. Finally, Agricola argues that mining is an honorable and profitable occupation. This book describes the miner and the finding of veins. Agricola assumes that his audience is the mine owner, or an investor in mines. He advises owners to live at the mine and to appoint good deputies. It is recommended to buy shares in mines that have not started to produce as well as existing mines to balance the risks. The next section of this book recommends areas where miners should search. These are generally mountains with wood available for fuel and a good supply of water. A navigable river can be used to bring fuel, but only gold or gemstones can be mined if no fuel is available. The roads must be good and the area healthy. Agricola describes searching streams for metals and gems that have been washed from the veins. He also suggests looking for exposed veins and also describes the effects of metals on the overlying vegetation. He recommends trenching to investigate veins beneath the surface. He then describes dowsing with a forked twig although he rejects the method himself. Finally he comments on the practice of naming veins or shafts. This book is a description of the various types of veins that can be found. There are 30 illustrations of different forms of these veins, forming the majority of Book III. Agricola also describes a compass to determine the direction of veins and mentions that some writers claim that veins lying in certain directions are richer, although he provides counter-examples. He also mentions the theory that the sun draws the metals in veins to the surface, although he himself doubts this. Finally he explains that gold is not generated in the beds of streams and rivers and east-west streams are not more productive than others inherently. Gold occurs in streams because it is torn from veins by the water. This book describes how an official, the Bergmeister, is in charge of mining. He marks out the land into areas called meers when a vein is discovered. The rest of the book covers the laws of mining. There is a section on how the mine can be divided into shares. The roles of various other officials in regulating mines and taxing the production are stated. The shifts of the miners are fixed. The chief trades in the mine are listed and are regulated by both the Bergmeister and their foremen. This book covers underground mining and surveying. When a vein below ground is to be exploited a shaft is begun and a wooden shed with a windlass is placed above it. The tunnel dug at the bottom follows the vein and is just big enough for a man. The entire vein should be removed. Sometimes the tunnel eventually connects with a tunnel mouth in a hill side. Stringers and cross veins should be explored with cross tunnels or shafts when they occur. Agricola next describes that gold, silver, copper and mercury can be found as native metals, the others very rarely. Gold and silver ores are described in detail. Agricola then states that it is rarely worthwhile digging for other metals unless the ores are rich. Gems are found in some mines, but rarely have their own veins, lodestone is found in iron mines and emery in silver mines. Various minerals and colours of earths can be used to give indications of the presence of metal ores. The actual mineworking varies with the hardness of the rock, the softest is worked with a pick and requires shoring with wood, the hardest is usually broken with fire. Iron wedges, hammers and crowbars are used to break other rocks. Noxious gases and the ingress of water are described. Methods for lining tunnels and shafts with timber are described. The book concludes with a long treatise on surveying, showing the instruments required and techniques for determining the course of veins and tunnels. Surveyors allow veins to be followed, but also prevent mines removing ore from other claims and stop mine workings from breaking into other workings. This book is extensively illustrated and describes the tools and machinery associated with mining. Handtools and different sorts of buckets, wheelbarrows and trucks on wooded plankways are described. Packs for horses and sledges are used to carry loads above ground. Agricola then provides details of various kinds of machines for lifting weights. Some of these are man-powered and some powered by up to four horses or by waterwheels. Horizontal drive shafts along tunnels allow lifting in shafts not directly connected to the surface. If this is not possible treadmills will be installed underground. Instead of lifting weights similar machines use chains of buckets to lift water. Agricola also describes several designs of piston force pumps which are either man or animal powered or powered by waterwheels. Because these pumps can only lift water about 24 feet batteries of pumps are required for the deepest mines. Water pipe designs are also covered in this section. Designs of wind scoop for ventilating shafts or forced air using fans or bellows are also described. Finally ladders and lifts using wicker cages are used to get miners up and down shafts. This book deals with assaying techniques. Various designs of furnaces are detailed. Then cupellation, crucibles, scorifiers and muffles are described. The correct method of preparation of the cupels is covered in detail with beech ashes being preferred. Various other additives and formulae are described, but Agricola does not judge between them. Triangular crucibles and scorifiers are made of fatty clay with a temper of ground up crucibles or bricks. Agricola then describes in detail which substances should be added as fluxes as well as lead for smelting or assaying. The choice is made by which colour the ore burns out which gives an indication of the metals present. The lead should be silver-free or be assayed separately. The prepared ore is wrapped in paper, placed on a scorifier and then placed under a muffle covered in burning charcoal in the furnace. The cupel should be heated at the same time. The scorifier is removed and the metal transferred to the cupel. Alteratively the ore can be smelted in a triangular crucible, and then have lead mixed with it when it is added to the cupel. The cupel is placed in the furnace and copper is separated into the lead which forms lithage in the cupel leaving the noble metal. Gold and silver are parted using an aqua which is probably nitric acid. Agricola describes precautions for ensuring the amount of lead is correct and also describes the amalgamation of gold with mercury. Assay techniques for base metals such as tin are described as well as techniques for alloys such as silver tin. The use of a touchstone to assay gold and silver is discussed. Finally detailed arithmetical examples show the calculations needed to give the yield from the assay. In this book Agricola provides a detailed account of beneficiation of different ores. He describes the processes involved in ore sorting, roasting and crushing. The use of water for washing ores is discussed in great detail, e.g. the use of launders and washing tables. Several different types of machinery for crushing ore and washing it are illustrated and different techniques for different metals and different regions are described. This book describes smelting, which Agricola describes as perfecting the metal by fire. The design of furnaces is first explained. These are very similar for smelting different metals, constructed of brick or soft stone with a brick front and mechanically driven bellows at the rear. At the front is a pit called the fore-hearth to receive the metal. The furnace is charged with beneficiated ore and crushed charcoal and lit. In some gold and silver smelting a lot of slag is produced because of the relative poverty of the ore and the tap hole has to be opened at various times to remove different slag materials. When the furnace is ready, the forehearth is filled with molten lead into which the furnace is tapped. In other furnaces the smelting can be continuous, and lead is placed into the furnace if there is none in the ore. The slag is skimmed off the top of the metal as it is tapped. The lead containing the gold is separated by cupellation, the metal rich slags are re-smelted. Other smelting processes are similar, but lead is not added. Agricola also describes making crucible steel and distilling mercury and bismuth in this book. Agricola describes parting silver from gold in this book by using acids. He also describes heating with antimony sulphide (stibium), which would give silver sulphide and a mixture of gold and antimony. The gold and silver can then be recovered with cupellation. Gold can also be parted using salts or using mercury. Large scale cupellation using a cupellation hearth is also covered in this book This book describes separating silver from copper or iron. This is achieved by adding large amounts of lead at a temperature just above the melting point of lead. The lead will liquate out with the silver. This process will need to be repeated several times. The lead and silver can be separated by cupellation. This describes the preparation of what Agricola calls "juices": salt, soda, nitre, alum, vitriol, saltpetre, sulphur and bitumen. Finally glass making is covered. Agricola seems less secure about this process. He is not clear about making glass from the raw ingredients but clearer about remelting glass to make objects. |
4485245 | /m/0c50qm | Rough Crossing | Tom Stoppard | null | null | Playwrights Sandor Turai, Alex Gal and their new composer Adam Adam have embarked on the trans-Atlantic ocean liner, The S.S. Italian Castle and are about to surprise their actors Natasha Navratilova and Ivor Fish with the newest song from their nearly-finished (or so they hope) musical comedy, The Cruise of the Dodo. Unfortunately, they go to surprise the pair just as Ivor declares his love for Natasha, as Adam listens on in horror. Sending Gal to take Adam back to his cabin to comfort him, Turai hatches a plan to convince Adam that what they actually overheard was Ivor's pathetic attempt at playwrighting. Turai stays up the whole night writing a scene for Ivor and Natasha to play as an alternative version of Turai's ending, with the declaration of love inserted and played as a scene. They are assisted by the sometimes dimwitted, sometimes brilliant, but always unconventional steward, Dvornichek. Despite many near revelations of Turai's plan, Adam and Natasha are reunited, and the playwrights find inspiration for a new comedy, courtesy of a script by the ship's captain. Having scripts thrust upon them by amateurs is only one of the running gags of the play. Others include Dvornichek's inability to gain his sea legs, until the ship is thrust into a turbulent storm, when only he is able to stay upright; Natasha and Ivor's inability to keep their scripts, both for the stage and their life, straight; Adam's peculiar speech impediment—he has trouble starting a sentence and often must continue a monologue indefinitely for fear of not starting ever again; and a very long delayed Cognac for Turai. |
4486200 | /m/0c526m | Chandrakanta | Devaki Nandan Khatri | 1888 | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | The story is a romantic fantasy about two lovers who belong to rival kingdoms: the princess Chandrakanta of Vijaygarh, and the prince Virendra Singh of Naugarh. Krur Singh, a member of the Vijaygarh king's court dreams of marrying Chandrakanta and taking over the throne. When Krur Singh fails in his endeavour, he flees the kingdom and befriends Shivdutt, the powerful neighbouring king of Chunargarh (a renaming of "Chunar-fort", referring to the fort in Chunar that inspired Khatri to write the novel). Krur Singh coaxes Shivdutt to ensnare Chandrakanta at any cost. Shivdutt captures Chandrkanta and while running away from Shivdutt, Chandrakanta finds herself a prisoner in a tilism. After that Kunvar Virendra Singh breaks the tilism and fights with Shivdutt with the help of aiyyars . Chandrakanta, the novel, has many sequels, prominent being a 7-book series (Chandrakanta santati) dealing with the adventures of Chandrakanta and Virendra Singh's children in another major tilism. |
4486431 | /m/0c52nk | The Tale of Mr. Tod | Beatrix Potter | 1912 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The tale begins with Tommy Brock, a badger, being entertained by old Mr. Bouncer, the father of Benjamin Bunny. Mr. Bouncer has been left to tend his grandchildren while his son and daughter-in-law Flopsy are away, but, after smoking a pipe of rabbit-tobacco, he falls asleep in Tommy's company. Tommy puts the bunnies in his sack and slips out. When the parents return, Benjamin sets off in pursuit of the thief. Benjamin finds and brings his cousin Peter Rabbit into the rescue venture, and the two discover Tommy has invaded one of Mr. Tod's homes. Peeping through the bedroom window, they see Tommy asleep in Mr. Tod's bed, and, peeping through the kitchen window, they see the table set for a meal. They realize the bunnies are alive, but shut in the oven. They hide when Mr. Tod suddenly arrives in a very bad temper. The fox discovers the badger asleep in his bed, and decides to play a trick upon him involving a pail of water balanced on the overhead tester of the bed. Brock however is awake, escapes the trick, and makes tea for himself in the kitchen. When Mr. Tod discovers him, a violent fight erupts that continues outdoors. The two roll away down the hill still fighting. Benjamin and Peter quickly gather the bunnies, and return home in triumph. |
4487360 | /m/0c548g | Company for Gertrude | P. G. Wodehouse | 1928-09 | {"/m/0707q": "Short story"} | Lord Emsworth's world is far from ideal - not only has his neighbour Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe stolen his pigman Wellbeloved, but his niece Gertrude is imprisoned in the house, mooning miserably about the place and, worse still, trying to be "helpful" by tidying his study. Meanwhile Freddie Threepwood, back in England to promote his father-in-law Mr Donaldson's "Dog-Joy" biscuits, has just been turned down by his dog-loving Aunt Georgiana, Gertrude's mother, when he runs into his old Oxford pal Beefy Bingham. Bingham, Freddie learns, is in love with cousin Gertrude, but as he is not well-off, the family have closed ranks and sent Gertrude away to Blandings. Inspired by a Super-film he has seen, Freddie sends Bingham down to the castle, under the guise of a Mr "Popjoy" (based on Lord Emsworth's mishearing of the dog biscuits Freddie is selling), tasked with ingratiating himself with the Earl. Emsworth is at first pleased to see Gertrude less dour, and charmed by his guest's diffidence and helpful ways, but soon finds himself smothered - Bingham is overdoing the ingratiating. Emsworth even begins to question the man's sanity, when he wakes in the night to find the fellow blowing kisses up at his window. When Bingham tries to help Emsworth off a ladder and knocks him to the ground, he hopes to remedy the others ills (and anger) with a bottle of balm; sadly however, he buys a product designed for horses, which causes his Lordship considerable pain. When he sees Emsworth singing during his morning swim, he mistakes the awful noise for cries for help, and dashes in to save the aging peer, only to be thanked with a stiff punch in the face. Freddie reveals to Emsworth that Popjoy is in fact Bingham, hopeful of one of the many livings in Emsworth's gift. When Emsworth realises that he can inflict the man on his enemy Parsloe-Parsloe, he doesn't hesitate from granting him the job. |
4487720 | /m/0c54rx | The Song of Bernadette | null | null | null | The story of Bernadette Soubirous and Our Lady of Lourdes is told by Werfel with many embellishments, such as the chapter in which Bernadette is invited to board at the home of a rich woman who thinks Bernadette's visionary "lady" might be her deceased daughter. In side-stories and back story, the history of the town of Lourdes, the contemporary political situation in France, and the responses of believers and detractors are delineated. Werfel describes Bernadette as a religious peasant girl who would have preferred to continue on with an ordinary life, but takes the veil as a nun after she is told that because "Heaven chose her", she must choose Heaven. Bernadette's service as a sacristan, artist-embroiderer, and nurse in the convent are depicted, along with her spiritual growth. After her death, her body as well as her life are scrutinized for indications that she is a saint, and at last she is canonized. The novel is laid out in five sections of ten chapters each, in a deliberate nod to the Catholic Rosary. Unusual for a novel, the entire first part, which describes the events on the day that Bernadette first saw the Virgin Mary, is told in the present tense, as if it were happening at the moment. The rest of the novel is in the past tense. |
4488412 | /m/0c55pw | The Go-getter | P. G. Wodehouse | 1931-03 | {"/m/0707q": "Short story"} | Freddie Threepwood, still trying to persuade his Aunt Georgiana of the benefits of Donaldson's Dog-Joy, hears that his cousin Gertrude has become infatuated with Orlo Watkins, a weedy tenor invited to the castle by Lady Constance. While visiting his friend Beefy Bingham to borrow his dog Bottles, Freddie learns that she has indeed all but "handed him the bird". Freddie tells this to Lady Georgiana, while giving a rather poor demonstration of Dog-Joy's powers, during which Bottles is scared off by Susan, one of Lady Georgiana's Pekes. He later tries to reason with his cousin, but to no avail; the glamour of the singer has taken her over. That evening, while the household take after-dinner coffee in the drawing room, Freddie enters with Bottles and a sack of rats, intending to demonstrate the Dog-Joy reared mongrel's ratcatching prowess; Orlo Watkins, observed by Gertrude, cringes somewhat at the sight. The family protest, and Beach is called to take the bag of rats away. Bottles remains, however, and when one of Lady Georgiana's Airedales comes in, a mighty battle commences. Watkins, to Gertrude's disgust, leaps atop a display cabinet, while the others dither about. Just in time, Bingham enters, sees the fight in progress, and breaks it up by the simple expedient of taking one dog in each massive hand and pulling. His manly display shakes the scales from Gertrude's eyes, and she falls into his arms, while Watkins slinks off, defeated. Lady Georgiana, meanwhile, is so impressed by Bottles' performance that she orders two tons of Dog-Joy off Freddie. |
4490134 | /m/0c589b | Ernesto | Umberto Saba | 1975 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Ernesto, a 16-year-old boy living in Trieste in 1898, has an affair with a 28-year-old worker simply called "the man". Ernesto subsequently has sex with the man frequently, but after an enjoyable experience with a female prostitute, he stops seeing him. He concentrates on studying the violin, and during a concert, Ernesto (now seventeen) meets a beautiful 15-year-old boy, also a violin player. He is called Emilio, nicknamed "Ilio". it:Ernesto (romanzo) |
4491117 | /m/0c5b34 | Circus of the Damned | Laurell K. Hamilton | null | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Circus of the Damned continues the adventures of Anita Blake. Anita simultaneously attempts to solve a series of murders by an unknown vampire pack, fend off the advances of her would be vampire master, Jean-Claude and deal with various people and creatures who wish her to reveal Jean-Claude's identity and location. As with its predecessors, Circus of the Damned blends elements of supernatural, hardboiled detective, and police procedural fiction. Within the novel, the "Circus of the Damned" is the name of a supernatural circus that operated by Jean-Claude and serves as one of the main locations within the book. Hamilton employed the practice of titling the novels after a location within each novel for most of the books in the series. |
4493325 | /m/0c5f7n | Gypsy in Amber | Martin Cruz Smith | null | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | The story's protagonist is Romano Grey, a gypsy antique expert who is pulled into a murder investigation when one of his friends dies in an automobile accident and is posthumously accused of the murder of a girl whose body, neatly sliced into six pieces, is found at the scene of the accident. Grey reappears in Canto for a Gypsy, published in 1972. |
4493990 | /m/0c5g40 | The Mermaid Chair | Sue Monk Kidd | 2/28/2005 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The Mermaid Chair is the soulful tale of Jessie Sullivan, a middle-aged woman whose stifled dreams and desires take shape during an extended stay on Egret Island, where she is caring for her troubled mother, Nelle. Once she returns to her childhood home, Jessie is forced to confront not only her relationship with her estranged mother, but her other emotional ties as well. After decades of marriage to Hugh, her practical yet conventional husband, Jessie starts to question whether she is craving an independence she never had the chance to experience. After she meets Brother Thomas, a handsome monk who has yet to take his final vows, Jessie is forced to decide whether passion can coexist with comfort, or if the two are mutually exclusive. As her soul begins to reawaken, Jessie must also confront the circumstances of her father's death, a tragedy that continues to haunt Jessie and Nelle over thirty years later. |
4496244 | /m/0c5jv0 | If You Could See Me Now | Cecelia Ahern | 2005-11 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Trapped in a stifling, small town in Ireland, Elizabeth Egan had always been known as a serious woman, never laughing at jokes or taking joys from the simplest pleasure of life. This is due to having been abandoned by her free-spirited mother when she was young and was forced to grow up quickly to take care of her sister, Saoirse. Taking advantage of Elizabeth's sense of responsibility, Saoirse has led life with abandonment, and when she gives birth to a son, Luke, she leaves Elizabeth to take care of him. At the age of six, Luke claims to have a friend named Ivan whom Elizabeth cannot see. Though at first she is exasperated with this imaginary friend, she starts playing along with Luke when she learns that imaginary friends will only last about 3 months. Though invisible to most, Ivan is real. Only Luke and Saoirse can see him, though he comes to realise that Elizabeth can feel his presence. Knowing that only people who are in real need of a friend are able to see him, he follows Elizabeth around. When, suddenly, she is able to see him, Ivan is delighted, but disappointed just as quickly when she thinks him to be the father of one of Luke's friends. A friendship which soon turns into romance blossoms between them. Elizabeth meets Benjamin at work, and he asks her to dinner, but Ivan prevents her from going by inviting her out instead. Ivan's boss, Opal, sees his love for Elizabeth and tells him her own sad tale. She tells him that however much he wishes to be with Elizabeth a time will come when she will no longer be able to see him and will eventually age while he would remain young. However, Ivan is too much in love with Elizabeth and refuses to listen. To convince him, Opal takes him to see her own love, who has become an 80 year old man while Opal has remained young. One day, when Elizabeth is hosting a party, she is no longer able to see Ivan for a while and he realises it is time to move on to a new friend. Ivan visits Elizabeth one last time while she sleeps, explaining why he has to go. Elisabeth thinks it was a dream. A few days later, Elizabeth realizes that it wasn't and that Ivan was was Luke's 'imaginary' friend. They go their separate ways, and not only Elizabeth but Ivan as well are changed by the experience. Elizabeth is more relaxed and Ivan admits that Elizabeth has been by far his favorite friend. |
4499472 | /m/0c5ps5 | The Curse of Lono | Hunter S. Thompson | 1983 | {"/m/017fp": "Biography", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/016chh": "Memoir"} | Hunter S. Thompson receives a letter from the editor of Running magazine, asking him to cover the 1980 Honolulu Marathon, which the editor says should be "a good chance for a vacation". Hunter asks the illustrator Ralph Steadman to accompany him. On the flight over, he meets a man named Ackerman, who seems to have connections to the drug trade in Hawaii. Hunter covers the marathon with his characteristic gonzo style, weaving his own experiences into the coverage of the story. After the marathon, Hunter, Ralph and Ralph's family move to a rented beach side "compound" on Hawaii's Kona coast. The weather is miserable and they are trapped indoors, besieged by huge waves. Ralph and his family, upset about the terrible conditions of their vacation, return to England. Later, Hunter reunites with Ackerman to go fishing. Hunter eventually catches a huge Marlin, which he beats to death with a Samoan war club. The fishing boat returns to the dock, with Hunter screaming triumphantly, "I am Lono!", referring to the ancient Hawaiian god. After this, Hunter ends his story in the City of Refuge, hiding from those he upset with his antics at the docks. The story frequently breaks away to excerpts from The Last Voyage of Captain James Cook, which tells the story of the man the native Hawaiians thought was the reincarnation of Lono. |
4502005 | /m/0c5v3w | On Christian Doctrine | Augustine of Hippo | null | null | The Prologue consists of a response to who would resist Augustine’s project of providing rules for interpretation of the Scriptures. Augustine outlines three possible objections, including those who do not understand his precepts, those who fail to make effective use of his teachings, and those who believe they are already prepared to interpret the Scriptures. To the first two types of critics, Augustine states that he cannot be held responsible for their inability to understand. He then addresses the third type of critic, those who believe they are already able to interpret the Scriptures. If their claims are true, he acknowledges that they have received a great blessing. However, they must admit that language itself was learned from a human being, not directly from God. Therefore, God has created human beings to learn from one another, and we ought to learn with humility. All good teaching from human beings derives ultimately from God. The ability to understand obscurity is therefore both the gift of God and reinforced by human teaching. Book One discusses enjoyment, use, interpretation, and the relation of various Christian doctrines to these concepts. Augustine begins with a discussion of the steps in the interpretive process: discovery of what is to be understood, and a way of teaching what has been discovered. He then expands upon the Platonic notion that there are things and signs. Signs are used to symbolize things, but are considered things themselves because they too represent meaning. They are given meaning through their repetition and propagation throughout society. Some things are to be enjoyed (in Latin, frui), and others are to be used (uti). Things we enjoy are those we find good in themselves, and things we use are those that are good for the sake of something else. The only thing that is to be enjoyed is God. All other things, including other human beings, are to be used in relation to the proper end of enjoyment. To use something which is to be enjoyed or vice versa is to fail to love properly. The discussion of enjoyment and use leads to an extended reflection on motivation, word as flesh, and humanity as image of God. Book One concludes with a discussion of love: how humans ought to love God, how God’s love is expressed in his use of humanity, and how people may appreciate God’s love through the Scriptures, faith, and charity. Augustine also claims that those who think they understand the Scriptures, but do not interpret them to reflect charity and love, do not really understand them. Book Two discusses the types of unknown signs present in the world and defines each and presents methods for understanding the Scriptures. Obscure signs include unknown literal signs and unknown figurative signs. Unknown signs are those that have meanings that are unknown. Augustine says that a feature of the Scriptures is obscurity and that obscurity is the result of sin: that is, God made the Scriptures obscure in order to motivate and challenge our fallen minds. Augustine claims there are seven steps to wisdom in interpretation of the Scriptures: fear of God, loyal obedience (or faith), scientia (or knowledge), strength, good counsel, purity of heart, and then wisdom. He also distinguishes "truth" from "logic", and argues that logic can lead to falsehood. He declares that it is better to have truth than logic. Augustine argues that committing the Scriptures to memory is critical to understanding. Once the reader is "familiar with the language of Scripture," it is possible for him to try to untangle sections that are obscure. He also emphasizes studying the Scriptures in their original languages to avoid the problems of imperfect and divergent translations. Throughout Book Two, Augustine stresses the importance of method as well as virtue for attaining wisdom through the Scriptures. He analyzes sources of knowledge, reason, and eloquence as well as charity and humility. Book Three discusses how to interpret ambiguous literal and ambiguous figurative signs. Ambiguous signs are those whose meaning is unclear or confused. He suggests first determining things from signs. Then, once the distinction is made, understand the literal meaning of the text (things as things, nothing more). Determining if there is a deeper meaning in the text can be done by recognizing a different, more figurative, mode of writing. This may show that the things are also signs of something else. For example, an aged tree could be a literal tree or it could be a symbol of long life (as a sign or allegory). Augustine emphasizes right motives when interpreting scripture, and claims that it is more important to build up love than to arrive at a historically or literally accurate interpretation. He also stresses that contemporary readers must be careful to understand that some actions (i.e., having multiple wives) which were acceptable among the ancients are no longer acceptable, and must therefore be interpreted figuratively. Understanding tropes such as irony and antiphrasis will also be beneficial for interpretation. The final section of Book Three is one of Augustine’s late additions to the work (with Book Four), consisting of Tyconius’s seven rules for interpreting scripture: The Lord and His Body, The Twofold Division of the Body of the Lord, The Promises and the Law (or The Spirit and the Letter), Species and Genus, Times, Recapitulation, and The Devil and His Body. Book Four discusses the relationship between Christian truth and rhetoric, the importance of eloquence, and the role of the preacher. This book was appended to the work a number of years after its original composition, along with the end of Book Three. Augustine again stresses the importance of both discovery and teaching for the interpretation of Scripture. He cautions the reader that he will not discuss the rules of rhetoric here; for though they are acceptable and useful for the Christian speaker, they can easily be learned elsewhere. Though eloquence is a skill which can be used for good or evil, it should be used in service to wisdom. It is not necessary, then, for the preacher to be eloquent, but only wise. Nonetheless, eloquence can enhance one’s ability to teach wisdom. The proper goal of rhetoric should thus be to teach wisdom by the use of eloquence. Augustine then analyzes the relationship between eloquence and teaching, including various stylistic points, a discussion of inspiration, and the claim that eloquence and teaching are both to be valued. Drawing on Cicero, Augustine outlines three types of style—subdued style, moderate style, and grand style—and discusses the proper context for each. The use of these styles must be determined by subject matter as well as the audience. Finally, Augustine concludes by considering the importance of the preacher’s life, which is more important than eloquence for persuading the audience. In this regard, things (the preacher’s actions) are more important than signs (the preacher’s words). Prayer is essential in order to receive from God the wisdom which will be passed on to the audience. The text concludes with an injunction to humility and thanks to God that Augustine has been able to discuss these topics. |
4503207 | /m/0c5xds | Ginger Pye | Eleanor Estes | null | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | This book is about a puppy named Ginger. Jerry Pye, a resident in Cranbury, Connecticut in 1919, bought a puppy he wanted from Ms. Speedy for a hard-earned dollar he made while dusting the pews in the church for Sam Doody. Jerry was pleased with the puppy and headed home. On the way home, Jerry and his sister Rachel heard footsteps behind them. When they turned back, they did not see anything. Jerry decided that if anyone was following them, then that follower was after his dog. After a few days, Jerry remembered that he hadn't given his puppy a name! Rachel, Uncle Bennie, and Jerry thought of a name but couldn't think of one. He asked his mother and his mother said Ginger because he looks like ginger and has quality of ginger. So they called him, Ginger or Ginger Pye. Ginger was a smart dog. He even located the school that Jerry goes to. Almost all his neighbors and friends knew Ginger. But then suddenly, Ginger disappeared! Later on Thanksgiving Day, the dog, who the Pyes named Ginger, was missing. Jerry and his sister Rachel tried to find him, but they could not. They go all around Cranbury and ask neighbors to help. They found out that Ginger had been tied up in a shed. Then they find out who the person was that stole Ginger (the unsavory character) was Wally Bullwinkle. At the end Uncle Bennie had found the dog. Everybody was very happy when they got Ginger back. They thought he had been treated badly, but he would never forget this moment. |
4503235 | /m/025t3cz | After the Bomb | Gloria D. Miklowitz | 1985 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The story follows a teen, who attempts to survive in the aftermath of a nuclear missile accidentally launched at Los Angeles by the Soviet Union, with his mother (the father is presumed dead as he worked in downtown Los Angeles, ground zero for the bomb), older brother, and friends. |
4504747 | /m/0c5_r_ | Caesar's Daughter | null | null | null | The story begins with Julia over looking her life while she is starving to death under the rule of her stepbrother Tiberius; she decides to write her story down before she dies. The book introduces us to the three-dimensional character of Julia, which begins with her birth into a world where war with Ptolemaic Egypt is certain. She is a rebellious little girl who is willful, passionate but with a gentleness and compassion for the people of Rome. She has republican sentiments like her father, but seems to have a more liberal view on how Rome should be run. Dearly beloved by nearly everyone she meets except her stepmother, Livia. Julia is loyal to her father, but not afraid to criticize his decisions. Julia grows up among intrigue and ultimately becomes its victim. Under the influence of her mother Scribonia, the poets Horace and Ovid, she begins to enjoy her life. Her only true friend is her slave and later freedwoman, Phoebe. As a little girl, she is told by one of her cousins the truth about her father and Livia's marriage; neither of them sleep together. Livia finds virgins, pregnant senator's wives and various other women instead. This shocks Julia and she loses respect for her father. When she is thirteen, she is nearly seduced by Calpurnius Piso who falls passionately in love with her. However, he fails when Julia is married at fourteen to her cousin Marcellus, whom Julia has a slight crush on. However, Marcellus is cannot bring himself to consummate their marriage. Julia is humiliated time and time again by the other women her age who mock her because of her failure to have a baby and not being able to tell them she was in fact still a virgin. When he falls ill a few years later and dies, this hits Julia quite hard and she takes the blame for his death although it wasn't her fault. Following Marcellus' death, she is betrothed to Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, a man more than twice her age. She confides Agrippa that Marcellus never consummated their marriage and makes him swear never to tell anyone. Though at first Julia dislikes the idea of marrying Agrippa, she quickly grows fond of him and eventually falls in love with him. She finally marries Agrippa and falls pregnant instantly. Nine months after their marriage she gives birth to her son Gaius and upon Agrippa's return she falls pregnant with her "little monster" daughter Vipsania Julia. Around the time that she falls pregnant with her third child, Augustus passes a law making adultery a public crime and also enforces a law saying that all couples should have at least three children in order to receive extra privileges, such as viewing public games. Julia and Agrippa are covered, as too are people like Scribonia (who as Julia, Cornelia and Cornelius) but others have not, including Julia's close friend, the poet Horace. On Augustus' renewing of Lex Iulia and rule against bachelorism, she tries to protest on behalf of many of her friends. Upon the birth of her son Lucius, Augustus attempts to adopt Gaius and Lucius as his own sons (so both he and Livia will fit into the new law) but Julia refuses, advising him to get his own extra two children. Julia soon afterwards gives birth to her daughter Agrippina. Julia becomes friends with a woman named Aemilia and her husband Lucius Vinicius after the meeting of matrons, where Julia was worshiped in the guise of Diana. She also spends time with her cousins Claudia Marcella (Agrippa's ex-wife) and Iullus Antonius, the son of Mark Antony. Julia also attempts to aid Tiberius, husband to Agrippa's eldest daughter Vipsania in his poor self-esteem by watching him at his cavalry practice. Around this time, Scribonia gathers some information about Augustus' love affairs that leak through Julia. To counter the rumours, Tiberius starts a rumour that Julia had 'conceived a passion' for him and, out of his jealousy Iullus spreads the rumours. It is only when Scribonia finds out about the rumours that she helps Julia counter then by advising her not to go near Tiberius anymore. She tells Agrippa about what Tiberius has been spreading and that it isn't true, and he believes her. Julia falls pregnant with her fifth child but Agrippa catches a fever and because of Julia's pregnancy, she cannot go to him. He dies from the fever. Julia is devastated. Through her grief, she begins to call the baby inside her by Agrippa's name and upon his birth she names him Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa Postumus for his father and she cherishes him above all of her children because he looks and behaves so much like his father. Following Agrippa's death, Augustus finally forces Julia to let him adopt Gaius and Lucius, but she refuses to let him have Postumus. Augustus also forces Julia into marriage with Tiberius, who is forced to divorce his wife in order to marry her. Augustus sends him away to fight in a campaign so they at least won’t have to see him. Not long after the marriage, Julia gets a visit from Octavia, who never fully recovered from Marcellus’ death, who tells her the truth about Livia; she wanted the marriage between Julia and Tiberius because it led to the possibility that he might be the next emperor. Octavia dies soon afterwards. Iullus Antonius also becomes a close friend of Julia’s, and tells her that he had strongly opposed the marriage because he felt it threatened Gaius and Lucius’ claims to the throne. He then reveals to Julia that he has fallen in love with her and his real motives for protesting for against her marriage to Tiberius were partly because he wanted her for himself and he had urged Augustus to let her marry him instead. He shares with her his desires to see Gaius on the throne after Augustus dies, as well as his desires to marry Julia. She realises that he had only become her friend with the intention of becoming her lover and sends him away, but Iullus makes a promise to her that if anything were to happen to Tiberius, she would let him marry her. After the meeting, Iullus pursues Julia sexually by sending her love letters, gifts and various other forms to show his affection. Though Julia desires him also, she resists the temptation from fear of falling pregnant while Tiberius is away. Tiberius returns from his campaign after two years, and though Julia tries to be kind to him, he treats her coldly because he has heard of Iullus’ passions for her. Tiberius insults Julia constantly and hysterically blames her for his divorce from Vipsania. Julia realises that her husband is mentally unstable and only realises his cruelty when be brutally rapes her upon returning from his campaign. Julia is devastated by her situation and Tiberius cruelty’s drives her to giving into Iullus, beginning an affair with him. They disguise their relationship behind her pregnancy and are forced to meet each other in secret at friends’ homes. Iullus aids Julia in promoting her sons to the people of Rome. They begin to favour the boys and Iullus over Tiberius. Julia gives birth to Tiberius’ son but he dies only a few weeks after being born. After a while, Tiberius is no longer able to tolerate Julia taking Iullus’ side over his and decides to retire from Rome. When Julia requests a divorce, Augustus refuses because it will cut him off from the Claudian family. Desperate to marry Julia and assure the boys place in the succession, Iullus comes up with a plan to murder Tiberius while he’s out of Rome because if Tiberius were to die, Augustus would have no one but Iullus to turn to and it would remove the Claudians from the picture forever. When Iullus goes to Julia with the plan, she refuses to help him and says she won’t support him. Not long after this, Julia is arrested with her friends for adultery. She is also charged with treason against the emperor, not for trying to murder Tiberius but Augustus. Though Julia denies everything, Augustus flies into a violent rage and demands she be exiled or executed to the senate. Iullus Antonius and the others are arrested, including Julia’s brother Cornelius and while her friends are exiled, Iullus is forced to write a confession before he is executed. He admits that he did commit adultery with Julia but that she knew nothing of his plans and took responsibility for everything, in an attempt to save her from execution. He consequently commits suicide to avoid execution and to avoid further questioning. Rumours begin to fly that Augustus has gone mad and that Julia had begun another civil war, taking the place of Cleopatra and Iullus the place of Mark Antony. When Phoebe is taken to prison and threatened with torture, she commits suicide in order to keep Julia and Iullus’ affair to herself. Scribonia saves Julia from execution by visiting Augustus and threatening an uprising of the people if he makes such a move. He agrees to just exile her and allows Scribonia to go with her into exile. Julia finishes the story by telling of how she has been locked in her house and refused to eat. The novel’s ending is bittersweet and satisfying. |
4506275 | /m/047gnzf | The Glass Cafe | Gary Paulsen | 6/10/2003 | {"/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Tony is fascinated with art, and goes to the club that his mom works at to draw pictures of some of the ladies. When his art teacher looks at the drawings, she wants to put them up in a museum for a contest. When people look at the pictures of the ladies Tony's mom gets in trouble and is sent to court for letting her son draw pornographic pictures. Tony's mom explains that it was just art, and tells them the story of the Glass Cafe. |
4507275 | /m/0c62_4 | 1633 | Eric Flint | 2002-08 | {"/m/0mz2": "Alternate history", "/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | 1633 continues where 1632 left off. Most of the novel details various political machinations of the new "United States" and the attempts of Cardinal Richelieu to nullify the threat posed by the technological advantage the up-timers have given to Gustavus Adolphus and his "Confederated Principalities of Europe". Richelieu completely changes France's foreign policy and forms an alliance aimed squarely at the NUS and Gustavus called the League of Ostend. Mike Stearns sends emissaries looking for allies, some of whom end up behind enemy lines as they already belong to the secret League of Ostend, which announces its presence in the Battle of Four Fleets. The Dutch Republic nearly falls and Stearns' emissary voluntarily stays behind, becoming trapped in the Siege of Amsterdam. At this point, the newly created timeline start to diverge greatly from the actual history of the 17th Century, in no small part because the news of a town from the future brought spies and emissaries, and a fair number of encyclopedias and history textbooks found their way into European courts. One theme of the series is of down-timer leaders trying to change, hasten or head off their histories while the acts of ordinary citizens going about their day to day affairs and of the leaders of Grantville effect more fundamental societal and political changes. |
4507703 | /m/0c63fs | Seola | Anne Eliza Smith | 1878 | null | The greatest discovery of the nineteenth century is found by accident. A team of archaeologists uncover one of the most ancient burial tombs of all time. Inside the tomb they find something far greater than gold or gems, they find a diary of a person who lived more than four thousand years ago. The team pool all their knowledge together in order to translate the scroll diary before it disintegrates in the foreign air. The diary of Seola is about a girl's struggle to resist a wicked world. Her resolve to remain loyal to God is so strong she influences a fallen angel to repentance. The diary is unique because it gives a detailed account on how the Great Deluge started. One of the planets in the solar system becomes unstable and its destruction causes the waters above the expanse to fall. The beginning entry of the journal gave no doubt as to the era the individual claims to come from. The entry reads, “West Bank of the Euphrates, first moon-evening, after Adam, four cycles”. The author of the journal identifies herself as Seola, daughter of Aleemon and Lebuda. Her father was the son of Lamech and his father was Methuselah. Aleemon had a passion for study and the preservation of historical records. This desire kept him near a grand city which contained a wealth of knowledge on the history of the world written down on scrolls. The city’s name was Sippara and it was also known as the city of the Sun. This desire also endangered the lives of his family. It so happened that the city was the royal seat of the one who ruled the planet. This ruler was known as Lucifer the Light Bearer, King of the Sun. He and his kind were ruling the earth for over 1100 years, since the days of Jared. These beings were known as the Devas. The Devas were angelic spirit beings that materialized into human form. Their superior powers enabled them to dominate and instill fear into the human race. They sought after the most beautiful women of mankind and took them as wives. Through the union of the mortal female and the angelic being came male children of large stature. These offspring were known as the Darvands. The Darvands were ruthless bullies with strength that none could match. Seola begins her journal at the request of her father. Her first entries are common and uneventful because the family has been relocated to an isolated section of the forest away from Sippara and their life is peaceful with the isolation. The tranquility eventually comes to an end because the Devas discover their private sanctuary. The threat to the family is neither by wealth or possession but by way of beauty. |
4507859 | /m/0c63m2 | The Adventures of Super Diaper Baby | Dav Pilkey | 2002 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | === Plot summary === |
4510088 | /m/0c679l | The Calcutta Chromosome | Amitav Ghosh | 8/23/1996 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | The novel begins with the story of Antar, an employee of the LifeWatch organization, who recounts an encounter with L. Murugan, an employee of LifeWatch who has disappeared in Calcutta. The plot is quite complicated and its timelines are deliberately mixed up. Antar starts to track Murugan’s disappearance in Calcutta many years back. Murugan has asked to be transferred to Calcutta because of his fascination with the life of Sir Ronald Ross. The Calcutta of Ronald Ross is well separated in time from the Calcutta that Murugan visits, but the New York of Antar and the Calcutta of Murugan seem to overlap in time, though it is clearly stated in the novel that they are separated by many years. Through his research into old and lost documents and phone messages, Antar figures out that Murugan had systematically unearthed an underground scientific/mystical movement that could grant eternal life. Loosely described, the process is as follows: the disciples of this movement can transfer their chromosomes into another, and gradually become that person or take over that person. In the novel, Ronald Ross did not discover the mysteries of the malaria parasite; it was a group of underground practitioners of a different, mystical "science," natives of India, who helped to guide Ross to the conclusions for which he is famous. These Indians provided Ross with clues in the belief that in the moment Ross made his discovery, the parasite would change its nature. At this point, a new variant of malaria would emerge and the group's research using the chromosome-transfer technique would advance even further. |
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