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Found | Margaret Haddix | 2,008 | In the beginning of the story Jonah and his friend Chip Winston, who also learns that he is adopted, receive letters from an unknown person. The letters say “You are one of the missing” and “Beware! They are coming to get you”. At first they take it as some kind of joke but soon to wonder more and more about who are their birth parents and why they got these letters. They decide that the best way to figure out is to go into Chip’s parent's safe. There they find a phone number to an FBI agent named James Reardon. Soon Jonah asks his parents if they can call the adoption agency and ask who his birth parents really are. They only tell his dad to contact the FBI to talk to James Reardon. Jonah, his parents, and his sister Katherine meet James Reardon. Right before the meet, a janitor gives Jonah a bottle of Mountain Dew. When they finally meet with James Reardon, he tells them Jonah was illegally adopted from a foreign country and might be deported. He refuses to tell them the country's name, though. When Jonah goes to the bathroom to throw up thanks to the Mountain Dew, another, younger janitor appears out of nowhere in the bathroom and tells him a file would appear on the desk by the time he got back. He tells Jonah to memorize as many names as possible. Back in the room, he distracts the adults while Katherine takes pictures of the documents. It turns out to be the addresses and phone numbers of 36 teenagers, including Chip and Jonah. It also includes the names of several adults, including a woman named Angela DuPre. Chip and Katherine begin calling the numbers. The adults all hung up. Most of the kids turn out to live in the vicinity of Chip and Jonah. After a while they receive a letter from Angela DuPre, telling them to meet her at the library to talk about the things that are happening and get more information. At the library, Angela DuPre tells them that time travelers exist and that she had been researching. She tells them that she used to work at an airport, until an airplane, full of babies, appeared out of nowhere. After the babies were removed, the plane disappeared. She speculates that the babies on the plane were originally adults who were turned into babies by time traveling. Then a man breaks into the room and is promptly tackled by the "janitor" from the FBI who talked to Jonah in the bathroom. Chip, Jonah, and Katherine escape through a window, but Angela stays behind for more information. Later, when they're leaving the library, they see Angela, who disappears into thin air. When they get home, they find out the lists of names was deleted from Chip's computer. Shortly afterwards, Jonah's mom receives a flyer in the mail advertising an adoption conference for teen adoptees and their parents. Jonah persuades his parents to let him bring Katherine along, too. At the conference, all the adoptees are divided into two groups, with Jonah, Chip, and all the kids on the list in one group, and everyone else in another. Katherine pretends to be a girl named Daniella McCarthy to get into Jonah's group. The kids are led to a cave in the woods by two men name Gary and Mr. Hodge. Then the cave is transported to a place called a time hollow. The "janitor" from the FBI, whom Jonah, Chip, and Katherine have nicknamed JB, appears and attacks Gary and Mr. Hodge. Soon Angela arrives too. They find out that Gary and Hodge work for an organization called Interchronological Rescue, an organization dedicated to rescuing children from history, such as toddlers trapped in burning houses and people left for dead during the Bubonic Plague; taking them to the distant future; turning them into babies; and putting them up for adoption. The organization got greedy, however, and they started taking famous babies whose disappearances were noticed. Finally, when they were flying to the future with a load of babies, JB chased after the plane and caused it to crash in the twenty-first century. Gary and Hodge want to turn all the kids into babies and take them to the future, and JB wants to send them all back to die. Finally, JB sends Chip and another boy named Alex back to the fifteenth century , but Jonah and Katherine grab Chip's arms right before he disappears and find themselves falling backwards through time. On the way, Jonah manages to convince JB to let him and Katherine help Chip and Alex repair time so everyone can go home to the twenty-first century. |
Compelling Evidence | null | null | Ben Potter is found dead; his wife, Talia, is indicted and arrested. She turns to brilliant criminal defense lawyer, Paul Madriani, her former lover, to defend her. |
The People of Kau | null | 1,976 | This is a photographic monograph on the life of the people of Kau. Leni Riefenstahl spent 16 weeks with the Nuba of Kau in 1975. These people, known as the "South East Nuba", live only 100 miles away from the Mesakin Nuba. Yet, they speak another language, follow different customs, and are very different in character and temperament. The knife-fights, dances of love and elaborately painted faces and bodies are photographed in the book. |
Handles | Jan Mark | 1,983 | Erica Timperley, a city girl who loves motorcycles, is bored with her holiday in Norfolk where her Uncle and Aunt grow acres of vegetables. Then she sees a cat with false teeth and discovers Mercury Motor Cycles, an unusual motorcycle repair shop down an alley. There she meets the enigmatic young man "Elsie" Wainwright, who allows her the honour of helping out in the workshop. Apart from beginning to learn the trade, Erica learns a whole new arcane vocabulary and meets an array of curious characters including Bunny and Bill Birdcycle. Eventually she gets a "handle" of her own, and by the end of the summer is determined to become a mechanic. |
Le Chercheur d'or | Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio | 1,985 | Alexis L'Estang becomes obsessed with finding the treasure of the legendary Unknown Corsair on the island of Mauritius. The child recalls the sea around the island of Rodrigues in the Indian Ocean. The author situated the plot of this book in the village of Anse aux Anglais. |
Étoile errante | Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio | 1,992 | In the year 1944 in a mountainous area on the French-Italian border Esther and her mother and all the Jews in the village of Saint-Martin must cross from France to Italy to avoid the SS. After the war, she and her mother, Elizabeth, begin their long journey to France, to the sailing ship Sette Fratelli which will take them to Palestine. When Esther finally arrives in Jerusalem, she briefly meets and exchanges names with Nejma, a Palestinian, another wanderer, one who ends up, in the summer of 1948, in the Nour Chams Refugee Camp. |
Ourania | Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio | 2,006 | Le Clézio lived for fifteen years in a small village in Mexico called Valle de Bravo. Children invented an imaginary country and ideal, Ourania, and this book describes a near-Utopian society in Mexico. Two types of Utopias are compared to each other: a modest Utopia from the Jesuits and the other an ideal city called Santa Fe de la Laguna. The book mentions the transhumant movement Rainbows (1970–1980) and the Salvadoran revolution and its leader, Monsignor Romero. Failure was inevitable. Dreams are necessessary, even if reality isn't. |
Ritournelle de la faim | Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio | 2,008 | Set in Paris in the 1930s, it tells the story of Ethel, a young woman who must save herself and her parents, torn by the age's politics and their hatred for each other.The story seems so simple. A narrator who is and is not the author tells the story of a young girl – Ethel Brown – who is and is not the mother of JMG Le Clézio. French language text sample from "Ritournelle de la faim" can be read online |
Vanishing Africa | null | 1,982 | The pictures are evidence of Riefenstahl's passion for Africa and an attempt to capture the region's soul before it lost its innocence to the technical age. |
The Gray Cloth | null | null | The novel is set in the middle of the twentieth century, and opens in Chicago, where the protagonist Edgar Krug has designed an enormous colored-glass exhibition hall. An art exhibit is held there, accompanied by an organ concert. Krug, fiercely dedicated to his esthetic concepts, is unhappy that the bright colors of women's fashions clash with his architectural scheme. When he meets Clara Weber, the organist, he is struck by her gray dress with white lace trim; he finds it the perfect compliment to the color effect of his hall. Krug impulsively asks Clara to marry him — providing she agrees to wear the same style of clothing. Clara accepts Krug's terms, which are specified in their marriage contract. Once married, the couple leave for the Fiji Islands in Krug's private dirigible (it has a glass-walled cupola, and air conditioning). Though Clara accepts Krug's strange terms for their marriage, other women do not. Clara maintains a telegraphic correspondence with her American friend, Amanda Schmidt; and Amanda is highly critical of Clara's subservience in the arrangement. Later in the book, other women also protest its terms. Scheerbart provides portrayals of a number of strong female characters through the book, supporting its subtitle, "a Ladies' novel." Krug goes to Fiji because he has an ongoing project there, a retirement home for airship pilots. He clashes with the project's sponsor over how much colored glass the building will accommodate. From Fiji, Krug and Clara travel to other sites throughout the world, to visit other projects. Their first stop is "Makartland" at the South Pole, an artists' colony for twenty women artists. There, a seamstress makes outfits for Clara that arrange her gray-and-white wardrobe scheme in imaginative ways. Käte Bandel, one of the artists, joins the Krugs in their further travels; she debates artistic assumptions and values with Krug as they travel to Australia and then to Borneo. Bandel enrages Krug when she convinces Clara to wear a plaid scarf. Leaving Bandel behind, they fly to Japan; but Japanese women also react negatively to the gray and white. In the Himalayas and in Ceylon, Krug visits another projects; later the couple travel to an experimental station by the Aral Sea. They also visit Babylon and Egypt. Despite his enthusiasm for colored glass, Krug turns down an offer to build large glass obelisks atop the Pyramids of Giza. In the "Kurian Murian Islands" off the eastern coat of Arabia, Krug meets the tycoon Li-Tung, who commissions him to design houses suspended in mid-air (so that they don't scratch the majolica tiles with which the islands are paved). Li-Tung is passionate about color, and has Clara change into more varied silk outfits. Krug allows this. Their journey is not a parade of triumphs, however; in most places, Krug's ideas are resisted, criticized, and rejected to greater or lesser degrees. At Malta, though, a glass architecture museum in established. The Krugs end the novel at their glass house in Switzerland. At Babylon, Krug gives up on his determination about Clara's wardrobe, and agrees to strike the binding clause out of their marriage contract. By this time, though, Clara has become a convert to her husband's ideas about glass architecture, and maintains the gray fashion by her own choice. |
Along for the Ride | Sarah Dessen | 2,009 | It's been so long since Auden slept at night. Ever since her parent's divorce—or since the fighting started. Now she has the chance to spend a carefree summer with her dad and his new family in the charming beach town where they live. A job in a clothes boutique introduces Auden to the world of girls: their talk, their friendship, their crushes. She missed out on all that, too busy being the perfect daughter to her demanding mother. Then she meets Eli, an intriguing loner and a fellow insomniac who becomes her guide to the nocturnal world of the town. Together they embark on parallel quests: for Auden, to experience the carefree teenage life she’s been denied; for Eli, to come to terms with the guilt he feels for the death of a friend. |
A Crooked Kind of Perfect | null | null | A normal girl in Michigan, Zoe Elias has dreams of becoming a pianist just like Vladimir Horowitz. Zoe's mom is obsessed with her work and her dad doesn't have a job, and doesn't like to interact with others. When her father brings home a Perfectone D60 Organ, Zoe is upset because she was hoping for a baby grand piano. The organ comes with free lessons and her teacher is Miss Person. After a lesson, Zoe disobeys Miss Person and instead of practicing with her tempo, she uses Ramba version. Miss Person realizes that Zoe has talent and decides that Zoe should enter the Perform-O-Rama. Zoe's mom misses her birthday and Zoe is very upset. After things go wrong, and her mother can no longer drive her to the Perform-O-Rama on the following day, she thinks that she won't make it to Perform-O-Rama. She takes out her anger on her dad, and Mr. Elias decides to take Zoe to the Perform-O-Rama, knowing she really wants to do it. Her first performance, at the Perform-O-Rama, doesn't go as well as she'd wanted. But during her second, she looks up in the audience and sees her mom, by her dad. Zoe gets motivated and later comes home with a 4th place trophy. |
Near to the Wild Heart | Clarice Lispector | null | Near to the Wild Heart does not have a conventional narrative plot. It instead recounts flashes from the life of Joana, between her present, as a young woman, and her early childhood. These focus, like most of Lispector's works, on interior, emotional states. The book opens with a scene of the child Joana playing in the garden, making up poems for her father. Joana's wildness and barely suppressed violence, along with her linguistic creativity, are her most notable features. She is frequently compared to animals: over the course of the book Lispector describes her to a bird, a snake, a wildcat, a horse, and a dog. She commits transgressive acts—as a child she throws a book at an old man's head, for example, and as a married woman she leaves her husband, Otávio, and greets the news of his adultery—he has made another woman, his old friend Lídia, pregnant—with utter indifference. She is not so much immoral as she is amoral: “Evil is not living, and that’s it. Dying is already something else. Dying is different from good and evil.” In the book, she cites long passages from Spinoza, the longest quotes that appear anywhere in her novels; it seems that she felt an affinity with the Dutch philosopher's amoral conception of the world. |
Sent | Margaret Haddix | 2,008 | The children Jonah, Katherine, Chip, and another boy, Alex, have no preparation before they are sent back to 1483 at the Tower of London by way of time travel. JB promises them that they can return to the present if they can fix Time. Katherine gets time sickness from the dramatic time warp. Jonah and Chip help her to her feet while they are talking to JB through a futuristic machine called the Elucidator. They quickly discover that Chip and Alex’s true identities are the 12-year-old King Edward V and his 10-year-old brother, Richard, the Duke of York. Chip tells Katherine she can be his queen and Jonah becomes annoyed, replying that "she's my sister." In the Tower they find two ghostlike boys. JB explains that they are tracers, which show how time would have gone on if time travelers had not messed with them. Chip blends in with his tracer, and realizes he can think like King Edward V. He realizes that they are the princes and kings of London, that Richard III wants them dead, and that their mother has a plan for their escape. Soon, two men come to the room the tracers are in and throw the boys out the window. However, Jonah and Katherine pull Chip and Alex from their tracers. The group thinks that they succeeded in fixing time. However, the men search for their bodies and the group is forced to hide. Chip gets frustrated at JB and throws the Elucidator at the wall. Jonah picks it up and finds that the Elucidator is critically damaged. They reset it, and use one of its functions to become invisible. The next morning, the group leaves the Tower and joins the coronation of Richard III. Chip and Alex run off, angry after seeing their uncle take the throne. Jonah and Katherine go to a chapel where Richard III is praying, and they pretend to be angels. They tell him that the princes are in heaven, but that he will never be able to go there himself. However, the Elucidator finishes resetting and Jonah and Katherine become visible again. They run away and eventually find Chip and Alex, who are with their mother and their sisters. JB explains, through the Elucidator, that one of the two men who threw the boys out of the window was sent by the queen to protect them. He brings them out of time to tell them how and when to save Chip and Alex, and then drops them two years later in time. Katherine and Jonah meet Richard III again during the night, and tell him that if he gives the throne to Edward V/Chip, he will be forgiven and will go to Heaven. In the Battle of Bosworth Field, pitting Richard III against Henry VII of England. Jonah and Katherine try to get Alex and Chip out of their tracers so they can tell them they need to leave. When Jonah can't, Katherine gets Chip out by telling him she would be his girlfriend if he asked. Chip gets Alex out but then Richard III comes to Edward V/Chip and tells him that he will give Edward V back the throne after the battle. The battle ensues, and Richard III is killed. Jonah and Katherine pull Chip and Alex out just before they get killed in original history. JB makes them come back to the cave using the Elucidator. JB explains to the group that they succeeded - they did save Chip and Alex, yet managed to keep history the same because Richard III was dead, the princes were considered dead, and all the people who knew that Richard III planned to give back the throne were dead in the battle. When they are back in the present, JB asks Jonah and Katherine to "help" another kid. JB gives them another "traveling companion," a girl named Andrea, who is really Virginia Dare from the lost colony of Roanoke. JB tells Chip and Alex they have to stay in the present while Jonah and Katherine are gone. JB replies that it will seem they were gone for a few minutes, but Chip says he knows it will be longer. Chip and Alex are just about to resent but then Jonah and Katherine are sent back into time. |
Lullaby | Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio | 1,980 | The adolescent Lullaby strolls the beaches, cliffs and caves on the outskirts of her home town (this is situated in an unnamed Mediterranean environment). Her getting in groove with the ocean and the elements is what gets her going, and finally she can return to the life she once knew as meaningless, only now adding a bit of meaning to it. |
The Redeemer | Jo Nesbø | 2,005 | The Redeemer begins by describing an incident which took place a number of years in the past, in 1991, at a youth camp run by the Norwegian Salvation Army. A young, 14-year old girl – the daughter of a senior official in the Salvation Army – is raped in a public toilet on the site. Due to the Salvation Army's strict hierarchical setup, and also because revelation of the rape will severely damage the Salvation Army's reputation, she does not tell anyone about the ordeal. The name of the assailant is not given; the chapter includes mention of several young men who would play major roles in the later plot, and it could have been any of them. Another aspect of the past, scattered in numerous flashbacks throughout the book, are vivid reminiscences of the 1991 Battle of Vukovar during the Breakup of Yugoslavia, and of the atrocities committed in its aftermath by the victorious Serb militias. Similar to the flashbacks to the Second World War in "The Redbreast", these are integral to the book's plot - having formed the character of a young Vukovar Croat fighter who received the nickname "Little Redeemer", who would later become a professional hitman, carrying out contract killings in various European cities. The action moves to the present day (2003), and the Croat assassin – calling himself Stankic – arrives in Oslo and kills a Salvation Army officer during a Christmas street concert. The hitman has a facial anomaly known as hyperelasticity, wherein his facial muscles can be manipulated voluntarily to stop people from recognizing him. As such, despite the murder happening in a public place the Norwegian police get little useful information regarding the murderer. The reader already does know who pulled the trigger – however, the identity of the customer who paid for the killing and this customer's motives remain unknown, and are at the center of the mystery which must be unravelled. Meanwhile, the senior Police Inspector from the Oslo Police, Bjarne Møller, retires. As a parting gesture, he gives his three main officers, Jack Halvorsen (called Halvorsen by his colleagues), Beate Lønn – Halvorsen's girlfriend – and Harry Hole gifts. Harry's is a wristwatch which grows to annoy Harry due to the incessant ticking of the second-hand. At one point, he even throws it out of the window of his apartment, though later recovers it from the packed snow. Møller is replaced by Gunnar Hagen. Harry, Halvorsen and Beatte are assigned to the murder of the Salvation Army officer – a man called Robert Karlsen. When a murder attempt is made on Robert's brother, Jon Karlsen it is believed that the Karlsen family is being attacked. Harry's former girlfriend, Rakel, has now left him and is with another man, Matthias Lund-Helgesen (who is to become a major character in the next Harry Hole novel, The Snowman) and Harry meets up – and eventually begins a relationship – with Martine, the young woman who (unbeknownst to Harry) was raped at the start of the novel. Harry finds clues that lead him to Croatia and he makes contact with the hitman's minder who is revealed to be the Stankic's mother. He makes a deal with her to save her son's life, but upon returning to Norway discovers that a man wearing Stankic's clothes has been shot and killed by an armed police marksman. The dead man's face is all but obliterated and identification is near-impossible. There is a clue, however, in the dead man's DNA, after Halvorsen is fatally wounded outside Jon Karlsen's flat. The blood of the dead man does not match that of Stankic, whose blood was found at the scene of the attack on Halvorsen. Harry continues to follow Stankic, but now knows that Stankic was contracted to kill Jon Karlsen by Jon Karlsen himself. Jon switched places with his brother (the two looked very similar so Stankic did not notice the difference) in order for that murder of his brother could not be blamed on him. When in Croatia, setting up the hit, Jon had posed as Robert. Jon is also swindling the Salvation Army out of 5,000,000 krone for an apartment block. On the night of an indoor Christmas concert in a concert hall, Jon Karlsen stands up his girlfriend, Thea, claiming that his father – in Thailand – is ill and that he is going to fly out to him. Stankic and - later - Harry Hole both get the details from Thea that Jon is about to flee the country. Stankic catches up with Jon Karlsen in a toilet block some distance from the main airport terminal. Harry also catches up with the two of them there, and gets Jon Karlsen to give a full confession, stating that anything said with a gun (Stankic's) to his head is inadmissible in court. Jon tells everything, believing that he will be set free, but Harry instead tells Stankic that Jon's bag contains the 5,000,000 krone and walks away. Behind him a single shot is heard. In effect, Harry has become Accessory Before the Act to murder. Part of the confession includes that it was Jon Karlsen, not Stankic, who fatally wounded Halvorsen. Harry also knows that it was Jon who raped Martine some years earlier, and that he has been raping young girls regularly ever since. Jon is seen to have been an unreliable narrator, as numerous episodes told from his point of view in earlier parts of the book gave the impression of his being a honest, well-meaning person. Owing to the high valuation that an antique dealer puts on the watch given to him by Bjarne Møller, Harry also realises that his former boss was involved in the same group of corrupt police officers as his former nemesis, Tom Waaler. Harry goes to Bergen to speak with Møller but – after Møller describes that he was trying to do what was best for the Force, Harry elects not to arrest him. |
Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War | Pat Buchanan | 2,008 | Citing such historians as George F. Kennan, Andreas Hillgruber, Simon K. Newman, Niall Ferguson, Charles Tansill, Paul W. Schroeder, Alan Clark, Michael Stürmer, Norman Davies, John Lukacs, Frederick P. Veagle, Correlli Barnett, John Charmley, William Henry Chamberlin, David P. Calleo, Maurice Cowling, A. J. P. Taylor, and Alfred-Maurice de Zayas, Buchanan argues that it was a great mistake on the part of Britain to fight Germany in both world wars. In Buchanan's opinion, the results of British involvement in both world wars were a disaster for Britain, Europe and the world. One of Buchanan's express purposes is to undermine what he describes as a "Churchill cult" amongst America's elite, and therefore he focuses particularly on the role of Sir Winston Churchill in involving Britain in wars with Germany in 1914 and again in 1939. Buchanan accuses Churchill, at that time First Lord of the Admiralty, of having a "lust for war" in 1914. Buchanan follows the conclusions of the American diplomat George F. Kennan in his 1984 book The Fateful Alliance that the Franco-Russian Alliance of 1894 was an act of Franco-Russian "encirclement" of Germany, and that German foreign policy after 1894 was defensive rather than aggressive. Buchanan described Germany during the Second Reich as a "satiated power" seeking only peace and prosperity threatened by a revanchist France obsessed with regaining the lost provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, and calls Imperial Russia a highly "imperialist" power carrying out an aggressive policy in Eastern Europe that menaced Germany. Buchanan argues that Britain had no quarrel with Germany before 1914, however the great build-up of the German Navy spearheaded by Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz was a "threat to Britain", which forced the British to bring back to European waters the bulk of her navy and to make alliances with Russia and France. He asserts that this was a disastrous policy of the Germans which "tied England to Europe" and which therefore created the conditions which led the British to involvement in World War I. On the other hand, Buchanan asserts that the greatest responsibility for the breakdown in Anglo-German relations was the "Germanophobia" and zeal for the Entente with France of the British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey. In assessing responsibility for the course of events, Buchanan asserts that the British could have easily ended the Anglo-German naval race in 1912 by promising to remain neutral in the event of war between Germany and France. Buchanan writes that "Prussian militarism" was an anti-German Black Legend invented by British statesmen, and that the record of Imperial Germany supports the judgement that it was least militaristic of the European Powers. He writes that in the century between Waterloo (1815) and World War I (1914) Britain had fought ten wars and Germany three. Buchanan writes in defense of Kaiser Wilhelm II that he had not fought a war in his 25 year reign, and compares that unfavorably with Churchill's service in three wars prior to 1914 "Churchill had himself seen more war than almost any soldier in the German army." Buchanan claims that the Kaiser Wilhem was desperate to avoid a war in 1914, and accepts the German claim that it was Russian mobilization of July 31, 1914 that forced war on Germany . Buchanan accuses Churchill and Grey of illegally committing Britain to war in 1914 by making promises that Britain would defend France without the knowledge of either Cabinet or Parliament. Buchanan argues that United States should never had fought in World War I, and that the American people were "deceived and dragged" into war in 1917, and says that "Americans blamed the 'Merchants of Death' – the war profiteers – and the British propagandists" who created the myth of the Rape of Belgium. Buchanan called the British "hunger blockade" of Germany in World War I "criminal", and accepted the contention of the British economist John Maynard Keynes in his 1919 book The Economic Consequences of the Peace that the reparations imposed on Germany in the Treaty of Versailles were "impossible" to pay. Buchanan argues that World War II could have been avoided if the Treaty of Versailles had not in his view been so harsh towards Germany. Buchanan views the Versailles treaty as monstrously unjust towards Germany, and argues that German efforts to revise Versailles were both moral and just. Buchanan calls those historians who blame Germany for the two world wars "court historians", who Buchanan argues have created a myth of sole German guilt for the world wars. By contrast to his opposition to Versailles, Buchanan wrote that by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk Germany had merely applied to that "prison house of nations", the Russian Empire, the principle of self-determination, releasing from Russian rule Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, and the Caucasus (largely modern Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan). Buchanan says that the Hungarians, who lost two thirds of their country by the Treaty of Trianon, considered it a "national crucifixion" and were embittered towards the Allies by it. Buchanan takes the view that Czechoslovakia should never had been created, describing it as "a living contradiction of the principle" of self-determination, with the Czechs ruling "Germans, Hungarians, Slovaks, Poles, and Ruthenians" in a "multi-ethnic, multilingual, multicultural, Catholic-Protestant conglomeration that had never before existed.". Buchanan accuses the Czech leaders Benes and Masaryk of deceiving the Allies, particularly President Wilson, regarding the ethnic make-up of the regions which became Czechoslovakia. "Asked why he had consigned three million Germans to Czech rule, Wilson blurted, 'Why, Masaryk never told me that!'" As a result of their humiliation at Versailles, argues Buchanan, the German people became more nationalistic and ultimately were willing to put their confidence in Adolf Hitler. Buchanan writes that there was a "Great Civil War of the West" which comprised both world wars and which Buchanan contends that Britain should have stayed neutral in rather than upholding an unfair Treaty of Versailles. Buchanan damns successive British and French leaders for not offering to revise Versailles in Germany's favor in the 1920s while the Weimar Republic was still in existence, which Buchanan argues influenced the German people to turn to Adolf Hitler. Buchanan contends, citing historians Richard Lamb and Alan Bullock, that the attempt on the part of the German Chancellor Heinrich Brüning to found an Austro-German customs union in March 1931 was a project which could have prevented Hitler from coming to power. Buchanan criticises the Allies for opposing the Austro-German customs union, and quotes Bullock regarding their veto as not only helping "to precipitate the failure of the Austrian Kreditanstalt and the German financial crisis of the summer but forced the German Foreign Office to announce on September 3 that the project would be abandoned. The result was to inflict a sharp humiliation on the Bruning government and to inflame national resentment in Germany." In this way, Buchanan argues that Britain, France, Italy, and Czechoslovakia indirectly assisted Hitler's rise to power in 1933. In Buchanan's view, Weimar-era German leaders like Gustav Stresemann, Heinrich Brüning, and Friedrich Ebert were all responsible German statesmen working to revise Versailles in a manner that would not threaten the peace of Europe, and were undermined by the inability and unwillingness of Britain and France to co-operate. Buchanan follows the distinction made by the German historian Andreas Hillgruber between a Weimar foreign policy which sought to restore Germany to its pre-1918 position and wished for some territorial expansionism in Eastern Europe, and a Nazi foreign policy for which the achievement of Weimar-era foreign policy was only the first step towards a larger programme of seeking Lebensraum via war and genocide in Eastern Europe. Since Buchanan argues that was no moral difference between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, he maintains that Britain should have just allowed the German Nazis and the Soviet Communists to fight it out and destroy each other and await the course of events, whilst rapidly re-arming so as to be in a position to fight if necessary. Buchanan argues that the "guarantee" of Poland in 1939 was impossible to fulfill and only made the war inevitable. Buchanan calls Hitler's foreign policy programme more moderate than the war aims sought by the German Chancellor Dr. Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg in the Septemberprogramm in World War I because Buchanan contends that Hitler was only interested in expansionism in Eastern Europe and did not seek territory in Western Europe and Africa Moreover, Buchanan argues that once Hitler came to power in 1933, his foreign policy was not governed strictly by Nazi ideology, but rather was modified ad hoc by pragmatism. Buchanan writes that Benito Mussolini was committed to the Stresa Front of 1935, and it was an act of folly on the part of Britain to vote for League of Nations sanctions on Italy for invading Ethiopia, as it drove Fascist Italy into an alliance with Nazi Germany In Buchanan's view, the British were highly hypocritical in seeking sanctions against Italy for the Italo-Ethiopian war as he argues there was no moral difference between Italian imperialism against Ethiopia in 1935, and British imperialism against other African nations in the 19th century Buchanan draws unfavorable comparisons between the ready acceptance by France's Pierre Laval of Italy's right to conquer Ethiopia as the price of maintaining the Stresa Front, and what Buchanan calls the sanctimonious attitude of the British who voted for sanctions in defense of what Churchill, quoted by Buchanan, described as "a wild land of tyranny, slavery, and tribal war." Buchanan also quotes Churchill as arguing that "No one can keep up the pretence that Abyssinia is a fit, worthy, and equal member of the league of civilised nations." At the same time in early 1936, when the crisis over Ethiopia had pushed Britain and Italy to the brink of war, there occurred the Remilitarization of the Rhineland. Buchanan points out that Hitler regarded the Franco-Soviet Pact as an aggressive move directed at Germany and that it violated the Locarno Treaties, and he adds that Hitler had a strong case. Hitler employed this claimed violation of Locarno as a diplomatic weapon against which the French and the British had no answer, Buchanan argues. Buchanan argues that Hitler's public demands on Poland in 1938-39, namely the return of the Free City of Danzig (modern Gdańsk) to the Reich, "extra-territorial" roads across the Polish Corridor, and Poland's adhesion to the Anti-Comintern Pact were a genuine attempt to build an anti-Soviet German-Polish alliance, especially since Buchanan argues that Germany and Poland shared a common enemy in the form of the Soviet Union. Buchanan contends that Hitler wanted Poland as an ally against the Soviet Union, and not an enemy. Citing the book March 1939 by the British historian Simon K. Newman, and Andrew Roberts, in his "The Holy Fox: The Life of Lord Halifax", Buchanan argues that the British "guarantee" of Polish independence in March 1939 was a deliberate ploy on the part of Foreign Minister Lord Halifax to cause a war with Germany in 1939 Buchanan calls Chamberlain's "guarantee" of Poland "rash" and the "fatal blunder" which caused the end of the British Empire Buchanan argues that Halifax and Chamberlain had different motives for the guarantee. Without deciding between the various theories regarding Chamberlain's motivation, Buchanan recites several, including those of Liddell Hart, Simon Newman, and Andrew Roberts. Buchanan favourably cites the remark of British historian E. H. Carr in April 1939 about the Polish "guarantee" that: "The use or threatened use of force to maintain the status quo may be morally more culpable than the use or threatened use of force to alter it". Buchanan maintains that Hitler did not want a war with Britain, and it was wrong on the part of Britain to declare war in 1939 on an Anglophile Hitler who only wanted to ally the Reich with Britain against their common enemy the Soviet Union. Buchanan accepts the picture drawn by the British historian A. J. P. Taylor in his 1961 book The Origins of the Second World War of the Polish Foreign Minister Colonel Józef Beck as a frivolous and irresponsible man incapable of understanding the magnitude of the crisis facing his country in 1939. Buchanan argues that rather than offering the "guarantee" of Poland that Britain could not fulfill, Chamberlain should have accepted it was impossible to save any Eastern European country from German aggression and instead set about re-arming Britain in order to be prepared for any future war with Germany, should it be necessary. Instead, Buchanan claims that the acceptance of Eastern Europe as Germany's sphere of influence as a pro quid quo for Germany staying out of Western Europe was a better alternative to World War II. Buchanan argues that it was a great blunder on the part of Chamberlain to declare war on Germany in 1939, and even greater blunder on the part of Churchill to refuse Hitler's peace offer of 1940, thus making World War II in Buchanan's opinion the "unnecessary war" of the title. The title of course was borrowed from Churchill, who stated in his memoirs, "One day President Roosevelt told me that he was asking publicly for suggestions about what the war should be called. I said at once, "The Unnecessary War." There never was a war more easy to stop than that which has just wrecked what was left of the world from the previous struggle." Buchanan writes, "For that war one man bears full moral responsibility: Hitler." He adds, "But this was not only Hitler's war. It was Chamberlain's war and Churchill's war...". In Buchanan's view, the "final offer" made by the German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop to the British Ambassador Sir Nevile Henderson on the night of August 30, 1939 was not a ploy as many historians argued, but instead a genuine German offer to avoid World War II. Likewise, Buchanan argues citing F.H. Hinsley, John Lukacs, and Alan Clark, Hitler's peace offers to Britain in the summer of 1940 were real, and Churchill was wrong to refuse them. Buchanan writes that the Morgenthau Plan of 1944 was a genocidal plan for the destruction of Germany promoted by the vengeful Henry Morgenthau and his deputy the Soviet agent Harry Dexter White as a way of ensuring Soviet domination of Europe, and that Churchill was amoral for accepting it. As part of his assault on Churchill's reputation, Buchanan claims a moral equivalence between Churchill and Hitler. Buchanan suggests that there is no moral difference between Churchill's support for the compulsory sterilisation and segregation of the mentally unfit before 1914, and the Nazi Action T4 program. Likewise, Buchanan argues that the views that Churchill expressed about Judo-Bolshevism in his 1920 article "Zionism and Bolshevism" seem not markedly different to Hitler's views about "Judo-Bolshevism" in Mein Kampf. Buchanan attacks Churchill as the man who brought in the Ten Year Rule in 1919, in which British defence spending was based on the assumption that there would be no major war for the next ten years, making Churchill the man who disarmed Britain in the 1920s. Buchanan attacks Churchill as a deeply inept military leader who caused successive military debacles such as the Siege of Antwerp in 1914, the Dardanelles campaign, the Norwegian Campaign of 1940, the fall of Singapore, and the Dieppe Raid of 1942. Buchanan claims that Hitler's ambitions were confined only to Eastern Europe, and citing such historians as Ian Kershaw, Andreas Hillgruber and Richard J. Evans, states that Hitler wanted an anti-Soviet alliance with Britain. Buchanan maintains that British leaders of the 1930s were influenced by "Germanophobia", leading them to suspect that Germany was out to conquer the world. Citing John Lukacs, Buchanan maintains that Operation Barbarossa was not part of any long-range master plan on the part of Hitler, but was instead an attempt by Hitler to force Britain to make peace by eliminating Britain's last hope of victory – bringing the Soviet Union into the war on the Allied side. Buchanan argues that the Holocaust only developed the scale it did because Hitler's invasion of Poland and then Russia meant that he had within his control most European Jews, which would not have been the case otherwise. Buchanan argues that if Churchill had accepted Hitler's peace offer of 1940, the severity of the Holocaust would have been immensely less. With respect to the debate about German foreign policy, Buchanan refutes Globalist historians, such as Gerhard Weinberg, who argue that Germany wanted to conquer the entire world, and instead contends that Nazi Germany was not a danger to the United States at any point, nor to Britain after Germany lost the Battle of Britain. Buchanan points out that the "master plan to conquer South and Central America" which Franklin D. Roosevelt publicly endorsed, was actually produced by British intelligence and that German archival sources reveal no evidence for this supposed plan. Buchanan called the British "area bombing" of German cities in World War II a policy of "barbarism" and quotes Churchill stating that its purpose was literally to terrorize the civilian population of Germany. In particular, Buchanan argues that the bombing of Dresden in 1945 was barbaric, a crime which he states that Churchill personally ordered, quoting Churchill himself and Air Marshall Arthur "Bomber" Harris as evidence. Buchanan wrote that Churchill was responsible in large part for "Western man's reversion to barbarism" in World War II, and expressed regret that generals of the American Army Air Force like Curtis LeMay in bombing Japan followed the example set by British Air Marshal Arthur "Bomber" Harris in using "terror bombing" as a method of war against Germany. He quotes LeMay, "We scorched and boiled and baked to death more people in Tokyo that night of March 9–10 than went up in the vapour of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined." Buchanan's conclusion: "We and the British fought for moral ends. We did not always use moral means by any Christian definition." Endorsing the concept of Western betrayal, Buchanan accuses Churchill and Roosevelt of turning over Eastern Europe to the Soviet Union at the Tehran and Yalta conferences. Citing the Cuban-American lawyer Alfred-Maurice de Zayas, Buchanan calls expulsion of the Germans from Eastern Europe, in which 2 million died, a crime against humanity "of historic dimensions", and contrasts the British prosecution of German leaders at Nuremberg for crimes against humanity whilst Churchill and other British leaders were approving of the expulsion of the ethnic German population from Eastern Europe Buchanan also writes that the United States should have remained non-interventionist with respect to the events of World War II. However, because the United States insisted the United Kingdom sever its alliance with Japan in 1921, this had the ultimate effect of leading to Japan to align itself with the Axis. Ultimately this led to the Japanese alliance with Germany and its attack on Pearl Harbor. Buchanan blames Churchill for insisting that the British Cabinet in 1921 give in to American pressure to end the alliance with Japan. Buchanan concludes that if World War II had not taken place, the British Empire would have continued through the twentieth century. Buchanan favorably cites the 1993 assessment of Alan Clark that World War II "went on far too long, and when Britain emerged the country was bust. Nothing remained of assets overseas. Without immense and punitive borrowings from the US we would have starved. The old social order had gone forever. The empire was terminally damaged. The Commonwealth countries had seen their trust betrayed and their soldiers wasted." Likewise, Buchanan blames British statesmen for bringing Britain into the war against Germany, which not only caused the economic ruin of Britain but also brought Eastern Europe into the Soviet sphere of influence and brought Communism to power in China in 1949, all of which would have been avoided if only Britain had not "guaranteed" Poland in 1939. Buchanan claims that for the most part American leaders in the Cold War followed the wise advice of George F. Kennan, who understood a strong Germany was needed as an American ally to keep the Soviet Union (Russia) out of Central Europe, and who did not rush into unnecessary wars with the Soviet Union, instead waiting patiently for the Soviet Union to fall apart of its own accord. Buchanan ends his book with an attack on George W. Bush, and argues that just as Churchill led the British Empire to ruin by causing unnecessary wars with Germany twice, so too will Bush lead the United States to ruin by following Churchill's example in involving the United States in an unnecessary war in Iraq, and passing out guarantees to scores of nations in which the USA has no vital interests, placing the USA in a position in which her resources are insufficient to fulfil her promises. Buchanan expresses the view that just as Chamberlain's "guarantee" of Poland in March 1939 caused an "unnecessary war" with Germany later that year, that the United States's current guarantees of Eastern European nations are equally unwise, given that they require a declaration of war with Russia if a hostile regime were to ascend to power in that country and attack any of those countries. This despite the fact that the USA has no vital interests in Eastern Europe. Finally, Buchanan highlights the symbolism of George W. Bush placing a bust of Churchill in the Oval Office as evidence that Bush's neoconservative foreign policy was influenced and inspired by Churchill. |
High Hopes: The Amityville Murders | null | null | The book is based on trial testimony of the 1974 murder of the DeFeo family and takes place from the prosecutor's point of view. Gerard Sullivan was the prosecutor in the case. The book tells of Ronnie's nine year stay at the house on Ocean Ave. It tells how Ronnie starts to get mentally unstable, using drugs, getting into fights. It goes up to how Ronnie killed his family. Then it goes to the aftermath and the court and eventually his conviction. The book does not deal with anything supernatural and is only about the DeFeos. It also talks about the insanity plea. A very controversial event is also mentioned in the book. The event which is now unverifiable, tells of a 1972 drowning that may have been caused by Ronald DeFeo, Jr. The only mention of the haunting is in a sentence at the end of the book. |
Things Could Be Worse | Lily Brett | 1,990 | Renia and Josl Bensky grow up in the Polish town of Łódź, Poland. Shortly after their marriage, they are forced to move to the Ghetto of Łódź, and soon, they are deported to the concentration camp of Auschwitz. After the downfall of the Third Reich, they meet again, and their first daughter Lola is born in a DP camp in 1946. In 1948, The Benskys move to Melbourne and try to start a new life, far away from the horrible crimes they had to endure during the Holocaust. They find good friends among fellow Jewish Immigrants, and with this tight group of friends, they try to live as normal a life as possible. Josl and Renia both try to live with their past; in this mixture of trying to forget and to commemorate, they raise Lola to be an Australian girl. Lola knows she will never understand her parents completely since she will never experience what they had to live through. She has her own problems. She has overweight, weird boyfriends and a first husband whom she does not love. When she turns 19, Lola starts to write for a rock magazine and gets to travel around the world to interview the stars of her time. Apart from her job, she raises her children and tries to figure out her life. Finally, she marries the artist Garth and moves to New York. |
The Wings of Merlin | T. A. Barron | 2,000 | As winter's long night approaches, Merlin is met with his most difficult challenge - unifying all of Fincayra against an evil invasion by Rhita Gawr. With time exceedingly short, how can one young man possibly bring them all - dwarves, canyon eagles, walking trees, and more - together? Added to this already huge task is the appearance of the mysterious slayer, who has been hunting down the children of Fincayra. As he struggles to unite the Fincayrans and save the children, Merlin must also find the secret of the long lost wings that will enable him - and his people - to choose their true destiny. |
Pirate Freedom | Gene Wolfe | 2,007 | The hero is named Christopher (Chris, Crisóforo, Christophe). He recounts his childhood and career as a pirate, interspersed with digressions about events in his later life, including the time when he is writing the book (as in The Book of the Short Sun). The following summarizes his story in the order in which he experiences it. Chris is a Sicilian-American. When he is ten, Communism ends in Cuba, and his father (apparently a "wiseguy") moves there with him to run a casino. Chris goes to school at a monastery, where he becomes a novice and helps a Brother Ignacio with the farm work. At one point, he notices that many of the people he knew are gone, Mass is in Latin, and no one wears a watch. Somewhat later, he walks away from the monastery. A farmer in a horse-drawn wagon picks him up and takes him to Havana—but the roads are unpaved and Havana is much smaller than he remembers. Chris lives by theft until he signs on to a Spanish brig bound for Veracruz, Mexico. He is raped twice by shipmates, but thereafter manages to avoid them, and he enjoys learning military seamanship. In Veracruz he meets an English captain, Abraham Burt. Then Chris's ship sails to Spain, where he becomes infatuated with Estrellita, the maid of a wealthy young married woman. Her master puts a stop to the relationship. He returns to his ship, but on the way back to Mexico they are captured by English pirates under Captain Burt, who takes him on to the pirate ship. They capture a Spanish slave ship, and Burt puts Chris in charge of taking it to Port Royal. When he returns, having freed a few of the slaves, he refuses to join in piracy and Burt abandons him on Hispaniola. There a French buccaneer (a settler in the wilderness) helps him survive. They and other buccaneers capture a small Spanish warship sent against them, and Chris assumes command. A "boy" on the ship reveals herself as a woman who Chris knew in Spain; Chris takes her to be the maid Estrellita, but calls her "Novia", meaning "sweetheart". They become lovers. After fights against the Spanish, Chris and his crew meet with Burt. An allied ship has captured a Spanish galley and its owner. The passengers had included one Jaime Guzmán and his wife. Chris deduces Señora Guzmán's hiding place and finds that she is Estrellita; Novia is Guzmán's real wife and Estrellita's former mistress. Guzmán had beaten Novia because—she says—she too was in love with Chris. Though Chris is angry with Novia for lying to him, she still loves him and they reconcile. Chris rejoins Burt, and their fleet engages in successful and unsuccessful piracy, sailing around South America. At Río Hato, Panama, they rob a mule train of Peruvian gold. That night one crew massacres the rest of the pirates and takes the gold. Chris escapes and finds the dying Burt, who gives him his maps to the treasure he has buried on the Pearl Islands. Chris and Novia marry in Veracruz. Chris runs into Brother Ignacio and hires him to take care of Novia while Chris reclaims Burt's treasure. He sets out single-handed, but is wrecked and on the last page of the book is rescued by Mexican fishermen who have a radio. He makes his way to the United States and enters a seminary, then becomes a priest. He resists the temptation to visit the home where his child self lives. The Cuban Communists fall, and Chris heads to Cuba. He has realized Brother Ignacio was his older self. Finishing his manuscript on a plane to Miami, he explains that he plans to enter his childhood monastery as a lay brother named Ignacio, follow young Chris out of the monastery into 17th-century Cuba, go to Veracruz to meet him and take care of Novia, and eventually take his place as her husband and recover Burt's treasure. |
The Boy In The Dress | David Walliams | 2,008 | The story follows a boy named Dennis and his older brother John, whose parents got divorced when he was only 7 and his brother 9. The boys remain with their father, who resorts to comfort eating to cope after his wife leaves; Dennis finds comfort in his mother's left-behind clothes. Dennis buys a copy of Vogue magazine, but is caught by his horrified father; John calls him 'Denise'. At school that day Dennis is given detention, where he meets the glamorous Lisa James, who ultimately lends him a dress which he wears to school. This makes Dennis very embarrassed even though he fancies Lisa. |
Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad | L. Frank Baum | null | The second book in the Aunt Jane's series picks up where the first left off. The eccentric and down-to-earth millionaire John Merrick decides to take his three beloved nieces — Patsy Doyle, Elizabeth de Graf, and Louise Merrick — on a tour of Europe. The parents of the three girls react variously, but don't oppose the trip; Mrs. Merrick, Louise's mother, wants to accompany them as chaperone, a prospect that Uncle John rejects out of hand. Still, Mrs. Merrick allows her daughter to go; she wants to separate Louise from Arthur Weldon, the young man who has been courting her. (The social-climbing Mrs. Merrick is desperate for Louise to land a rich husband. Weldon's father is a wealthy railroad magnate, but the father and son are in a clash of generations and the elder Weldon threatens to disown the younger). Uncle John and the three cousins embark for Europe, and make new acquaintances aboard ship. Among them is a somewhat sinister and mysterious man called Victor Valdi, who combines "refinement and barbarity" in his manner. Patsy goes out of her way to draw him out of his sullen silence, to "make him talk and 'be sociable'." The tourists reach Italy, where they witness an eruption by Vesuvius and cope with the public's fears and a layer of ash in the streets of Naples. They consider a detour, but decide to carry on intrepidly. They encounter a local aristocrat, the Count of Ferralti, who fancies Louise — though the clever Uncle John quickly realizes that he is only a pretend nobleman. John warns Louise of the young man's pretense, but otherwise allows the acquaintance, especially when Ferralti proves a courageous help in a near-disaster on the road. At Taormina, the travelers meet Victor Valdi again; he appears more sinister and mysterious than ever in his native element, where he is called "Il Duca." There is much talk of the danger of "brigands" in Sicily — though the local people cheerfully insist that "There are no brigands" in Sicily, an ironic refrain that winds through the book. Quickly enough, both Uncle John and Ferralti are waylaid by Valdi, who is the chief local brigand, and makes a living for his family and followers by kidnapping tourists and holding them for ransom. Uncle John learns the ways of Valdi's curious establishment, which includes his ruthless mother and his daughter Tato, who masquerades as a boy to serve as her father's henchman. After initial resistance, Uncle John reconciles himself to paying the ransom for his life and freedom; but his nieces and friends are unwilling to yield to bandits, and stage a bold and effective rescue of Uncle John and Ferralti. It is revealed that the false Count Ferralti is actually Arthur Weldon; he has come to Europe in disguise to be with Louise. Uncle John lets the two young people continue to see each other, as long as there is no talk of marriage yet. (News has arrived that Weldon's father has died in a railway accident, and that Arthur is now a wealthy heir.) The Americans are surprised a few days later, when Valdi and Tato appear at their hotel. While Tato was acting as the go-between in the ransom plot, the girl and Patsy had become something like friends; with typical generosity of spirit, Patsy does not blame the girl for the actions of her family. Now, Valdi asks the Americans to take Tato under their charge for a time; Valdi is trying to leave brigandage behind and take up an honest life. The cousins naively accept Tato, and enjoy dressing her in a new wardrobe and teaching her manners. They are surprised again when Tato absconds with the ransom cash ($50,000 of Uncle John's money and $30,000 of Weldon's); the girl leaves a cheerful but mocking letter behind her, explaining the ruse. Having learned their lesson, the travelers complete their tour through Italy, Switzerland, and France, and gratefully return home. |
Quofum | Alan Dean Foster | 2,008 | Sent by the Humanx Commonwealth Science Council, a team of explorers manage to find the planet Quofum—which only occasionally appears on long range scans. Since the planet is outside of the Commonwealth territory their mission is deemed minor and unimportant. The team’s four scientists—two human males, one human female and one male thranx—initially discover four separate, unique sentient species. Combined with Quofum’s nine percent alcohol oceans, its unstable appearance is seemingly part of the nature of Quofum: every species on Quofum is seemingly unrelated—casting well-established scientific notions of evolution into doubt. When the team’s mechanic, Salvador Araza murders the ship’s captain—revealing himself to be a member of the assassin clan, the Qwarm—the scientific exploration nearly ends. Before stranding the scientists on Quofum, Araza kills one member of the team who tries to stop him from stealing the ship’s shuttle. Upon returning to the ship Araza leaves Quofum but quickly discovers he is not in any part of the known universe. Unknowingly he left the planet while it was in an alternate universe where it periodically hides. Upon realizing his mistake, Araza tries to re-locate Quofum, but fails—stranding himself in the alternate universe. The three remaining scientists fall into a survivor’s depression realizing their small expedition won’t be missed while also lacking a means to return home on their own. They continue to explore and document Quofum’s flora and fauna, documenting upwards of ten different sentient species of various degrees of technological development. Eventually they happen upon an entrance to the inner workings of the planet. The ancient race (unnamed, but obviously the Xunca) that once inhabited Quofum altered their planet when they realized the inter-galactic Great Evil was eventually coming to their corner of the universe. The main alternation was to give Quofum the ability to shift to a different universe to protect itself. They also started multiple experiments to create different diverse races in an attempt to find a species that could trigger the "Great Attractor device" they set up in the Norma cluster to fight the Great Evil. The solution to the problem, and the conclusion to the storyline is actually revealed in Flinx Transcendent. |
Curious George | Margret Rey | 1,941 | The man with the yellow hat captures a monkey called George in the jungle. They sail aboard a ship for a big city and George falls into the sea while imitating some birds. He is rescued and the ship finally puts into port. The man goes home with George but the monkey plays with the telephone and inadvertently calls the fire station, and is unfortunately taken to jail. Luckily, he escapes jail. Later, he tries to grab a balloon from a vendor, but takes the entire bunch and sails away high into the sky. The wind dies down and George descends, landing on a traffic signal. The man rescues him, buys all the balloons from the vendor, and takes George and the balloons to the zoo, George's new home. |
Curious George Takes a Job | H. A. Rey | 1,947 | The book picks up where the first book ends. George is living in the zoo, but escapes. He enters a restaurant and eats a pot of spaghetti. The cook makes him wash the dishes. He does a splendid job and the cook takes him to a friend who gives him a job as a window washer at an apartment building. George discovers a room being painted and gives it a jungle theme but the painters chase him and he breaks his leg falling from a fire escape. He recovers in the hospital, but tampers with a bottle of ether and is overcome by the fumes. The man with the yellow hat and a nurse waken him with a cold shower. George's story is made into a movie and the book ends with George watching the film in a theater with his friends. |
The Eye of the Forest | Philip Kerr | 2,009 | Mrs. Gaunt will be going to go to a plastic surgeon djinn named Dr. Kowalski to make Mrs. Gaunt's body look just like her former one. However, djinn can no longer ride whirlwinds safely because of global warming, so she has to fly down to the doctor in Brazil on a regular airplane. Meanwhile, Mr. Gaunt is kidnapped while his wife is away by three black druids from near Stonehenge. John and Philippa were at Mr. Vodyannoy's other house when that happened. The west wing is safe but the east wing in not able to be navigated. The butler's sister is lost in the east wing. Also, no djinn power can be used in this Nightshakes house. John goes to see the talking boards there to try to contact Mr. Rakshasas' spirit, but he awakens an ancient Incan named Manco Capac instead. He escapes and regains his mummy from a museum. John brings Grace back to her brother and goes to the museum in his ethereal form. Another unrelated thief stole three sacred gold disks and broke somethings, and the news says a thief in Berlin stole an ancient Incan staff. The news then shows a picture of a door shaped like an eye in the Peruvian forests that leads to...nowhere. Nimrod says that it's the Eye of the Forest and leads to a place that could cause the end of the world. They fly down to Peru after consulting with Faustina, the Blue Djinn, and getting the one copy of the map to the Eye in the world. They bring Zadie Eloko with them. The tour guide is "Sicky," who has a tattoo on his stomach that acts like Medusa. His head is abnormally small due to an accident with enemy Indians when he was young. They are nearly killed several times by unusually large animals. John later discovers that Zadie is causing it. She was hypnotized by Virgil Macreeby. Zadie accidentally makes a wish that Pizarro would "teach a lesson" to the Indians chasing them. John and Nimrod reach the Eye - the news story was a hoax. The real door is rectangular and tied with a knotted string made from human hair. John leans against a lupuna tree and gains some of its knowledge. He unties the knot and rescues the others from mummified Indians. Nimrod awakens some Inca kings who go to fight Pizarro's army. Soon Virgil Macreeby, Dybbuk and Zadie arrive. They get the disks that Nimrod stole from Zadie. They are intent on using them to make an obviously fake ritual to remake Dybbuk's powers and turn lead to gold. The three go through the door, keeping back the others by showing them a video that their father is kidnapped. Nimrod connects the dots and realizes that the disks are really polonium, lithium, and steel. The staff has a rod made of pure uranium. These could cause a nuclear explosion. A piece of uranium the size of a baseball destroyed Hiroshima—But if it is bigger (namely the uranium the land is built on) the whole world could blow up. They decide to follow after sending Layla a message through djinnternal mail. The way to Paititi is guarded by enantodromia (i.e. a wish becomes its opposite). Layla flies to America in a jet at 1500 mph and finds out where Mr. Gaunt is. She rescues him and turns the druids into rare animals. But she shared Edward's body-he is so scared that she renounces her powers(even though Nimrod said in book 2 that you can only renounce once). Meanwhile, Macreeby leaves Zadie entangled to a human hair bridge that absorbed her and goes on with Buck. John releases her and Nimrod dehypnotizes her. She follows them. While that happens, the other two cross through a row of vampire plants that want their blood. They get across but Macreeby had a concussion. They reach the temple but in the middle of the process realize Macreeby dropped the third gold disk near the plants (the polonium one). Macreeby gets it but Phil somehow apparates across. Then the plants disappear. Nimrod says her slippers are "gestalt" and that they make her desires come true. They follow to Paititi capturing Macreeby on the way. But just before they reach the city, their electronic devices stop working. Buck dropped the rod without the polonium - there will be no explosion, but only deadly radiation instead. Phil wishes up a bomb shelter with Hazmat suits. She goes up to Buck - he has split into 2 beings, one good, one bad. The bad one crushes the good one and Phil goes back to the others brokenhearted. They are "gestalted" back to the real world and Phil buries the slippers for fear of their power. Zadie stays behind in the forest to make a school for the Indians. The bad ones lost their bad chief to Pizarro and are good now. Sicky is their new chief. Macreeby's punishment is that he stays behind to help Zadie. Nimrod plants accelerated growth lupuna trees made by Faustina near the Eye and makes them invisible so loggers don't cut them. When they grow up tall in a few years (they grow 10 times as fast as other lupunas) whirlwind travel will be safe again. The team heads home to New York, with their family back to normal |
Curious George Rides a Bike | H. A. Rey | 1,952 | The man with the yellow hat buys George a bicycle. He helps a newspaper boy with his route, but makes boats of the newspapers and sets them adrift in a stream. He runs into a rock, damaging the bike's front wheel. Workers with an animal show fix the wheel and George joins the show. He is given a bugle to play. He is told not to feed the ostrich but the bird gets the bugle lodged in his throat. The workers retrieve it, but George is fired. A baby bear escapes and climbs a tree. George rescues him by lowering him to the ground in the newspaper bag. For his heroism, George is reinstated in the show. He rides his bike and plays the bugle. He is a great success, and is allowed to keep the bugle. |
Syren | Angie Sage | 2,009 | The story picks up where Queste ended. Jenna, Nicko, Snorri, Ullr and Beetle are in the harbor known as the Trading Post, where Jenna encounters her father, Milo Banda, who persuades them to spend the night on his ship. Back in The Castle, Septimus gets a promotion to Senior Apprentice by Marcia Overstrand, for being the only apprentice wizard to complete the Queste. This enables him to head off on an adventure of his own. His escapade begins as he plans a simple flight on board his dragon, Spit Fyre, to retrieve his friends from the Trading Post. Around this time, Aunt Zelda sends Wolf Boy from the Marram Marshes. She is giving him a challenging test for becoming the first male Keeper. As soon as Wolf Boy leaves, Zelda retrieves a SafeCharm, which appears to be a tiny, pear-shaped gold bottle. She needs to deliver it to Septimus, however, by the time she arrives he has already left. Due to an unfortunate mix-up, the SafeCharm falls into the hands of Merrin Meredith who stole it believing it to be a rare perfume. When he takes the top off to sniff it, a jinnie comes out of it. "Jim Knee" as he is called by Merrin, sets off on his own adventure. Meanwhile, Wolf Boy bumps into Simon Heap in the Port; he was looking for his fiancee Lucy Gringe who had been missing. Wolf Boy approaches the House of the Port Witch Coven. There he reads Zelda's letter which tells him to feed a creature called Grim and cut-off its tentacle tip. The Port Witch takes him inside her kitchen and wakes the Grim, which is a giant octopus. The witches bring forth a captive Lucy to feed to the Grim. Under the pretense of feeding Lucy to the Grim, Wolf Boy and Lucy escape from the coven. They are chased by a senior witch, Linda, but they escape by riding straight into a leaving ship. While flying towards the Trading Post, Septimus sees a bunch of seven islands on the sea and hears a voice calling him. Ignoring the voice, Septimus continues his journey and reaches Milo's ship The Cerys. There Milo shows Jenna a big trunk which is full of tiny lead tubes and which he declares to be brought specially for Jenna's safety. Jenna, getting tired of Milo's hospitality decides to leave the ship and fly off home with Septimus and Beetle on Spit Fyre. But while flying home, they get caught in a raging storm. They try to find the Cattrokk Light, a lighthouse in the middle of the ocean, and fall onto a nearby island when Spit Fyre's tail gets struck by lightning. Septimus tries his best to cure the tail with Physik but his attempts fail. He is also perplexed by a voice calling his name continuously. One day Septimus sees a girl approaching him. The girl introduces herself as Syrah Syara; Septimus remembers meeting her when he went back in time 500 years, during the events from Physik. She fled from The Castle during the Queste and hid on the island. Syrah heals Spit Fyre's tail and reveals that she is under a terrible enchantment by the resident evil ghost of the island known as Syren. The Syren, a singing ghost who attracts sailors by her voice and leads them to their doom by possessing them, stays in a tower atop the hills of the island. Syrah takes Septimus there to show him an opened ice-tunnel latch beneath the island; she mentions that danger is approaching the Castle. Before Septimus can close the ice-tunnel, the Syren takes hold of Syrah while Septimus flees. Meanwhile Marcia goes to the Manuscriptorium vaults and finds that the ice tunnel latches, which pass from The Castle to the Seven Isles of Syren, through Cattrokk Light to the House of Foryx, are opened. Suspecting that the evil ghost Tertius Fume may be behind this, she returns to the Wizard Tower to find Zelda who informs Marcia about Septimus' danger. Together they find the jinnie and lock him in a sealed chamber in the Wizard Tower and devises a plan to help Septimus. Lucy and Wolf Boy continue their journey aboard the ship whose captain is a pirate. They reach Cattrokk light and there, the pirate's henchmen throw the lighthouse guard overboard. Lucy and Wolf Boy hide from them in one of the rooms of the Lighthouse. Surprisingly, they find that the lighthouse guard, Miarr, who is half-cat half-human, is still alive because cats have nine lives. The ship's captain and his henchmen take the light from the lighthouse and transport it to the island where Jenna and Beetle reside, and they see them coming. Miarr then leads Lucy and Wolf Boy to an underwater machine which allows them to approach the island unseen. While they are entering the underwater machine, it is hinted at that the Septimus Heap series takes place in the future. The Cerys travels towards The Castle under Nicko's steering. However, near Cattrokk Light, Nicko hears the Syren's song and believing mistakenly that the light on the island is coming from the lighthouse, he sails the ship onto the rocks. The pirate ship's captain and his henchmen then ambush Cerys' passengers, but Septimus and the others are able to lock them in the hold and save them all on board. The captain and his henchmen open the trunk, which contains thousands of bottles of jinnie and release them. To their horror, Septimus and the others find that the jinnie warriors come on board and address Tertius Fume as their master; he is on the island directing them towards the Syren tower ice tunnel. Meanwhile under Marcia's order, Septimus' jinnie finds him. Septimus and Beetle come to the conclusion that since Jim Knee was in a golden bottle, he has the power to overcome the warrior jinnie because gold is purer than lead. Septimus orders Jim Knee to go and freeze one of the warriors so that all the others will be simultaneously frozen. The front line of warriors had already reached through the ice-tunnel to the Wizard Tower, where just as they are about to kill Marcia under Fume's supervision, Jim Knee freezes the last jinnie; hence freezing all the other jinnie warriors. Marcia triumphs and informs a surprised Fume that she will see to it that his ghost is eradicated forever. Septimus and the others rejoice and Lucy and Wolf Boy help Miarr to put back the light atop Cattrokk. Septimus also orders Jim Knee to go and capture the Syren and force it into a small sealed bottle; hence Syrah is saved from her terrible enchantment. However, learning that more than 500 years have been passed since she arrived there and that Julius Pike is long dead, Syrah becomes comatose. The whole company returns to The Castle, where Marcia, Sarah and Silas Heap and Aunt Zelda meet them. |
Sam's Letters to Jennifer | James Patterson | null | Jennifer, who is still mourning the death of her husband, is rushed to her grandmother "Sam"'s side when she goes into a coma, where Jennifer makes the shocking discovery of a packet of letters addressed to her from Sam. As Jennifer reads the letters, she follows the sad story of Sam, who married young to a Stanford man, only to find true love soon after with a man nicknamed "Doc". Jennifer is also beginning to find love with a friend from her childhood, Brendan, whom she later finds out is fighting for his life with a brain tumor that continues to grow. As the summer progresses Sam comes out of her coma and Brendan leaves Jennifer to have a dangerous and possibly life-ending surgery to remove the tumor. Jennifer tracks him down and is there for him when he has and lives through the surgery. Brendan gains his health back and "Doc" is revealed to be the family friend Reverend John. At the end of the book Sam dies, and at her service Jennifer announces that she is pregnant with Brendan's child, who they, no matter what sex, plan to name Sam. It is later revealed that the child is a daughter. |
Bare Bones | Kathy Reichs | 2,003 | In the Charlotte summer heat, Dr Brennan has to identify a newborn skeleton in a wood stove that was probably born to the daughter of an acquaintance of her. Victims of a sports plane crash may be drug runners. And mixed animal-human bones in a derelict outhouse are a mystery discovered by her ex-husband's dog, Boyd. More puzzling, the drug runners and the animal (mostly bear) bones seem to be connected in a blatant CITES violation - the market for CITES animals and parts thereof being as hot as the drug market. |
The Poverty of Historicism | Karl Popper | 1,957 | The book is a treatise on scientific method in the social sciences. Popper defines historicism as: “an approach to the social sciences which assumes that historical prediction is their principal aim…”. “The belief… that it is the task of the social sciences to lay bare the law of evolution of society in order to foretell its future… might be described as the central Historicist doctrine.”. He distinguishes two main strands of historicism, a “pro-naturalistic” approach which “favours the application of the methods of physics”, and the “anti-naturalistic” approach which opposes these methods. The first two parts of the book contain Popper's exposition of historicist views (both pro- and anti-naturalistic), and the second two to criticism of them. Popper concludes by contrasting the antiquity of historicism (which, for example, Plato is said to have espoused) with the claims of modernity made by its twentieth century adherents. |
Lost and Found | Andrew Clements | 2,008 | The Grayson brothers have a hard time proving they're two separate people. Their parents named one Ray Jay and the other Jay Ray. And to complicate matters, they're identical twins. It's not that Ray and Jay (who only go by their first names to avoid confusion) mind it, exactly. They get along just fine. But they have always secretly wondered what it would be like to be a single person rather than always "one of the Grayson twins." When they move to a new town just in time to start sixth grade, they get that chance. Ray stays at home sick on the first day of school, so Jay gets to go alone. Jay adjusts well and makes some new friends right away. But there's something weird going on. No one wonders where his brother is, and Ray isn't on any attendance lists. It's as if he doesn't exist. Before Jay tells his teachers, he comes up with a plan. Now he and his brother can both see what it's like not to be known as a twin. They'll take turns going to school, each pretending to be Jay. They look exactly alike, so no one will know the difference. That is, until they start making friends and finding girls they like, and each has to memorize everything that the other did that day at school. They also need to figure out who's responsible for all the homework! What follows is a sometimes funny, sometimes heartfelt story about mistaken identities, making friends and understanding family ties. As it becomes tougher and tougher to keep their stories straight, Jay and Ray begin to get more annoyed with each other. As if that's not enough, their parents don't understand why the boys refuse to go out at the same time (obviously, they don't want to run into anyone from their school), and one of them keeps getting into trouble for not doing his homework. In the end, the principal and school nurse finally figures out that they were twins, but did not give them any consequences, thanks to the plead of their father. |
Curious George Goes to the Hospital | H. A. Rey | 1,966 | George and the man with the yellow hat assemble a jigsaw puzzle but George swallows a puzzle piece. At the hospital, George is taken to the operating room and the jigsaw piece is removed. George later has ice cream, and cheers the children in the ward with his antics. George takes a wild ride in a wheelchair, crashes into the meal cart, and is sent soaring into the air. A sad little girl in the children's ward laughs for the first time. George is discharged, and at home he opens a package sent by his nurse. It contains the puzzle piece. He puts it into the jigsaw puzzle and the picture is complete. |
Storm from the Shadows | David Weber | 2,009 | The book begins with a retelling of several events that took place in At All Costs, from the point of view from main character Admiral Michelle Henke. As Honor Harrington's Eighth Fleet continues its devastating deep-strike raids into the territory of the Republic of Haven, Haven's technical wizard Admiral Shannon Foraker develops a defensive weapons system that she names Moriarty, after the malevolent archenemy of Sherlock Holmes. Moriarty, essentially a deep space station devoted entirely to missile fire control, enables Havenite planetary defenses to fire previously unmatched masses of missiles at invading forces. This system enables even Eighth Fleet, which has exceedingly capable anti-missile defense systems, to be attacked successfully, as not even Manticoran missile defense systems can stop tens of thousands of missiles targeted on the same ship. On one mission, Havenite Admiral Javier Giscard organizes an ambush in several systems expected to be attacked by Eighth Fleet. Three Havenite forces corner the Manticoran force when it arrives in one of the systems. After the Moriarty station fires a massive amount of missiles from pods in orbit around the system's planet, Eighth Fleet is heavily damaged. One of Harrington's super dreadnoughts is destroyed outright, and many more are damaged beyond repair. Henke's force of battlecruisers also takes heavy damage, to the point where her flagship HMS Ajax loses the capability to flee the system with Harrington. The ship's "boat bays" are also damaged to the point where shuttles cannot leave, trapping the crew aboard. All appears lost for Henke, but the ship's crew manages to repair the ship to the point where shuttles can be used to evacuate it. Henke orders the evacuation, and simultaneously plans a counter attack using all of the ship's remaining offensive capability. Originally intending to sacrifice herself to see the plan through, the ship's flag captain orders her and her staff off just before the attack begins. As the Havenite fleet approaches an apparently evacuated Ajax, the ship fires all remaining missile pods into them, catching them by surprise. Damage comparable to that suffered by Eighth Fleet is sustained by the Havenites, who quickly completely destroy Ajax and all else that remains of Henke's force with vengeful fire. Henke is presumed dead by the Manticorans, as it is believed she did not make it off Ajax before it was destroyed. In reality, however, she got aboard the last evacuating shuttle with two of her officers, and was heavily injured as her ship exploded around them. The persons on board the shuttle, including Henke, are then picked up by the Havenite fleet, and they become prisoners of war. Henke's injuries, which include a shattered right knee, are treated by the Havenites. Admiral Thomas Theisman, the Havenite Naval Commander in Chief and a longtime respected adversary of Manticore, has mandated that all prisoners of war in the renewed conflict between Manticore and Haven are to be treated as fairly and humanely as possible. Henke recovers in a comfortable military hospital, during which time she is visited in turn by Theisman and Eloise Pritchart, President of the Republic. At one point Theisman even invites her to a formal dinner with him and his staff. After she recovers, Henke takes command as the senior Manticoran Prisoner of War on an island on the planet Haven. Henke discovers, to her surprise, that Haven has adopted a completely unorthodox approach to handling PoWs. The Manticorans present on the island are essentially left to their own devices, under the watchful eye of one Havenite officer, who is responsible for providing what is needed to Henke and the other PoWs under her responsibility to live in relative comfort. Although it appears that any time the PoWs on the island could just build a boat and leave, the island is actually under round-the-clock surveillance from space and, if necessary, a team of Havenite Republican Marines are ready at all times to prevent an escape in less than fifteen minutes. This experience significantly changes Henke's view of Haven. She realizes that Theisman and Pritchart really have restored the honor of the Havenite military, which previously had been considerably less noble in its treatment of prisoners. Henke spends six months as commanding officer of the Manticoran PoWs. One day, the Havenite military sends an aircar to the island, and she is summoned once again to the company of Theisman and Pritchart. Henke is informed that she will be paroled by the Havenite military, a practice previously unheard of. In return, Pritchart asks Henke, a close relative of Queen Elizabeth III of Manticore, to petition the Manticoran leadership for a peace summit between the Star Kingdom and the Republic. There is one more stipulation: Henke must give her legally binding oath that she will not command a force against the Havenite military, or otherwise act against the interests of Haven. This she does, and Henke is sent back to Manticoran territory. Henke convinces a reluctant Queen Elizabeth to personally meet with Pritchart on the capitol planet of the neutral Kingdom of Torch, which had been established by a covert joint effort between Manticore and Haven in the book Crown of Slaves, during the truce that preceded the current conflict. In the meantime, Henke and Manticore are put in a dilemma: she cannot go back to war against Haven, or else violate her parole. Yet, she is one of Manticore's finest tacticians, and the Manticoran Bureau of Personnel recognizes that her talents should not be wasted. Thus, she is assigned to become second in command to Vice Admiral Khumalo, in the distant Talbott cluster, which, in The Shadow of Saganami, successfully petitioned via plebiscite to become annexed by the Star Kingdom. While Talbott on the surface seems to be a relatively quiet and peaceful place far away from the titanic conflict between Haven and Manticore, things are not as they seem. In Saganami, the malevolent interstellar slaver corporation known as Manpower Unlimited attempted to use a local nation known as Monica as a proxy to force the Star Kingdom from Talbott, and take control of the lucrative wormhole terminus located there. By convenient chance, Captain Aivars Terekhov, commander of the heavy cruiser HMS Hexapuma stationed in Talbott, uncovered the plot and in a daring assault on the Monica system, completely destroyed Monica's military, thus ending the threat it posed to Manticoran control of Talbott. Despite a loss that results in Monica becoming a vassal of the Star Kingdom, and the public embarrassment of all involved in the plot, including Manpower and the Solarian League's Office of Frontier Security, Manpower almost immediately launches another plan to force Manticore from Talbott, and cause a conflict between the Star Kingdom and the League to serve its own mysterious ends. Taking advantage of widespread arrogance in the OFS and the Solarian League Navy towards (apparently) "lesser" nations like Manticore, Manpower manipulates the only star nation of the Talbott cluster that declined to participate in the annexation, the New Tuscan Republic, to engineer a false conflict between itself and Manticore. Manpower operative Aldonna Anisimovna meets with the New Tuscan leadership, confesses her organization's involvement in the Monica incident, and persuades them to support a new plot that she tricks them into believing will help preserve New Tuscan sovereignty. After a series of deliberately provoked incidents between New Tuscan merchant ships and Manticoran forces charged with inspecting them as they enter Manticoran territory, a fleet of ships under the command of one Admiral Josef Byng, a viciously anti-Manticoran and incompetent Solarian League Naval Officer, is dispatched to Talbott by the League. That Byng himself is even in command of this force is the work of Manpower and the OFS, who expect that in one way or another Byng will act irrationally when dealing with Manticore, and start a conflict. Byng himself is completely oblivious to the plot, and honestly believes that his true purpose for being sent to Talbott is to check Manticoran aggression against New Tuscany. Henke encounters Byng and through a Manticoran Naval Intelligence dossier on the Solarian Admiral, and after rather frosty conversation with the man, discovers Byng's nature and arrogant attitude towards all things Manticoran. However, she is powerless to do anything about the Solarian presence in the area. In the wake of this crisis, the reader is taken through several mysterious interludes on the planet Mesa, the homeworld of Manpower Unlimited. The overall leader of Manpower (and Mesa), Albrecht Detweiler, is shown discussing Manpower (and Mesa's) plans with various persons, including his several "sons" (actually clones). In each interlude, more and more is revealed about Mesan plans to finally come out of the shadows and launch a direct attack on the Manticore system with a secret weapon; stealth ships that travel without an Impeller drive and thus are completely undetectable by conventional means. Furthermore, it is revealed that "Manpower Unlimited" is actually just a front for the Mesan star nation itself, the Mesan Alignment, which is run by Detweiler and a cadre of other genetically engineered oligarchs set on galactic domination. The Mesan plot involving New Tuscany and Admiral Byng comes to a head. In the system where most of the engineered diplomatic incidents between Manticore and New Tuscany have taken place, New Tuscany scuttles one of their merchant ships as a Manticoran vessel is approaching for boarding and inspection, in an attempt to frame Manticore for its destruction. It is blatantly obvious that the detonations which destroyed the freighter were caused internally, but Byng wastes no time upon hearing of the incident to protect them against further Manticoran "aggression". Admirals Khumalo and Henke, unaware of Byng's presence in the system, send a small fleet of three destroyers to New Tuscany to officially complain about their actions. As soon as the destroyers arrive, Anisimova, using a nuclear device, destroys the largest New Tuscan space station in orbit around the planet, killing tens of thousands of New Tuscans instantly. Admiral Byng automatically assumes that the Manticoran destroyers are responsible, and orders his forces to open fire upon them in retaliation. As the destroyers are completely unprepared for combat and do not have their defensive systems activated, they are quickly wiped out by Byng's large fleet. Manticore is thus propelled into a state of war with the Solarian League. For Manticore, the events could not have come at a worse time. As most of the book takes place simultaneously with At All Costs, at this time Lester Tourville's massive attack on the Manticore system itself takes place, prompting the Battle of Manticore and the near-complete elimination of the offensive capabilities of Manticore and Haven. Recognizing his huge opportunity, Detweiler orders the deployment of his secret weapon on Manticore far earlier than he had originally intended. Commanded by one of his son-clones, the new Mesan Alignment Navy embarks on the stealth ships for the Manticore system. Admiral Henke, via a distress signal that was sent back to the Talbott Quadrant, learns shortly afterward of the Manticoran ships' massacre at New Tuscany. She immediately assembles all of her ships and embarks for the system. Upon her arrival, she orders Byng to stand down, warning him that Manticoran naval capabilities far exceed that of the Solarians on a qualitative basis. Byng, who considers this warning a desperate bluff, as he believes that the Solarian Navy to be invincible, instead of vastly inferior on technical grounds as it really is, refuses. After reiterating her warning several times, and being ignored each time, Henke launches a mass of missiles at Byng's ship from far outside the engagement range of the Solarian forces, completely destroying it. Recognizing their complete tactical deficit, Byng's second in command complies with Henke's demands. The Solarian Navy is dealt its first defeat in centuries. On planet Manticore, Queen Elizabeth meets with her inner circle to discuss the events that have taken place. During this meeting, Honor Harrington remarks that she believes conflict with the Solarian League had been inevitable, and the only way Manticore is going to survive is going to be to destroy the League as it is and break it up into several successor star nations which Manticore can deal with individually. Elizabeth initially rejects this new approach, believing that Haven, in the wake of that nation's devastating assault on Manticore, must be dealt with to prevent further assaults of that nature. However, Honor through her status as an empath, reveals that she has discovered via an extensive investigation that the renewed conflict between Haven and Manticore was engineered by Mesa to keep the two sides, both enemies to Mesa, distracted. Using the evidence she has uncovered, Harrington convinces Elizabeth to see things her way and attempt to reconcile with Haven. Events come to a climax. The OFS administrator responsible for his organization's involvement for the new Mesan plot with New Tuscany meets with a Solarian officer who has a powerful fleet of capital ships stationed relatively near Talbott. Taking advantage of the Solarian Admiral's own prejudices towards "neo-barbarian" nations like Manticore, and her rage over the destruction of Admiral Byng's flagship, he surreptitiously convinces her to prepare to attack Manticore in the Talbott cluster. Simultaneously, The Mesan Alignment Navy's stealth ships arrive in the Manticore system, and deploy many missile pods before turning to leave. The commander of this force remarks that in a period of weeks, Manticore will be dealt a devastating blow. The book then suddenly ends on a cliffhanger. |
Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville | L. Frank Baum | null | Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville picks up the story of the three cousins, Patsy Doyle, Beth De Graf, and Louise Merrick, soon after their return from Europe in Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad. As in that earlier book, their benign and eccentric millionaire Uncle John devotes much of his fortune to helping others — an effort managed by Patsy's father, Major Doyle. These efforts do not always yield fiscally sound results: in one case, Merrick and Doyle loaned a few thousand dollars to a young inventor named Joseph Wegg for a patent he was developing — but Wegg lost a patent lawsuit, and Merrick now owns the collateral on Wegg's loan, a farm in a remote region of upper New York State. In his capricious way, Merrick decides to take his nieces to the farm to escape the city's heat during the approaching summer; he arranges for a real-estate agent to get the farmhouse in good order and ships crates of furnishings to the place, sight unseen. Merrick and his three nieces come north, and find the farmhouse a surprisingly appealing place. The local inhabitants of a tiny village in the northern foothills of the Adirondack Mountains are naturally interested in the new residents; they call Merrick "the nabob." The girls quickly become fascinated by the family of the previous owner. Joe Wegg's father had been a retired sea captain, and something of a recluse; his close friend Will Thompson went mad when Captain Wegg died, and both of their fortunes mysteriously disappeared. The girls meet and become friends with Thompson's daughter Ethel, the local schoolteacher. Also, the cousins (with Louise in the lead; she takes a more prominent role in this book than in the previous volumes) decide that Captain Wegg was murdered and robbed, and set about in search of suspects. They pry into the local past with limited results; but matters begin to clear when Joe Wegg returns home to convalesce from a car accident. The girls are dispirited to learn that there was no murder and no robbery. It is Uncle John who unravels a genuine mystery, as to the fate to the Wegg and Thompson fortunes. He recovers a missing deed that ensures that Joe Wegg and Ethel Thompson can marry in comfort and security. |
The White Road | Lynn Flewelling | 2,010 | Having escaped death and slavery in Plenimar, Alec and Seregil want nothing more than to go back to their nightrunning life in Rhíminee. Instead they find themselves saddled with Sebrahn, a strange, alchemically created creature—the prophesied “child of no woman”. Its moon-white skin and frightening powers make Sebrahn a danger to all whom Alec and Seregil come into contact with, leaving them no choice but to learn more about Sebrahn’s true nature. As Sebrahn will never be accepted in the Sarikali, Seregil and Alec travel over to the Bôkthersa clan to talk to a "dragon friend" for guidance. He presents them to his dragon, who immediately recognizes Sebrahn, and tells them that the Hâzadriëlfaie have dragon blood in their veins and that the alchemists hunt them to create a serum to prolong life. As a result to their problem he counsels that they must destroy Yhakobin's books. At the same time, Ulan's people find Ilar and bring him over to Virrése. He coaxes the story from him and takes Ilar over to Riga to recover the books. The Hâzadriëlfaie receive word of Sebrahn from the retha'noi and, realizing that Alec is still alive, send the Ebrados, a group of hunters, to retrieve him and Sebrahn, along with Tyrmari, a male witch, as a guide. They catch Alec, Seregil and Micum on Tamír's Road with the help of the local retha'noi and Seregil manages to strike a bargain with them. Their leader, Rieser goes with them over to Riga to get the books and Sebrahn remains as a hostage. They take board Green Lady and Thero creates a pair of brands for each of them, while Seregil forges warrants of ownership for Micum. On the port they recognize Ulan's Virrése ship and guess that he has come on the same errand. Unfortunately, he gets ahead of them and steals the books from Yhakobin's house the morning before the planned theft. Seregil spots Ilar and makes Alec remain outside while he ventures in Ulan's Riga house. Ilar spots him and begs him to forgive him, despite Ulan order that he turn Seregil in on sight. Instead he allows himself to be tricked into revealing the hiding place of the books before Seregil knocks him out. He meets Rieser, Micum and Alec and they all speed toward the port, hoping to elude the chase, which they do, for a while. When they find out they cannot burn the books, Seregil cuts them in two and each of them takes half. The soldiers find them again and they make a stand at a cottage near the shore. Seregil sneaks out and, after encountering captain Rhal, he returns to the cottage and they all break through, but Rieser catches an arrow in his collarbone. Back in Skala, Hâzadriën heals him and he announces that he will leave Alec alone as he doesn't believe he'll let himself be caught once again. This is received with anger by the retha'noi who resolve to destroy Sebrahn, which they call an abomination. He calls upon the owls, who blind the retha'noi archers while Sebrahn himself kills the witches. In the aftermath, Alec understands that he has to give up Sebrahn as he cannot care for him and he seems to need the presence of the other tayan'gil. They return to Rhíminee, and resume their Watcher lives. |
Dragonwyck | Anya Seton | 1,944 | The story begins in May 1844 with Miranda Wells, daughter of a humble farmer in Greenwich, Connecticut. Miranda's mother receives a letter from Nicholas Van Ryn, a rich relative and Patroon of a large manor called Dragonwyck near Hudson, New York. In the letter Van Ryn invites one of the Wells girls to Dragonwyck, to act as company for his daughter Katrine. After initial doubts, Miranda's parents allow her to go to Dragonwyck, and Miranda is instantly attracted and intrigued by her rich and mysterious relative, Nicholas. However not everyone welcomes Miranda to Dragonwyck. Nicholas' corpulent and lazy wife Johanna sees Miranda as a threat, and tries to keep her from her husband Nicholas. Soon Miranda encounters Doctor Jeff Turner, a skilled physician, but a passionate anti-renter who believes that rich Patroons like the Van Ryns should give up their large estates. The pair initially dislike each other, and because of his views, Miranda is baffled when Nicholas asks Dr Turner to attend to his wife, who has a cold. However while Dr Turner is at Dragonwyck, Johanna becomes violently ill and dies. As Dr Turner leaves wondering what caused such a sudden death, Nicholas asks Miranda to marry him, and she accepts. However married life to Nicholas Van Ryn is far from what Miranda imagined. As the story moves on Nicholas's true mental state, and his thirst for power become evident. After their only child dies, the relationship between Miranda and her husband withers, and the bonds between Miranda and Dr Turner strengthen. Miranda and Dr Turner eventually discover that Nicholas poisoned his first wife Johanna with oleander. They confront him, and try to escape, but Nicholas catches up with Miranda on a steamboat travelling down the Hudson River. The steamboat gets caught up in a race, catches fire, and crashes. Miranda is saved by her husband Nicholas, but he dies trying to save other passengers from the steamboat. After the ordeal Miranda and Dr Turner marry, leaving the Hudson Valley area forever, for a new life in California. |
The Cost of Discipleship | Dietrich Bonhoeffer | null | One of the most quoted parts of the book deals with the distinction which Bonhoeffer makes between "cheap" and "costly" grace. But what is "cheap" grace? In Bonhoeffer's words: :"cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline. Communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ." Or, even more clearly, it is to hear the gospel preached as follows: "Of course you have sinned, but now everything is forgiven, so you can stay as you are and enjoy the consolations of forgiveness." The main defect of such a proclamation is that it contains no demand for discipleship. In contrast to this is costly grace: :"costly grace confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus, it comes as a word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and the contrite heart. It is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: "My yoke is easy and my burden is light." " Bonhoeffer argues that as Christianity spread, the Church became more "secularised", accommodating the demands of obedience to Jesus to the requirements of society. In this way, "the world was Christianised, and grace became its common property." But the hazard of this was that the gospel was cheapened, and obedience to the living Christ was gradually lost beneath formula and ritual, so that in the end, grace could literally be sold for monetary gain. But all the time, within the church, there had been a living protest against this process: the monastic movement. This served as a "place where the older vision was kept alive." Unfortunately, "monasticism was represented as an individual achievement which the mass of the laity could not be expected to emulate"; the commandments of Jesus were limited to "a restricted group of specialists" and a double standard arose: "a maximum and a minimum standard of church obedience." Why was this dangerous? Bonhoeffer points out that whenever the church was accused of being too worldly, it could always point to monasticism as "the opportunity of a higher standard within the fold - and thus justify the other possibility of a lower standard for others." So the monastic movement, instead of serving as a pointer for all Christians, became a justification for the status quo. Bonhoeffer remarks how this was rectified by Luther at the Reformation, when he brought Christianity "out of the cloister". However, he thinks that subsequent generations have again cheapened the preaching of the forgiveness of sins, and this has seriously weakened the church: "The price we are having to pay today in the shape of the collapse of the organised church is only the inevitable consequence of our policy of making grace available to all at too low a cost. We gave away the word and sacraments wholesale, we baptised, confirmed, and absolved a whole nation without condition. Our humanitarian sentiment made us give that which was holy to the scornful and unbelieving... But the call to follow Jesus in the narrow way was hardly ever heard." |
A Crystal Age | William Henry Hudson | null | The narrator "Smith" tells his story in the first person. A traveler and amateur naturalist, he regains consciousness "under a heap of earth and stones" and believes that he had been knocked unconscious in a fall – though his thoughts and recollections are confused. He is astounded to discover that he is entwined in the roots of plants, as though they have been growing around him. Extricating himself and surveying the scene, he sees a great house in the distance, and walks toward it to seek help and information. On his way, he encounters a funeral: a group of strangely yet strikingly dressed people, led by a majestic white-bearded old man, are interring a corpse in a grave. The narrator is especially struck by a beautiful girl who is overcome by grief. She appears to be about 14 years old; though, he soon learns that this world, and everyone in it are far older than they appear. He becomes enchanted by her, and falls in love. The funeral party see him, and express surprise at his presence and his odd uncouth clothes and boots; but they allow him to accompany them to the enormous mansion where they live. Enthralled with the girl (her name is Yoletta), and anxious to show his worth in their House, the narrator agrees to work for a year as a probationer in this community. He is constantly stumbling into misunderstandings with his new companions, for the world seems to have changed in so many extreme and incomprehensible ways. The most basic concepts of his society are unknown to these people. When he inquires about the nearest city, the old man who is "the Father of the House" thinks he is talking about a beehive. When the narrator notes that they share the English language, he is again not understood; the people of the house think they speak "the language of human beings – that is all." (Though their spoken language has changed little, the writing system is altered so much that the narrator cannot read the "Hebrew-like characters" in which their books are written.) It seems that the entire human race is now organized into communal houses like this one, with no other form of social structure, that they know of. The narrator struggles to adapt to this new society, as he pursues Yoletta. He is shocked to learn that all the people are much older than they appear; Yoletta is 31 years old, and the Father of the House is nearly 200. They are vegetarians, and have a strong rapport with the animals in their environment. The narrator is struck by their "rare physical beauty," their "crystal purity of heart," "ever contented and calmly glad". Yet he wonders why they have no romantic interests, and why there are no children in the community. He sometimes falls afoul of the strict rules, in which lying is a serious offense, punishable by solitary confinement. Yoletta comes to love him, but like a brother, without the heat of passion he feels for her. In time he meets the mysterious Mother of the House, and begins to comprehend the full strangeness and differentness of their way of life. The humans of this distant future have achieved their utopian state by abandoning sexuality and romantic love. Like a beehive, or a wolf pack, only the Queen, or Alpha Male and Female, or Father and Mother of the House, in this case, reproduce. The rest of the House live communally, as siblings. The narrator despairs when he realizes that his passion for Yoletta can never be consummated; and, wonders whether he can adapt to this mode of living. He does not realize that the Mother has begone the long process of grooming himself and Yoletta to become the new Father and Mother of the House. When he is in the library, he discovers an elaborately-carved bottle on a shelf; its inscription states that its contents provide a cure for the oppressions of "time and disease" and the thoughts or passions that "lead to madness." He takes a dose of the liquid, thinking it will cure his passion for Yoletta, which he doesn't realize she has begun to learn to reciprocate. It is only when his body grows stiff and cold that he realizes that the potion is a poison, and that the only relief from the pains of life it provides is death. This story, of a traveler who falls in love with a mysterious, beautiful young girl with an elderly protector, anticipates the plot of Hudson's later and more famous novel, Green Mansions. |
Sunrise | Erin Hunter | 2,009 | Sunrise begins with Leafpool repeating a long-used ritual to send Ashfur to StarClan. During the process, she discovers a tuft of fur in Ashfur's claws, and she knows whose it is. ThunderClan discusses Ashfur's murder, and many think that a WindClan cat killed him since he was found on the WindClan border. To find out, Firestar sends a patrol to WindClan, but Onestar denies the possibility. As the patrol leaves, Ashfoot tells ThunderClan that she sighted Sol near the sight of Ashfur's dead body, and this leads to the thought that Sol killed Ashfur. Firestar sends Birchfall, Brambleclaw, Brackenfur, Hazeltail, Hollyleaf, and Lionblaze to the sun-drown-place to find Sol. The patrol finds Sol in the Twolegplace where Purdy lives. Brambleclaw persuades Purdy to live in the Clan as an elder. Both Sol and Purdy agree to go to ThunderClan. When the patrol returns to the Clan, Sol denies killing Ashfur and is kept under guard in the camp. Being the most curious of the Three, Jayfeather tries to find out who his true parents are. When asking around about his birth, Mousefur reveals that Leafpool accidentally put a strange herb in Mousefur's tansy soon after Jayfeather's birth. After looking through herbs in the medicine cat's den and with herbs sticking to his pelt, he goes to Mousefur to deliver some fresh-kill. Mousefur says that a certain herb sticking to his fur is the mystery herb, but Jayfeather does not know what it is. To find out, he asks Littlecloud when the medicine cats meet at the Moonpool. The ShadowClan medicine cat recognizes it as parsley, an herb that stops the milk of a cat whose kits die. Jayfeather remembers that while going back to the camp after birth, there is another cat with him besides Squirrelflight: Leafpool, Jayfeather's true mother. At the camp, Hollyleaf too learns that her mother is Leafpool by learning Leafpool came back to the camp the day Hollyleaf and her littermates were born. In response, Leafpool tells the truth: Hollyleaf killed Ashfur, and the tuft of fur found in Ashfur's paw belonged to Hollyleaf. Angered that StarClan is still keeping the father of the Three a secret, Yellowfang goes to Jayfeather in a dream, tells him, "The time for lies and secrets is over. The truth must come out. StarClan was wrong not to tell you who you were a long time ago," and leaves him a crow's feather, showing their father is Crowfeather of WindClan. At the Gathering, Hollyleaf reveals the secret about her and her brothers' parents. Crowfeather denies that he ever has any kits besides Breezepelt, and he states that Leafpool and their kits mean nothing to him. Breezepelt and Nightcloud are both outraged about never being informed. Although Hollyleaf feels proud of finally revealing the secret, Jayfeather and Lionblaze are both confused and angry. Seeing how everyone feels she did something wrong, Hollyleaf runs off into the tunnels which collapse. Jayfeather realizes that only he and Lionblaze are part of the prophecy's Three. However, as he watches Whitewing's kits walking in the clearing, he realizes that one of the kits will be the third, being the granddaughter of Cloudtail who is the nephew of Firestar. |
The Chief Designer | Andy Duncan | 2,001 | The story follows Sergey Korolyov, an educated man who served as a slave laborer in Siberia but eventually ends up leading the Soviet Union’s space program in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. Throughout his many years of service he becomes a very well respected hero in the USSR's space program. Along the way he implements several crucial designs, helps save the lives of many cosmonauts and struggles with constant political power plays. |
The Island of Adventure | Enid Blyton | 1,944 | Something very sinister is happening on the mysterious Isle of Gloom, and Philip, Dinah, Lucy-Ann and Jack are determined to uncover the truth. But they are not prepared for the dangerous adventure waiting for them in the abandoned copper mines and tunnels under the sea. |
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine | null | 2,006 | According to Ilan Pappé, the 1948 Palestinian exodus consisted of the forced relocation of close to 800,000 Palestinians. This was more than half of the Palestinian population at that time. It also involved the destruction of 531 Palestinian villages, and the emptying of 11 entire Palestinian urban neighborhoods. The event is referred to, by Palestinians, as the Nakba, the catastrophe. The thesis that Pappé presents is that the Nakba was a calculated and intentionally executed ethnic cleansing perpetrated by Zionist Israelis. He states, with emphasis, that there is no room for ambivalence in this matter. His references include Zionist quotations and writings, military and political archives, and the diaries of David Ben-Gurion. His intent is also to explore how the denial of the Nakba has been so successful for so long. His views are in direct opposition to mainstream Israeli versions of the relocation, which claim that the relocation was 'voluntary'. In his preface, Ilan Pappé says, 'such a painful journey into the past is the only way forward if we want to create a better future for us all.' Pappé states that the ethnic cleansing idea was first expressed in early Zionist writings. For example, in 1917, Leo Motzkin stated 'the colonization of Palestine has to go in two directions, Jewish settlement…and the resettlement of the Arabs.' In 1938 David Ben-Gurion stated, 'I am for compulsory transfer; I do not see anything immoral in it.' Then in 1948, according to Ilan Pappé, the ethnic cleansing was implemented by David Ben-Gurion, Yigael Yadin, Moshe Dayan, Yigal Allon, Yitzhak Sadeh, Moshe Kalman, Moshe Camel, Yitzak Rabin, Shimon Avidan, Rehavam Zeevi, Yitzhak Pundak, and others. The ideological drivers of the campaign were Ben-Gurion's close advisers whom Ilan Pappé calls the 'Consultancy group'. The implementers were officers who led attacks executed by the Haganah (an Israeli militia) and the Irgun (another Israeli militia), the Stern Gang (another Israeli militia), and the Israeli Defense Force. The details of the "ethnic cleansing strategy" are fully described in an Israeli military/government document entitled Plan Dalet. Plan Dalet, according to Pappé, spells out, in writing, the clear directives of the operation. It included 'bombarding villages…setting fire to homes, properties and goods, expulsion, demolition and planting mines among the rubble to prevent any of the expelled inhabitants from returning.' This chapter focuses on the definition of ethnic cleansing in terms of ethics and international law and international agreements. Pappé refers to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, the United States Department of State, and the International Criminal Court for sources of discussion. He also describes the short-lived support that the U.S. gave to the Palestinians by endorsing United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194, which calls for the return of the displaced Palestinian refugees. Pappé states that, 'Later on, the expelled are then erased from the country's official and popular history and excised from its collective memory.' He concludes that there is no denying that this alleged ethnic cleansing has been most successfully erased from conventional Israeli history. Pappé states in this chapter that a key ingredient in the Zionist creation of an Israeli state was such that it would be created exclusively for Jews. The Muslim control of Palestine had lasted for 1300 years prior to the British Mandate. Zionism emerged in the 1880s largely through the writings of Theodore Herzl. The Zionist movement had been growing steadily by the time that Britain took control of Palestine after World War I. On October 31, 1917 the Balfour Declaration occurred. 'Lord Balfour gave the Zionist movement his promise…to establish a national home for the Jews in Palestine.' Palestinians made up 80–90 percent of the population of Palestine in the 1920s. As a result of the Balfour Declaration, Yosef Weitz began a remarkably thorough demographic study of the Palestinian villages. His study is called the Village Files. It was later used for key strategic information needed to implement the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. This chapter also includes a history of the impact of the British military operations in suppressing the Palestinian uprisings in 1929 and in 1937. The uprising in 1937 was particularly significant in that, according to Pappé, the British so thoroughly defeated the Palestinians that their future ability to fight for their rights to their homeland was strategically impacted. Britain provided key training for the Haganah and the Irgun. David Ben-Gurion stated, 'The Arabs will have to go.' Ben-Gurion's strategy for the creation of the Israeli State included very specific offensive military steps. They are described in Plans A, B, C, and D. 'The purpose of such actions would be to deter the Palestinian population from attacking Jewish settlements, and to retaliate for assaults on Jewish houses, roads, and traffic. Plan C spelled out clearly what punitive actions would entail, such as * Killing the Palestinian leadership. * Killing Palestinian inciters and their financial supporters. * Killing Palestinians who acted against Jews. * Killing senior Palestinian officers and officials. * Damaging Palestinian transportation. * Damaging the sources of Palestinian livelihoods: water wells, mills etc. Attacking nearby Palestinian villages likely to assist in future attacks. * Attacking Palestinian clubs, coffeehouses, meeting places, etc.' Plan Dalet (Plan D) called for the systematic and total expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland. Here Pappé recalls that in 1947 the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine called for the creation of two states and the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 181 stating so. The Palestinians immediately rejected this. Then David Ben-Gurion's group of close advisors, that Pappé calls the Consultancy, began its planning to deal with the Palestinian resistance. Plan D (Plan Dalet) was adopted on March 10, 1948. It called for, amongst many things, the initial uprooting of 250,000 Palestinians. This initial uprooting represented the beginning of the actual execution of Plan Dalet. Key negotiations between Israel and Jordan had led to the Jordanian promise to not join any all-Arab military operations against the Jewish state. The agreement 'neutralized the strongest army in the Arab world.' The British departed Palestine on 15 May 1948. Haganah had 50,000 trained troops. The implementation of Plan Dalet continued in earnest. The Deir Yassin massacre occurred. In it, 93 Palestinians were killed. Soon after, four more villages were taken. They were Qalunya, Saris, Beit Surik, and Biddu. The United States offered a scheme to stop the bloodshed by first establishing a three-month cease-fire and then developing a trusteeship plan in five years. Both ideas were rejected by the Israelis. Ben-Gurion had stated "Only a state with at least 80% Jews is a viable and stable state" and that Palestinians 'can either be mass arrested or expelled; it is better to expel them.' Pappé states that many Palestinian villages such as Dayr Ayyub, Beit Affa, and Khisas had virtually no defense mechanism of any kind. The attack on Balad al-Shaykh occurred leaving 60 Palestinians dead. The Hawassa neighborhood in Haifa was evacuated. The Sarraya house in Jaffa was bombed leaving 26 dead and the Samiramis Hotel in Qatamon was bombed leaving many others dead. Pappé refers to Yosef Weitz again, a member of the Consultancy. Weitz had stated, 'The only solution is to transfer the Arabs from here to neighboring countries. Not a single village or a single tribe must be left off.' In this chapter, Pappé describes various cities, and villages, and the operations to cleanse them. Operation Naschon was the first operation of Plan Dalet. It specifically called for the destruction of Palestinian villages in April 1948. It was the first time that the various Israeli militias would operate together as a unit and become the Israeli Defense Force. Pappé states 'the Arab governments did little beyond airing their inflammatory war rhetoric in all directions so as to hide their inaction and unwillingness to intervene on behalf of the Palestinians.' The United Nations plan had allocated Haifa, the only port of the country, to be granted Jewish control. Mordechai Maklef as the operation officer of the Carmeli Brigade, issued orders to 'Kill any Arab you encounter; torch all inflammable objects and force doors open with explosives'. Crowds of defenseless Palestinians ran down the streets of Haifa to the port to escape on any boat they could find. 'Many [boats] turned over and sank with all their passengers'. The next cities to fall were Acre, Nazareth and Safad. Pappé states that the Arab Liberation Army was never a match against the well organized Israeli forces. According to Pappé, there was never serious Arab Liberation Army strength, so 'the falsity of the myth of a Jewish David facing an Arab Goliath' was very clear. As Jerusalem was cleansed, 'British inaction was the rule.' In April 1948 the cleansing of Jerusalem began. 'All in all, eight Palestinian and thirty nine villages were ethnically cleansed in the Greater Jerusalem area.' After the battle was won by the Israeli Haganah, 50,000 Palestinians were forced to leave Jaffa. By 15 May 1948 200 Palestinian villages were occupied and their people expelled. This chapter discuses the dual nature of the 1948 conflict particularly during May 1948. On one hand there was the Arab Israeli war and on the other hand there was the ethnic cleansing. In a letter that David Ben-Gurion sent to the commanders of the Haganah brigades he stated, 'the cleansing of Palestine remained the prime objective of Plan Dalet.' Pappé states that the Arab war efforts were 'ineffective', and 'pathetic'. The most intensive Arab efforts occurred in the first three weeks of the war. Ethnic cleansing was conducted in at least 64 villages by the Israeli Alexandria brigade according to Pappé They were also part of the massacre at Tantura, per Ilan Pappé, on May 2, 1948. He quotes from various witnesses that as many as 230 were massacred there. Various other brigades such as the Golani Brigade, Carmeli Brigade, Kiryati Brigade, Harel Brigade, Bulgarian Brigade, Yiftach Brigade, and Givati Brigade also conducted cleansing operations. Pappé, in this chapter, discusses June through September 1948. The ethnic cleansing continued despite the passage of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights through the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 217A(III) David Ben-Gurion's diary June 5, 1948 states, 'the cleansing operation continues.' Eliezer Kaplan, the minister of finance authorized the confiscation of all Palestinian properties already taken. Pappé states that numerous Palestinian villages had been peacefully occupied by Muslim, Druze, and Christians for centuries. On July 18, 1948 another truce was organized by the U.N. mediator Count Folke Bernadotte. Pappé states, 'In less than two weeks, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had been expelled from their villages, towns, and cities.' Pappé begins this chapter with quotes from the Badil Resource Center. 'In 1948, 85% of the Palestinians living in the areas that became the state of Israel became refugees.' 'It is estimated that there were more than 7 million Palestinian displaced persons at the beginning of 2003.' He talks about Operation Hiram, War Crimes During the Operation, Mopping Up Operations, Israel's Anti-Reparation Policy, Final Cleansing of the South and the East, and The Massacre in Dawaymeh. Pappé states 'I have no illusion that it will take more than this book to reverse a reality that demonizes a people who have been colonized, expelled, and occupied, and glorifies the very people who colonized, expelled and occupied them.' Pappé starts this chapter with another set of quotes about ethnic cleansing, including, 'Since 1967, Israel has detained 670,000 Palestinians.' Sections of this chapter are entitled Inhuman Imprisonment, Abuses Under Occupation, Ghettoizing the Palestinians of Haifa, Rape, Dividing the Spoils, Desecration of Holy Sites, Entrenching the Occupation, and The Land Robbery: 1950–2000. This chapter, like others, starts with provocative quotes. 'Over 700,000 olive and orange trees have been destroyed by the Israelis. This is an act of sheer vandalism from a state that claims to practice conservation of the environment.' The sections of this chapter include; The Reinvention of Palestine, Virtual Colonialism and the J.N.F., The J.N.F. Parks In Israel, The Forest of Birya, The Ramat Menahse Park, and Greening of Jerusalem. Pappé states that 'the Israeli Land Authority, the army, the government and the Jewish National Fund' have all been 'involved in establishing new Jewish settlements on the lands of the destroyed Palestinian villages.' He goes on to state, 'The true mission of the J.N.F., in other words, has been to conceal these visible remnants of Palestine not only by the trees it has planted over them, but also by the narratives it has created to deny their existence.' As an example, Pappé refers to the Forest of Birya, which is the largest man made forest in Israel. It conceals the land of six Palestinian villages; Dishon, Alma,Israel, Qaddita, Amqa, Ayn al-Zaytun, and Biryya. Also the Ramat Menashe Park covers the ruins of Lajjun, Mansi, Kafrayan, Al-Butaymat, Hubeza, Daliyat al-Rawha, Sabbarin, Burayka, Al-Sindiyana, and Umm al-Zinat. The Jerusalem forest is another example. Here Pappé states that the creation of the United Nations Relief and Work Agency was not committed to the return of the refugees as resolution 194 was. There were one million Palestinian refugees and U.N.R.W.A. was created to meet their daily needs as refugees. He states that international peace brokers consistently sidelined the Palestinian cause and there 'was the categorical refusal of the Israelis to acknowledge the Nakba and their absolute unwillingness to be held accountable, legally, and morally, for the ethnic cleansing they committed in 1948.' For the following two decades there was a lull in international interest. Then, 'The June War (1967) ended with total Israeli control over all of ex-Mandatory Palestine.' As a response, for four decades, Yassar Arafat conducted a campaign to get the world to recognize that an ethnic cleansing had occurred in 1948. And according to Pappé, this task for the Palestinians continues to today. Pappé mentions that the Knesset had even gone to the extent of passing a law that prohibited Israeli negotiators from discussing the right of return. He also speculates that if Israelis were to acknowledge the Nakba that it would be akin to recognizing 'that they have become the mirror image of their own worst nightmare.' This chapter is about various measures Israel has taken to protect itself. As an example, Pappé starts this chapter by describing a law the Knesset passed on 31 July 2003. This law states that any Palestinian who marries an Israeli will not be granted Israeli citizenship, permanent residency, or temporary residency. He also discusses the advent of the Israeli West Bank barrier. He states, 'None of this is new.' because Theodore Herzl wrote in 1895, 'We shall endeavor to expel the poor population across the border unnoticed, procuring employment for it in the transit countries, but denying it any employment in our own country.' In 2003 Benyamin Netanyahu said, 'If the Arabs in Israel form 40% of the population, this is the end of the Jewish State. But 20% is also a problem. If the relationship with these 20% becomes problematic, the state is entitled to employ extreme measures.' Here, Pappé states that the Faculty Club of Tel Aviv University is called the Green House. It is built upon the remains of the Palestinian village, Shaykh Muwannis. It is the epitome of the denial of ethnic cleansing according to Pappé because there is no mention of its true history. Pappé goes on to say, furthermore, that the university does not have a record of looking into the Zionist history of ethnic cleansing whatsoever in any of its disciplines. He concludes by saying 'We end this book as we began: with the bewilderment that this crime was so utterly forgotten and erased from our minds and memories. But we now know the price: the ideology that enabled the depopulation of half of Palestine's native people in 1948 is still alive and continues to drive inexorable, sometimes indiscernible, cleansing of those Palestinians who live there today.' |
The Confessor | Daniel Silva | 2,003 | Gabriel Allon is tasked to investigate the murder of scholar Benjamin Stern in Munich. The lack of Stern's computer and other documents indicate that he was not killed for being a Jew — but rather for his current research. But Stern kept his research secret, so that Allon must solve a homicide with almost no clues. Meanwhile, the death of Pope John Paul II has led to a conclave at the Vatican. The new pope, Pietro Lucchesi, who calls himself Paul VII, immediately angers powerful members of the Vatican by announcing his desire to speak at the synagogue of Rome. Opponents, such as Cardinal Marco Brindisi suspect that Paul VII intends to unearth candid and potentially damaging information about the role of the Catholic Church during the Holocaust. Cardinal Brindisi is also the spiritual leader of a group called Crux Vera, a secret society established to defend the reputation and power of the Catholic Church at all costs. Roberto Pucci serves as the financial executive while Carlo Cassagrande, a former general within the Carabinieri, sees to security matters. The society enjoys considerable power within the Vatican. Because of their zealous commitment to the church, they vehemently oppose any policy that could darken the church’s reputation. Allon’s independent homicide investigation further complicates this dilemma, for the clues that he seeks will connect the Crux Vera to Stern's death. As a result, the brotherhood must eliminate everyone that might inform Allon of Stern's death and of the society’s existence. The search for a motive for Stern's death leads Allon to the village of Brenzone on Lake Garda in northern Italy. There he learns that Stern had visited the local Convent of the Sacred Heart and contacts its superior, Mother Vincenza. She affirms that Stern had met with her to research places where Jews sought refuge during the Holocaust and she shows Allon a basement where Jews purportedly stayed. However, an unidentified caller warns Allon that Mother Vincenza is lying and that the truth can only be found through Sister Regina and another person by the name of Martin Luther. Upon Allon’s departure, Mother Vincenza secretly informs Crux Vera of Allon’s visit. Stern’s murderer is a professional hitman from Switzerland named Eric ‘Leopard’ Lange, from whom Cassagrande commissions yet another murder. To Achille Bartoletti of the Italian police, Cassagrande paints Allon as a would-be papal assassin. Cassagrande thus gains control not only over the Vatican police but also over its Italian counterpart. Allon meets with Rabbi Zolli in Venice and encounters his daughter Chiara Zolli for the first time. Zolli explains that to his knowledge no Jews were harboured in the Brenzone abbey. In fact, evidence seems to suggest the opposite: that the church expedited the removal of Jews and later helped Nazi leaders escape judgement. Allon then travels to Vienna to inform his colleague Eli Lavon of his findings. Eli reveals that the Martin Luther in question was the Nazi director of the German Foreign Office, which collaborated with European governments to track down and remove Jews. According to Eli, the Nazis especially wished to maintain positive relations with the Vatican, for any denunciation of the Holocaust by a pope would have certainly made the Nazis’ work more difficult. Allon and Eli conclude that there must be some connection between Nazi leader Martin Luther and the Convent of the Sacred Heart. Upon discovering that Stern consulted with British journalist Peter Malone, Allon travels to London. Malone tells Allon that his recent book about Crux Vera had raised Stern's interest. Stern also hired Malone to track down two missing priests who were presumed dead and that the Roman police detective Alessio Rossi had been forced to close his files about their cases. Malone suggests that Crux Vera orchestrated Stern’s death to keep further details about the society’s identity and secrets from being published. Shortly after Allon leaves Malone, Eric Lange arrives and kills the journalist. As Lange leaves Malone’s flat, an Israeli surveillance technician gets a picture of the elusive Leopard, who soon consults with the professional terrorist Rashid Husseini, from whom he learns Allon’s true identity. Lange anticipates that Allon will seek out detective Alessio Rossi and hires Husseini to follow Rossi until Allon surfaces. Allon contacts Rossi in Rome, who surmises that the disappearance of the two missing priests points to a cover up within the Vatican. The arrival of a special police unit at Allon's hotel cuts short their discussion. Police shoot at the two fleeing men, killing Rossi and wounding Allon. Chiara Zolli rescues Allon and reveals that she also works for the Mossad and has been monitoring Allon throughout his investigation. The investigation of Stern’s death now comes to the attention of Shimon Pazner, the Mossad's katsa in Rome, who sees no other option but to deport him to Israel. However, Zolli feels that Allon must not abandon the investigation. They board Allon’s deportation boat, navigate to the Provence to meet with Antonia Huber, the daughter of Sister Regina Carcassi. The former delivers an account of a clandestine meeting between Nazi agents and members of the Vatican on the premises of the Brenzone abbey. In this meeting, members of the Curia assured the cooperation of the Vatican with Martin Luther’s removal of the Jews. Sister Regina, who witnessed the meeting, did not share her knowledge with anyone, but instead, wrote the account. Huber confides to Allon that she also gave a copy of the letter to Stern. The letter proves that the missing priests were present at the meeting, and Huber adds that her mother was later murdered. Allon feels certain that the series of disappearances and murders relates to the pact between Nazi and Curia elements. Back in Munich, Allon finds a Nazi document that links the Holy See to Martin Luther’s removal of the Jews. Both return to Vienna to meet with Eli and Shamron, Allon's superior at the Mossad. Shamron notifies Allon of the pope’s intention to speak at the synagogue of Rome and surmises that the pope’s mission and life is in danger from the same people that killed Stern. He urges Allon to personally share the documents with the pope and to safeguard the pope. Meanwhile Crux Vera has again hired hitman Eric Lange, this time with the purpose of killing the pope at the synagogue. Through his contacts in the art restoration community, Allon secures a private audience with Pope Paul VII. The pope attests to the verity of the documents and cites his own personal testimony, for he himself, like Sister Regina, had overheard the terrible meeting at the Convent of the Sacred Heart while living as an orphan in the abbey. The pope’s determination to speak at the synagogue stems from his conviction that the Catholic Church has many offenses to confess to the Jews. Paul VII ignores Allon’s admonition to cancel the appointment at the synagogue and instead suggests that Allon personally accompany him within the pope’s security team. Surprisingly, the pope’s speech at the synagogue proves uneventful. But at the very same time Cassagrande secretly renounces his role in the pope’s assassination and instead hires Lange to kill its instigator, Marco Brindisi. Cassagrande then commits suicide. Allon arrives a few seconds late at the crime scene but manages to pursue Lange on a motorbike. But in the narrow alleys of Trastevere Lange manages to escape, while Allon crashes on the street's pavement and tumbles hard. His wounds are critical and Paul VII himself provides him with the attention of the pope’s personal medical staff. When Allon recovers, it is clear that he and Chiara have developed romantic feelings for each other. Meanwhile, details of Brindisi and Cassagrande’s plot are leaked to the press. The story links Pucci to Crux Vera and eventually destroys his financial empire. Although the pope chooses to protect the church by denying the newspaper’s findings, he seizes the opportunity to rid the Curia of members of the Crux Vera. Shamron returns to Tel Aviv and creates Team Leopard, a task force devoted to identifying and killing Eric Lange. The story ends months later when Allon personally locates and kills Lange. |
Rumors: A Luxe Novel | Anna Godbersen | 2,008 | The book begins with Elizabeth Holland in California with her runaway love, Will Keller. While Elizabeth is having a good time in California, her sister Diana is anything but happy. Diana is stuck in New York, being one of the only two people that knows that her sister's death is a hoax. The other person, Penelope Hayes, decides that she would like to marry the rich and famous Henry Schoonmaker, Elizabeth's ex-fiance. Throughout the book, Diana and Henry have a secret relationship and plan on somehow marrying. Meanwhile, Elizabeth hears of her family's worsening financial situation, and she decides that she has to help them somehow, seeing as the reason they remain having these troubles is that she did not marry rich Henry. Elizabeth and Will take a train to New York and reveal themselves to her mother and aunt. Henry's father, William Schoonmaker, decides that for reputation's sake it would be a good idea for Henry to marry Penelope, who has been proving herself to be a very worthy socialite. Meanwhile, Lina Broud, the Holland's ex-maid, running out of money that she got from dishing Holland family secrets to Penelope, decides to move up the social scale with the help of Tristan, a tailor from the Lord & Taylor clothing store. With Tristan's help, she not only learns to act and dress like an educated lady but also meets and becomes the protegee of incredibly rich Mr. Carey Lewis Longhorn. Mr. Longhorn changes her name to Carolina Broad and develops a story about being an orphaned western heiress, and takes her to various parties where she officially meets Penelope Hayes. As a bribe to Penelope, whom Carolina wants as a friend to gain social status, Carolina tells Penelope of how Henry and Diana had made love one night in Diana's own bedroom. Penelope uses this information to blackmail Henry into marrying her in order to protect Diana's reputation. The wedding happens so fast that Henry has no time to explain to Diana what happened so she is very depressed and angry. Also, a man named Snowden Cairns, a friend of the late Mr. Holland, comes and helps the Hollands out of some of their financial troubles. They all decide it is best if Elizabeth and Will are married and sent back to California to avoid scandal. Snowden marries Will and Elizabeth at the Holland Home. When they try to leave, at the train station, townspeople recognize the famous Elizabeth Holland and assume that Will has kidnapped her. They proceed to shoot Will, killing him, and returning Elizabeth to her home. The next day, it is all over society that Elizabeth Holland had been kidnapped by the old stable boy, and, conveniently, the Hollands decide to go with this story. The book ends with Henry and Penelope getting married, both Holland sisters heartbroken, and a promise to Diana from Elizabeth to get Henry back. |
Kinflicks | Lisa Alther | 1,976 | The novel starts with a first-person reflection on her life so far by the protagonist, Virginia "Ginny" Hull Babcock Bliss, as she catches a plane to look after her gravely ill mother. From then on, dated chapters in third person alternate with Ginny's non-linear first-person reminiscences of her childhood, her teenage years, her college years, her marriage, and beyond. |
Death with Interruptions | José Saramago | 2,005 | The book, based in an unknown country and at a point in the unspecified past, opens with the end of death. Mysteriously, at the stroke of midnight of January 1st, no one in the country can die any more. Initially, the people of this country celebrate their apparent victory over mankind's longtime foe. Though the traditional sources for guidance on things like life and death endeavor to discover why people have stopped dying, religious authorities, philosophers and scholars alike can find no answers. The Catholic Church, in fact, feels quite threatened by this new turn of events, as the end of death would call into question one of the fundamental foundations of their dogma: the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The common citizens, however, generally enjoy their newfound immortality. This joy is short-lived, though. It soon becomes apparent that the end of death presents unique demographic and financial challenges. The complete cessation of dying leads to a growing fear among healthcare workers that the system will collapse under its own weight: generations of incapacitated, but still living, people will populate care homes and hospitals for, presumably, all eternity. Funeral workers, on the other hand, fear the opposite problem: they will have no business, and will be forced to move to preparing animals for the afterlife. A means of finally killing people, and relieving families of the burden of their catatonic kin, is devised and implemented by an underground group known only as the Maphia (the 'ph' is chosen as to avoid any confusion with the more sinister Mafia) The incapacitated are brought over the borders of the country, where they instantly die, as death has not ceased working elsewhere. The industry develops so quickly that the government itself becomes beholden to the maphioso, even bringing it to the brink of war with its neighbors. Death reemerges not long thereafter, this time as a woman named death (the lowercase name is used to signify the difference between the one who ends the life of people, and the one will end all of the universe). She announces, through a missive sent to the media, that her experiment has ended, and people will begin dying again. However, in an effort to kill more kindly, death will now send a letter to those about to perish, giving them a week to prepare for their end. Naturally, the violet envelope encased letters create a frenzy in the country, as people are not just returned to dying, but also must face the spectre of receiving one of these letters, and having their fate sealed with it. From here, the story largely moves on to focus to death's relationship with an otherwise unextraordinary cellist who, amazingly, will not die. Every time death sends him his letter, it returns. Death discovers that, without reason, this man has mistakenly not been killed. Although originally intending merely to analyze this man, and discover why he is so unique, death eventually becomes infatuated with him , enough so that she takes human form to meet him. Upon visiting him, she plans to personally give him the letter; instead, she falls in love with him, and by doing so she takes on a human form, and, as the book originally started, there is no dying the next day. |
The Cartier Project | null | null | An immigrant worker from Bosnia falls in love with the actress Nastassja Kinski. To be able to approach her, he has to become famous himself. That's why he sets off on a journey to fame in a black comedy with a twist in its tale. |
Guarding Hanna | null | null | He was born a freak. With above-average intelligence, which soon realises that a body bent on destruction cannot live among others. The only person who can help him is a Mafia don, who has enough money to isolate the monster. But nothing comes free. And now, the moment when the freak has to repay the favour has arrived. He has to come out of isolation and become a bodyguard of a woman named Hanna for a week. |
The Crossroads | Chris Grabenstein | 2,008 | Zack Jennings, his dad, and his new stepmother have just moved back to his father’s hometown, at Connecticut, not knowing that their new house has a dark history. Fifty years ago, a crazed killer caused an accident at the nearby crossroads that took 40 innocent lives. He died when his car hit a tree, which is in Zack's backyard. Since then, his malevolent spirit has inhabited the tree. During a huge storm, a lightning hits the tree, releasing the spirit, and the spirit began looking for the descendants of those who cost him his life, starting with Zack, whose grandfather started it all. |
King of the Rattling Spirits | Miha Mazzini | null | The novel is first person narrative of twelve years old Egon who tries to become a normal teenager with normal teenage problems of growing up in a milieu of little industrial town in then Tito's Yugoslavia with open borders to the West that allowed free visits to the other side of iron curtain that was not so iron at the borders between now Slovenia and Italy, in times of record players and popular and less popular alternative music records. However this is not an easy task to have only normal problems since Egon has to deal with abuse at home and in school. At home he is exposed to nona's posttraumatic consequences of World War One because of which she keeps having halucinations of dead souls and she makes sure that Egon, too, keeps watching dreadful illustrations of martyrs from her little book of Catholic saints and apologize to dead souls for stepping on them accidentally, which only she can see. As well at home he is exposed to neglect and scapegoating by single mother, his mother who is in conflict with nona. As if that would not be enough (and too much) for a child, he gets sexually abused by teacher at school who keeps molesting also a beautiful girl who is also sexually abused by her own father at home and who because of that - as narrator tells at the and of novel - finds escape from nightmarish life in her death (suicide) at the end. Egon can only dream of having the kind of problems his teenage peers have, this would be sweet dreams for him. Egon survives in the novel, but has to pay a high price for the survival, a price paid by many survivors of childhood sexual abuse. Because the double life they are forced to live daily, they would need help from an adult who they could trust and who would understand them in order to integrate it, they have no other choice but to escape into new identity, which in contrast to their real child's self, who is helpless, becomes a king over the dark kingdom of nona, mother and school, as the king of (their) rattling ghosts. |
City of the Spider Queen | null | null | This 160-page book begins with an introduction on pages 3–9. According to the adventure background provided, drow priestesses are no longer receiving spells or guidance from their goddess, Lolth. While in most places, the drow have remained steadfast, the Underdark city of Maerimydra is in a state of unrest and has been invaded by a host of enemy creatures. Some of the desperate survivors have begun making raids on the surface world. The adventure outline provided states that the player characters will be investigating these raids, travelling through the Underdark and exploring the ruined city, fighting the creatures that have taken it over, ultimately fighting a priestess of the rival drow goddess Kiaransalee. Following the introduction is the four-chapter adventure scenario: Part 1: Spinning the Web, is on pages 10–44, Part 2: The Deep Wastes, is on pages 45–63, Part 3: Maerimydra", is on pages 64–101, and Part 4: The Undying Temple", is on pages 102-114. The book also features two appendices. Appendix 1: Monsters and Magic, on pages 115-130, features the statistics for several monsters used in the adventure, and also presents a number of spells and magic items. Appendix 2: Creature Statistics, on pages 131-160, contains a summary of the statistics for all the NPCs and monsters that appear throughout the adventure. Included in the back of the book are 16 one-page maps of various locations that the characters may explore as part of the adventure. |
Les Animaux dénaturés | null | null | Anthropologists travel to Africa to search for the so-called missing link of human evolution. What they find is not a fossil, but an actual population of ape-like creatures, called Paranthropus greamiensis after the discoverer, and dubbed Tropis. A businessman named Vancruysen has the idea to use them as a cheap workforce without rights or pay. The scientists then realize they must come up with a definitive answer to the problem of whether or not the Tropis are human, something they have avoided doing on the grounds that fixing an arbitrary limit between human and non-human is akin to the sorites paradox. They try to use the criterion of interfertility, but it appears that Tropi females can be impregnated by sperm from both man and ape, making it impossible to decide before the offspring reach reproductive age. To force the authorities to reach a decision, thus giving legal protection of the Tropis whether as animals or citizens, one of the scientists deliberately kills the baby born from one Tropi female impregnated by his own sperm. The trial will then determine whether he committed murder, (making the Tropis human) or simply killed an animal. |
Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John | L. Frank Baum | null | Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John picks up the continuing story of the three cousins Patsy Doyle, Beth De Graf, and Louise Merrick, and their family; the plot of the book begins three days after the wedding of Louise and her fiancé Arthur Weldon, the event that concluded the fifth book in the series, Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society. The sixth novel begins, as per pattern, with the cousins' Uncle John getting an inspiration for a new adventure: in this case, the family will escape a cold New York City winter by taking a trip to southern California, the land of "sunshine and roses." Since Louise is away on her honeymoon, she is effectively left out of the story; her place is taken by Major Doyle, Patsy's father — the first time that the Major accompanies the young people on their escapades. (The Major is relieved that Uncle John has set his fancy merely on California, and not "Timbuktu or Yucatan...Ethiopia or Hindustan....") The four travelers (accompanied by Mumbles, Patsy's new puppy) reach Denver by train; along the way, they meet an appealing teenage girl (14 or 15 years old) named Myrtle Dean. Myrtle is a poor orphan; she was injured in an automobile accident, which inhibited her ability to walk. She had been living in Chicago with an aunt, and earned her living by sewing. But now, Myrtle has been sent West by her unsympathetic aunt to find a missing uncle named Anson Jones — though neither woman knows if the uncle is still in Leadville, Colorado, his last known address, or if he will be able to care for the girl if she finds him. Patsy and Beth are shocked at her situation; it is clear to them that the aunt has abandoned Myrtle to her own inadequate resources. Uncle John telegraphs ahead, and discovers that the mysterious uncle has left Leadville for parts unknown. Patsy and Beth then adopt Myrtle as their "protégé," and take her with them on their trip. They buy her new clothes, and she shares their hotels, meals, and adventures. (Baum cannot resist the fairy-tale viewpoint, and "Edith Van Dyne" gives a plug for the Oz books: Myrtle is "amazed and awed by the splendor of her new apparel, and could scarcely believe her good fortune. It seemed like a fairy tale to her, and she imagined herself a Cinderella with two fairy godmothers who were young and pretty girls possessing the purse of Fortunatus and the generosity of Glinda the Good.") Uncle John buys a large, seven-passenger touring car and outfits it for camping and cross-country travel. He also hires a chauffeur, a half-Indian Québécois named Wampus. The chauffeur provides some of the comic relief in the story, though he is also presented as highly competent, courageous, and principled, a "brave and true man." (Baum employs another comic chauffeur in the final book in the series, Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross.) The party sets off by car from Albuquerque; they visit the Grand Canyon and the Navaho and Hopi reservations. They witness a performance of the Hopi snake dance. In western Arizona they are waylaid by a riotous group of cowboys, who refuse to let them pass until the girls join them in a dance. In what grows into an ugly incident, the travelers are forced to acquiesce — at first; but Patsy and Beth, typically clever and resourceful, develop a plan to defeat their opponents and escape. The group reaches California, none the worse for wear; they are delighted with the change of scene. They make the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego their headquarters. (This is another bit of autobiographical writing for Baum; he stayed regularly at the Coronado during trips to California.) Myrtle Dean has proved a delightful and rewarding companion; her health has already shown signs of improvement with better diet, less anxiety, and the warmth of new friendships. Myrtle, however, has been the center of a series of curious events. At the Grand Canyon, the travelers saw a morose-looking man standing at the very lip of the canyon; Myrtle, fearing that he intended to jump, cried out to him, and the man turned away from the edge. At San Diego, they once again see the strange man, standing on a cliff over the ocean; Myrtle once again fears his suicide, and cries out to him. The man turns out to be staying at the Coronado; his name in C. B. Jones. Myrtle happens upon him a third time, and takes away the revolver he has been brooding over in his room. After the three incidents, the man becomes emotionally attached to, if not fixated upon, Myrtle. Uncle John's inquiries reveal that the man, Collanson Jones, is the "Anson" Jones who is Myrtle's missing uncle. The two are happy at this re-unification of their sundered family, and Jones's deep melancholy is relieved (the evil aunt who sent Myrtle away had told him the girl was dead). And since Jones has made his fortune in mining, Myrtle's financial future is secured. |
Judicially Murdered | null | null | The book opens with Sam Devin, and spends the first chapter introducing the reader to Devin and then Leschi. The reader is also caught up on the politics and way of the time. For example we learn about Stevens and it is here we first learn that Devin is a trapper. Devin eats dinner with Leschi and the other Indians and the chapter ends with Leschi learning that he has been appointed chief by Stevens, which is particularly odd since no one other than Stevens thinks Stevens has the power to do this. Stevens wants the Indians to sign the treaty called Medicine Creek. In this treaty the Indians will move north so the whites have more land and natural resources, but once they have moved north they are promised this land for good. This will also allow the whites to build their railroad. Leschi declines to sign the paper and refuses to move. This, in turn, angers Leschi and he decides to go to war with the whites. Devin decided to be neutral in this war. The two next chapters show the author’s extensive research on Pacific Northwest Native American culture, as they spend the bulk of the time discussing and describing the Indian way of life. Matters like Chinook Jargon and the War Chief Ceremony are described. Devin even witnesses the latter as Leschi officially becomes war chief. The second day of treaty-signing among Stevens and the Indian Chiefs commences. The day progresses with the American side urging for the immediate signing of the treaty that would settle everything, peacefully. Deceit emerges once again through the Americans as negotiator, Simmons, who continues to pursue unethical means of persuasion with the Indians with his constant badgering, sly promises, alcohol, and prominent threats. Meanwhile, Devin and Stevens sit down, and Stevens foreshadows just how much power he actually holds by confronting Devin about Devin’s secret meetings with the Indian Counsels for the past few nights. Stevens continues to shock readers with his racist comments on how the killing of Indians is no more than hunting animals; mocking them by calling them savages. Adding to the unfairness of the treaty Stevens has Simmons translate what the treaty says in the Chinook Jargon instead of the Salish Dialect on purpose in order to make the chiefs not see the dangers in which the treaty actually holds. To Stevens’ surprise, Leschi demands that the treaty be transcribed into their dialect and refuses to sign anything that he or his people put forward. While leaving the company Sam thinks of the horrors of which Stevens wants to unfold on the Indians. Stevens returns from a trip he has taken and orders his men to capture Devin to attain information about Leschi's war strategy and how many members are in his tribe. Meanwhile, Leschi disagrees with the reservation land so he request Steven to give Leschi people new land. Leschi is angry that Stevens ignored his request three times. He is also upset the white people are taking over the land and wasting up all of the resources, so he decides to attack Seattle. However, Stevens is warned ahead of time about the attack by Chief Patkanim of the Snoqualmie tribe, who are fighting with the whites, so the attack fails miserably. The chapter ends with Leschi writing a letter to President Franklin Pierce about the war and the treaty. The settlers also decide to write a letter to the President as well about their problems with the volunteer fighters and Stevens. Leschi brings together all the leaders to plan for the spring campaign. He also asks Devin to pick up James G. Swan—another real life character, one of the Northwest’s first authors—on Fox Island at night. Devin goes across the sound in pitch black freezing weather to pick up Swan. Meanwhile, Stevens and the Patkanim are looking for the Lake Washington Indian camp and instead find a boy fishing on the Green River. Patkanim scares the boy into telling him where the camp is then kills him anyways after. Stevens and Patkanim are ready to utilize their combined forces to successfully oppose Leschi. Patkanim, who has great geographical understanding of their surrounding area proposes that they attack Lake Washington. Stevens’ group, including Major Maxon and their interpreter Simmons generally agree to the proposal. After some argument, they decide that Leschi would foresee this attack, so they tell their troops that they’re going to attack the Duwamish in order to confuse the group of Leschi’s spies that may be among their numbers. Unfortunately, their diversion tactic is futile, because Leschi assumes that they’re trying to deceive him once he receives word of their attempts on the Duwamish, and moves his men away from Lake Washington in advance. Maxon gets himself nearly murdered by Patkanim in a frustrated dispute. Devin struggles with his life after getting hurt. Sam ends up getting shot by his chasers and lays hidden in the bushes. Mary (Leschi’s wife) finds him and they stay hidden in the bushes while they overhear Maxon and one of this men talking about their goals of finding Leschi and his brother. As soon as the coast is clear they leave the scene and travel back to the tribe. On the way there Mary tells Sam about an affair she had with his nephew Sluggia. In the second have part of the chapter, Green River is attacked, Leschi, Quiemuth, his brother and their tribes flee east to Yakima for there safety. Because of bad timing and weather, many of the unlucky travelers died from injuries or attacks by wild predators before they reached the settlements. The Yakima people greeted them warmly and offered them food and shelter. Ezra Meeker’s is on trial charged with helping the enemy during the previous war. The trial is eventually thrown out when it was found that Meeker and the rest of the Muck Creek Farmers were innocent for lack of conclusive evidence against them. After the trial, Meeker becomes enraged Governor Stevens, and rallies his friends and farmers who also were angered. Meeker had the intention to forcefully overthrow the governor and replace him. This is the first time in the book that Stevens’ quest for power takes a hit. Chief Leschi fishes on the Nisqually River, when he is approached by a couple of men. He soon realizes that they are Sluggia, and his friend Elikuka, and they have come to arrest him and take him into town. After he is taken to town, Chief Leschi is tried. The prosecution’s case is terrible, but during the deliberation, it seems as though most of the jurors had their minds made up before the case began. Everyone on the jury except for Meeker and William Kincaid, vote guilty, but since it is not a unanimous decision, the jury is hung, and a new trial is set for a later date in Olympia. Leschi is sent back to the jail house, where he stays until his next trial. During this time, Devin visits frequently to keep Leschi company. Leschi then learns that Quiemuth had been murdered. After a few months, the second trial convenes, and after a short deliberation by the jury, Leschi is found guilty of killing Moses Abraham, and sentenced to death by hanging. Leschi is still held in jail, awaiting his hanging. While the hanging sentence has been passed, the actual date of the hanging is constantly being pushed back, much to the joy of Leschi’s supporters. Devin, after much deliberation, rounds up the Leschi supporters to suggest an idea which would push the date of the hanging even further. They agree to go out with a the plan of setting up a fake trial accusing Sheriff Williams, who just happens to carry the papers required for the hanging, of selling alcohol to the Native American tribes around the area. Williams happily goes along with this plan, much to the resent of Stevens. The plan eventually fails as the final date of the hanging is changed to the exact date in which Stevens’ replacement should arrive, allowing Stevens to resume with the hanging. Leschi, in his last final moments, tells his people not to hinder and to be prosperous without his guidance. Stevens believes he is now in the clear for his railroad to be built, but the Congress has voted against it, frustrating him to spit on the corpse of Leschi and blame him for all of his efforts being wasted. Leschi is buried and grieved among his supporters. |
In Arabia We'd All Be Kings | Stephen Adly Guirgis | null | Lenny is a recently released ex-convict. Despite his imposing size, he was gang raped repeatedly while incarcerated and struggles to find his manhood on the outside. Daisy, his alcoholic girlfriend, craves a “real” life with a “real” man and abandons him at a seedy pre-Giuliani Times Square bar in pursuit of some cheap Chinese takeout. At the bar is Skank, a former failed actor turned junkie, who is trying to outlast the rain storm and get a buyback from the long-missing Irish bartender as he begins to go through withdrawals. Also at the bar is Sammy, an old, dying guilt-ridden drunk who exists somewhere between reality and the afterlife. DeMaris, a seventeen-year-old gun-brandishing single mother, wants to learn to turn tricks. She enlists the aid of Chickie, Skank’s girlfriend, a young crackhead hooker who plays Go Fish with the simple-minded day bartender Charlie, who thinks he’s a Jedi warrior and who buys meals for Chickie because he loves her and because he lives for the day they can go out someday, “just as friends.” The owner of the bar is Jake. The place was his father’s before him, and after thirty years, he longs for the chance to leave “this sewer” for a re-invented life in Florida. The real-estate boom, “gentrification” and the emergence of Disney in Times Square affords him that opportunity. Unaware that their last piece of home is about to be pulled out from under them, the bar patrons struggle on. Their sense of humor, their misguided hopes and dreams, and their lack of self-pity are badges that are tattooed to their souls. They will all, before the end, demand and take the chance to face head on their complicated and sad truths. |
The Deruga Case | Ricarda Huch | null | The novel opens with the beginning of the trial, which takes place in pre-1914 Munich. Right from the start Deruga, who has not been taken into custody so far, attracts the attention of everyone present through his conspicuous behaviour, which ranges from seemingly unmotivated emotional outbursts to complete indifference as to what is going on in the courtroom—at one point he even seems to have fallen asleep. Part of his idiosyncratic demeanour is attributed to his Italian ancestry—Deruga was born and raised in poor circumstances in an Italian mountain village and only came to Germany and Austria to read medicine— but the rest is ascribed to his choleric temperament. As the trial proceeds, Deruga turns out to have been living a life somewhat outside the bourgeois society which would normally harbour people of his professional standing: he neglects his run-down practice, has debts not only with one of his colleagues but also with his restaurateur, tailor, and hairdresser, shuns the local medical society, and has frequent and irregular love affairs. While Deruga himself does not seem to care one way or another, there are clearly two opposing parties: one group, headed by the Baronin Truschkowitz, who feel strongly that a murderer must be brought to justice; and another, motley group of people who have crossed the defendant's path at some point in their lives and who, summoned to testify as character witnesses, insist that, despite his occasional rudeness, he has always been a witty, kind, sympathetic, helpful, even philanthropic, man whose lack of interest to accumulate money would never have induced him to kill his ex-wife on the sheer hope that he might be included in her will. They also point out his unblemished professional record, and therefore say that he must be acquitted. The discovery of a handwritten letter from Mingo Swieter to Deruga finally triggers a turn of events in Deruga's favour. It is found in the inside pocket of a man's suit which was carelessly thrown into a canal in Munich and retrieved by a poor woman who was going to sell it to a clothes peddler. In the letter, which is the first communication between the ex-spouses since their divorce, the dying woman appeals to Deruga to shorten her suffering by performing euthanasia on her. On the last day of the trial, Deruga at last explains how he received the letter, immediately took the train to Munich, disguised himself as a peddler, stole into Mingo Swieter's flat while her daily help was away on errands, talked to the dying woman, administered the poison, waited until she was dead, and travelled back to Prague, happy to have been able to assist his ex-wife in her hour of need. In the end Deruga is acquitted. The final chapters of the novel also throw some light on the individual characters' motives to act the way they do. Deruga's arch enemy, the Baronin Truschkowitz, who appears throughout the trial as an embittered and vengeful woman only out to get her cousin's inheritance, turns out to be a highly moral person trapped in a boring marriage who intended to use the money to buy her freedom from her dull husband now that their daughter Mingo has come of age. Neither her unfading beauty, which has not gone unnoticed by Deruga, nor her joie de vivre have ever tempted her to be unfaithful to her husband, but after her cousin's death she thought the time had come to divorce him. When she meets Deruga after the end of the trial, they are surprised to see that their attraction is mutual, and Deruga admits that she is the reason why he has decided to close down his practice and go abroad for good—as far away as humanly possible. Further complications arise when Mingo von Truschkowitz declares her love for Deruga, although he is 25 years her senior. The Baroness actually offers him her daughter's hand, but Deruga is too sensible to accept and sticks with his decision to move on. |
The Sugar Syndrome | Lucy Prebble | null | The play has four main characters: Dani, Tim, Lewis and Jan. At the beginning, Dani (short for Danielle), a girl of seventeen, has just come home after spending some time in a clinic for eating disorders. Her mother, Jan, is trying to cope with the problems of looking after Dani after separating from her husband. Dani starts talking to people in an internet chat room and gets to know Tim, a man in his thirties. Dani pretends to be an eleven-year-old boy, which Tim believes. Tim is a man in his thirties who has a taste for young boys and has spent some time in prison. He and Dani agree to meet in a park and subsequently become friends. Dani also meets a lonely young man called Lewis in the chat room. Lewis eventually becomes jealous of the friendship between Dani and Tim and threatens to expose Tim as a pedophile. Tim, anticipating a visit from the police, lends his laptop to Dani for safekeeping. Dani then finds a video on the laptop which appears to depict the rape of a young boy. The play climactically ends with the harrowing sound of the boy being raped... |
Babylon Babies | Maurice Georges Dantec | 1,999 | Set in 2013, the main character, Hugo Cornelius Toorop (hero of The Red Siren), is a mercenary whose mission is to escort a young woman with schizophrenia, Marie Zorn, from Siberia to Quebec on behalf of a sect. It appears that the young woman is the surrogate mother of twins, representing the next stage of human evolution. |
Six-legged Soldiers: Using Insects as Weapons of War | Jeffrey A. Lockwood | 2,008 | Six-Legged Soldiers gives detailed examples of entomological warfare: using buckets of scorpions during a fortress siege, catapulting beehives ("bee bombs") across a castle wall, civilians as human guinea pigs in an effort to weaponize the plague, bombarding civilians from the air with infection-bearing insects, and assassin bugs placed on prisoners to eat away their flesh. Lockwood also describes a domestic ecoterrorism example with the 1989 threat to release the Medfly (Ceratitis capitata) within California's crop belt. The last chapter highlights western nations' vulnerability to terrorist attacks. Interviewed about the book by BBC Radio 4's Today programme, the author describes how a terrorist with a suitcase could bring diseases into a country. "I think a small terrorist cell could very easily develop an insect-based weapon." |
The Defector | null | null | Much of the story is set in Russia, where Gabriel Allon tries to rescue Russian defector Grigori Bulganov, who wsa introduced in an earlier book in the series. Bulganov had been kidnapped, and Gabriel Allon must save him from the clutches of Ivan Kharkov, also from the previous book. |
Doom 3: Maelstrom | Matthew J. Costello | null | In the year 2145, a space marine assigned to the Union Aerospace Corporation research centre on Mars is one of the few survivors of a massive interdimensional invasion - an overwhelming demonic force from the mouth of Hell itself. As he struggles to survive the chaos and horror while dealing his own shock and fear, he discovers more than he could ever bargain for - the truth behind the shadowy research taking place within the very facility he is desperately trying to escape... |
Anesthesia: A Brief Reflection on Contemporary Aesthetics | null | null | Anesthesia examines recent accounts of love in an attempt to suggest that the kind of romanticized understanding we have of love necessitates its own death. It begins with the musing of a graduating college student who is reflecting on the question of whether a young death, if it is a happy one, is a good death. Trajan (no last name is given), who is named after a Roman Emperor based on this emperor's persecution policy toward Christians, finds himself contemplating the murder of best friend (Brett) at the hands of a woman (Anna) whom both young men were smitten with. Anna, who functions as the tangible argument York is discussing, convinces Trajan that Brett's death was a good death because Brett had reached the apex of human fulfillment. He had fallen in love yet due to love's inability to be sustained (because they understand love to be defined as yearning), his life must come to an end as the love itself, inasmuch as it has reached satisfaction, must end. Brett's eventual pursuit of other loves would only call into question the each love prior to the next. Likewise, Anna requests an end to her own life based on her love for Trajan. She recognizes both the temporal yet eternal nature of love defined as yearning and wishes to be freed from it in order to die within it. Many themes are explored throughout the book. Anna takes on a personality akin to Joan of Arc and it is through this lens that York weaves a strong though tragic female character. Issues of sex, race and patriarchy are spread throughout, as well as critiques of pop culture, though remaining heavily indebted to pop culture. Most of his characters and places in the book are references to someone or something else. He includes a number of references to comic book characters, including Frank Castle (The Punisher) and X-Men character, Kitty Pryde. The book has been likened, in terms of style, to that of both Chuck Palahniuk and J.D. Salinger. Anesthesia was inspired by the song of the same name written by punk rock band Bad Religion. It may be that the character of Brett was named after the guitarist of Bad Religion, Brett Gurewitz, who wrong the song. Mr. Brett, as he often goes by, suggests that the song was a metaphor about the numbing effects of love although there are speculations that the song is really about drug addiction. York's fictitious first-person memoir plays with this notion of love as numbing, though he reverses it by connecting it to the ancient god of love Eros who was born of, by some accounts, the god of war Ares. |
Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work | L. Frank Baum | null | The novel carries forward the continuing story of the three cousins Louise Merrick, Beth De Graf, and Patsy Doyle, and their circle. The title is somewhat misleading; it could more accurately have been called Aunt Jane's Nieces in Politics. (Uncle John Merrick tells his nieces that politics is "work," which yields the title.) The story begins three days after the end of the previous book, Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville; the freckled and red-haired Patsy still sports a sunburn from her summer in the Adirondacks. She and Louise have received letters from their "cousin" Kenneth Forbes, the young man who inherited Aunt Jane's estate in the first book of the series. Kenneth has become involved in politics: he is running as the Republican candidate for the local seat in the New York State legislature, but thinks he is going to lose to his opponent. The family decide to go all out to help Kenneth win the election. The cousins and Uncle John go to the rural district where Forbes's estate, Elmhurst, is located. The multi-millionaire Uncle John, the three attractive girls, and their two motorcars (rare in the district) create a sensation. Patsy campaigns among the local businessmen, Beth writes newspaper articles and press releases, and Louise concentrates on visiting the local farmers' wives. (The women cannot vote — but they will "tell their husbands how to vote.") Uncle John spreads his cash around, even buying positive coverage for Forbes in the local paper. (The fee is $250, with another $500 if and when Kenneth wins.) Kenneth's mercenary and cynical Democrat opponent, Erastus Hopkins, fights back vigorously — but, provoked by the three cousins, he intemperately takes an anti-female line that works against him. In the end, Kenneth wins easily in the normally Republican district. Unlike most of the books in the series, Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work also possesses a significant subplot. Beth and Kenneth learn of a local girl named Lucy Rogers; after being falsely accused of theft, she suffered a mental breakdown and disappeared. Beth and Kenneth help to find the girl and get her effective psychological help. The subplot gives the book the emotional warmth, sentimentality, and human interest that is typical of the series, but somewhat lacking in the politics of the main plot. |
The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún | Christopher Tolkien | 2,009 | After the creation of the Nine Worlds by the Aesir, the walls of Asgard are besieged by an army of jötunns and trolls. Wielding the hammer Mjöllnir, Thor succeeds in driving these "foes immortal," back to Jotunheim. However, there are new perils to come. A female seer prophesies the apocalyptic battle of Ragnarök and speaks of how Odin shall be slain by the wolf Fenrir and Thor by the Midgard serpent. There is but one chance for the doom of the nine worlds to be averted. If on the day of battle a mortal warrior, a slayer of serpents and descendant of Odin, fights alongside the gods, the forces of evil shall be defeated and the world shall be reborn. In response, Odin scatters his seed among mortals in hopes of birthing, "the world's chosen." Although many great heroes soon join him in Valhalla, the serpent slayer's coming continues to be awaited. Ages later, Odin, Loki, and Hoenir arrive at the cave of the dwarf Andvari. There, they encountered the demon Hreidmar's son Ótr and, thinking him to be merely a fishing otter, Loki slays him with a stone, removes his pelt, and steals his catch of salmon. Enraged, Hreidmar and his sons, Fafnir and Regin, bind the three gods in unbreakable chains and demand that Otr's pelt be covered with gold as weregild for his death. Seeking to pay the ransom, Loki seeks out the dwarf Andvari and extorts the gold ransom. Although Andvari attempts to conceal a golden ring, Loki seizes it as well. Enraged, Andvari vows that both the ring and the gold will be the death of all who possess them. Pleased, Loki returns and delivers the gold to Hreidmar and his sons. Although Loki gloatingly informs them of the curse, Hreidmar is unimpressed and boasts of the fortune he now possesses. On the coasts of the North, Rerir the sea lord, grandson of Odin, conducts raids in Viking longships. He is succeeded as King by his son Völsung. The latter, whom Odin favors, has been given a valkyrie as his wife. She bears twins, Sigmund and Signý, during her husband's reign. Years later, Siggeir, King of the Gauts sends an emissary and demands Signý's hand in marriage as the price of peace. Sigmund counsels his father to arrange the marriage, suggesting that the Gauts will prove valuable allies. At the wedding feast, Odin enters the hall under the veil of a hoary bearded elder under the name Grímnir. He drives a sword into the oak at the center of the hall and dares the men present to pull it out. After all others try and fail, Sigmund at last succeeds in pulling it from the oak. King Siggeir, coveting the sword, offers Sigmund a fortune in gold in exchange for it. Unmoved, Sigmund boasts that the sword was made for his hands and vows never to sell it. Enraged, Siggeir declares war on King Völsung, who is slain on a beach after cutting down many Gautish warriors. Although Signý pleads for the lives of her brothers, Siggeir orders them to be bound to trees in the forest and left for the wolves to eat. Although his nine brothers perish, Sigmund slays the she-wolf and escapes into an enchanted cave. There he mates with his sister, who has entered the cave in the guise of an elvish maiden. Nine months later, she bears a son, Sinfjötli. When Sinfjötli comes of age, he visits his father in the cave and delivers the sword of Grímnir. As the years pass, father and son range through Gautland as outlaws, slaying and plundering many men. Eventually, they infiltrate the hall of Siggeir, slay the watchmen, and vow that no one inside shall be spared. Although they ask Signý to leave with them, she refuses and elects to die at her husband's side. Laden with the pillaged loot of Siggeir's hall, Sigmund and Sinfjötli return by ship to the land of the Völsungs. Together they rule for many years, slaying seven kings and sacking cities far and near. Although he will live to regret it, Sigmund takes a queen from among the war captives. Loathing the man who slew her father, the Queen brews a poisoned brew of wine for Sinfjötli. Sigmund, suspecting that the wine has been tampered with, drains the cup in stead of Sinfjötli and remains unharmed. Enraged, the Queen brews a beaker of poisoned beer, which again is offered to Sinfjötli but drunk by his father with no harm. Still determined to slay Sinfjötli, the Queen also delivers him a beaker of poisoned ale. This time the cup is drunk by Sinfjötli himself, who to the horror of Sigmund falls dead. Sinfjötli is then welcomed in Valhalla by grandfather King Völsung, who comments that the serpent slayer is still awaited. As the years pass, Sigmund grows old, having lost both his son and his treacherous Queen. Eventually, however, he learns of the beauteous Princess Sigrlinn. Although seven young sons of kings are also asking for her hand, Sigrlinn marries Sigmund, preferring to be the mother of a mighty hero. Enraged at this slight, the seven sons of kings invade the land of Völsung. Sigmund vows that they will be greeted by the sword of Grímnir and slays many on the field of battle. However, he is soon confronted by a one-eyed warrior. As the warrior's spear clashes with Sigmund's sword, the blade of Grímnir breaks asunder. Severely wounded, Sigmund sinks to the ground. Although Sigrlinn vows to heal his wounds, Sigmund refuses to permit this, insisting that Odin summons him to Valhalla. He prophesies that her unborn child will be the serpent slayer and orders her to carefully preserve the fragments of Grímnir's gift. He dies and Sigrlinn is carried into slavery. However, when the parentage of her son is revealed, Sigrlinn is wed to the King of that land. Sigurd is sent to be fostered by Regin, the son of Hreidmar. Years later, Otr's ransom remains in the keeping of Regin's brother Fafnir, who has been transformed into a dragon. Coveting the gold hoard, Regin goads Sigurd into fighting Fafnir by accusing him of cowardice. When an enraged Sigurd demands to know the reason, Regin relates the story of Otr's murder by Loki and the weregild paid by the Aesir in recompense. According to Regin, Hreidmar refused to share the gold with his sons and was subsequently slain by Fafnir. Unimpressed, Sigurd asks Regin whether he desires his brother's death for justice or the gold hoard. Regin claims that he desires only to avenge his father. The gold and the glory, he adds, are for Sigurd to keep. Twice Regin attempts to forge a sword for Sigurd, only to see the latter effortlessly break them. At last, Sigurd goes to his mother Sigrlinn and requests the broken pieces of Grímnir. Regin takes these and forges the sword Gram. Although Sigurd wishes to slay Fafnir then and there, Regin tell him he must have a horse. In response, Sigurd buys the horse Grani, who was sired by Odin's eight-legged steed Sleipnir, and goes forth to kill Fafnir. Later, as the dragon returns from taking a drink of water, Sigurd hides in a subterranean hollow and stabs the fell beast in the heart. As Fafnir's black blood drains over Sigurd and hardens his flesh, the young warrior withdraws his sword and leaps into the dragon's eyesight. Although Fafnir warns him of the curse, Sigurd is unmoved, believing that the dragon wishes only to preserve his gold hoard. As the dragon belches out his last breath, Regin arrives and attempts to claim a share of the gold, commenting that he also had a role in the slaying and forged the sword. As Sigurd mocks his foster father's logic, Regin draws a knife and slices Fafnir's heart from his chest. Ordering Sigurd to roast it for him, Regin departs. Meanwhile, Sigurd fashions a spit and kindles a fire. After burning his finger on the roasting heart, Sigurd puts the finger in his mouth and suddenly understands the language of birds. As he listens to the birds speaking, Sigurd decides to eat the heart whole. Upon seeing Regin sneaking towards him with a drawn blade, Sigurd draws Gram and slays his foster father. He then loads the gold hoard onto Grani and departs, listening all the while to the birds singing of the valkyrie Brynhild, her quarrel with Odin, and the circle of fire which surrounds her sleeping form. After much riding on the back of Grani, Sigurd arrives at heights of Hindarfell. As they climb the mountainside, Grani leaps the ring of lightning and fire which surrounds Brynhild. As he reaches her side, Sigurd slices her corslet with Gram and awakens the sleeping valkyrie. Addressing Sigurd, Brynhild explains how Odin doomed her to mate a mortal man. Impetuously, Brynhild had vowed to wed but one, the serpent slayer prophesied by the seeress of Asgard. When Sigurd relates his descent from Odin and the slaying of Fafnir, Brynhild is overjoyed and explains that the gods await his coming in Valhalla. Immediately after, Brynhild and Sigurd plight their troth. There is one complication, however. Brynhild vows that she will only wed Sigurd when he has won a kingdom for himself. After cautioning her betrothed to avoid the abode of a witch-hearted woman, she returns to the height of Hindarfell and their ways sunder. Meanwhile, Sigurd rides toward the court of the Niflungs' at Worms. One morning, Princess Gudrun of the Niflungs approaches her mother, the witch-hearted Queen Grimhild, with a disturbing dream. The Niflungs were hunting a stag with a golden coat and towering horns which evaded their grasp. It was Gudrun who caught him, only to see him stung with a shaft by a spiteful woman. Her mother then gave Gudrun a wolf to ease her grief and the former bathed her in the blood of her brothers. Her mother counsels her that evil dreams are often a good omen. As they converse, Gudrun catches sight of a warrior riding toward the court arrayed for war. A short time later, Sigurd enters the court of the Niflungs, riding upon Grani. When her father Gjuki asks his name and parentage, he is overjoyed to learn that a Völsung warrior has arrived and summons a seat for Sigurd. As the evening wears on, Gudrun's brother Gunnar seizes a harp and sings a lay of the Niflungs' longstanding war against King Atli of the Huns. As soon as he has finished, Sigurd takes the harp and sings of Brynhild and the gold hoard. Impressed, Gunnar and Högni invite Sigurd to dwell among them as long as he desires. As time passes and Sigurd accompanies the Niflungs in war, the glory of the Burgundian lords spreads far and wide. Sigurd, however, continues to think of his father's lost kingdom and returns there by ship. There, as he looks upon the roofless remains of his father's mead hall, Odin appears and informs him that Gram is not destined to shine in the land of the Völsungs. As a result, Sigurd returns to Worms. At a feast thrown to celebrate Sigurd's return, Grimhild advises her sons to regularise their alliance with Sigurd by marrying him to Gudrun. As Sigurd ponders how he soon will depart to claim Brynhild, Grimhild gives him a love potion to drink. Shortly after, Gudrun enters the hall. Colored by the potion, Sigurd's mind is glamored and his mood confounded. Brynhild continues to await the coming of Sigurd, slaying almost every suitor who dares to call. Eventually, Odin arrives on horseback and armored as an ancient king. He prophesies that she shall wed a mortal king before two winters pass. As he departs, a ring of fire surrounds her hall and Brynhild ponders that one man only can reach her now. Meanwhile, a radiantly happy Sigurd weds Gudrun in a feast which lasts many days and nights in the mead hall of Worms. In addition, Sigurd and his in-laws swear a blood oath of eternal brotherhood. Although he and Gudrun are deeply happy in their marriage, a shadow remains in Sigurd's heart. As time passes, the news of Brynhild and the gold hoard reaches Grimhild's ears. Certain that such a Queen will bring glory to her son's court, Grimhild counsels King Gunnar that it is time for him to wed. Riding together, Sigurd, Högni, and Gunnar depart for Brynhild's mead hall. When they reach their destination, King Gunnar's horse shies away at the sight of the fire. Although the King smites the sides of his steed, Honi still refuses to go forward. With Sigurd's permission, Gunnar borrows Grani who, unfortunately, refuses to go forward under another rider. As a result, Sigurd springs to the rescue of his blood brother. Through a spell cast by Grimhild, Sigurd rides through the fire in Gunnar's likeness. Stunned that a different warrior has ridden through the fire, Brynhild demands to know whether, "Gunnar," is the masterless warrior she has vowed to wed. "Gunnar" reminds her that, as her oath has been fulfilled, she is doomed to wed him. That night, Brynhild and Sigurd sleep in the same bed with a drawn sword lying between them. As dawn arrives, Brynhild at last agrees to marry, "Gunnar." During the nuptial feast after Brynhild's wedding to Gunnar, the bride catches sight of Sigurd seated next to Gudrun. As the blood drains from her horrified face, Grimhild's spell dissipates and Sigurd at last recalls the solemn oaths he swore to Brynhild. Realizing he can no longer honorably fulfill them, he stands as cold and unsmiling as a carven stone. During a subsequent stag hunt, Brynhild and Gudrun bathe together in the Rhine River. Hautily, Brynhild comments that the water washing Gudrun will soon wash one far lovelier. Bristling, Gudrun snaps that she is far more queenly and is married to a better man, citing Sigurd's slaying of Fafnir. Unimpressed, Brynhild boasts of Gunnar's ride through the fire and lightning to claim her. With an icy laugh, Gudrun reveals that Sigurd rode through the fire and shows the ring of Brynhild on her own hand. Shocked and horrified, Brynhild departs the river and return to her bower, where she curses the Norns for framing her fate. As days pass, Brynhild refuses to eat, drink, or depart her bed. When Gunnar approaches her, she call him a coward and curses him for causing her to break her oath to marry Sigurd. Reluctantly, Sigurd agrees to speak with her and, raising her coverlet, awakens her as he once did on the heights of Hindarfell. Seething with hatred, Brynhild addresses him as, "cruel forswearer," and curses both him and Gudrun to an early death. Stunned, Sigurd speaks lovingly to her of the spell that was cast upon him and admits that his only comfort has been to see her in Gunnar's hall. Although deeply touched, Brynhild states that it is too late to avert the evil of her curse. The one comfort which she can offer is that Sigurd shall die an honorable death at the point of a sword. Deeply grieved, Sigurd and Brynhild prepare for their respective fates. Upon returning to Gudrun, Sigurd sadly tells her of the curse, saying, "Woe worth the words by women spoken!" When Gunnar later seeks his advice, Sigurd informs him that Brynhild's only doctor should be her husband. In response, Gunnar approaches his wife, offering her a hoard of gold and silver. Unmoved, Brynhild taunts him as, "a Völsung's squire, a vassal's servant." She adds that she will depart his mead hall and leave Gunnar in disgrace unless he slays his brother in law. Stunned, Gunnar insists that he has sworn a blood oath of eternal brotherhood with Sigurd and will never break it. Brynhild, however, insists that Sigurd has already broken the oath by seducing her in Gunnar's shape after riding through the fire. Devastated, Gunnar departs Brynhild's room and spends many days pondering over what to do. At last, he summons his brother Högni. Gunnar declares to Högni that Sigurd has broken the oath and must be slain. Shocked, Högni suggests that Brynhild is lying out of jealousy. Gunnar insists, however, that he loves and trusts Brynhild more than anyone in the world and adds that, by slaying Sigurd, they will be masters again of their kingdom and able to seize the gold hoard of Fafnir. Saddened, Högni declares that, in the future, the Niflungs will miss both Sigurd's prowess in war and the mighty nephews he could have sired. Knowing that he swore no oath, Gunnar and Högni approach their half brother Gotthorm and promise him both gold and lordship if he will kill Sigurd. Later, as Sigurd hunts with his falcon, Gutthorm accuses him of being a, "wife marrer," who wishes to usurp the Niflung throne. Enraged, Sigurd grips his sword hilt and orders Gutthorm to say no more if he values his life. Waiting for a more opportune moment, Gutthorm obeys. At dawn the following morning, Gutthorm enters Sigurd's room with a drawn sword and stabs the serpent slayer, impaling him to the mattress. Awakening, Sigurd brandishes Gram and slays his attacker on the spot. In anguish, Gudrun awakens and, in horror, cradles her dying husband. Sigurd, however, orders her not to weep and not to blame her brothers for his death. As the light drains from his eyes, Sigurd declares, :"Brynhild wrought this: :best she loved me, :worst she dealt me, :worst belied me. :I Gunnar never :grieved nor injured; :oaths I swore him, :all fulfilled them!" As Gudrun screams in anguish over Sigurd's body, Brynhild cackles in laughter. When Gunnar criticises her as a cold and "fell-hearted" woman, Brynhild curses the Niflungs for murdering their blood brother. She further reveals that Sigurd's seduction of her was a lie and that the sword Gram lay unsheathed between them. To the further horror of Gunnar, Brynhild announces that she is leaving him forever. In vain do Gunnar and his courtiers attempt to sway her from her purpose. Högni alone insists that she was born for evil and that they are all better off without her. Attiring herself in a golden corslet, Brynhild falls upon her sword. As she lies dying she requests that her corpse be burned in Sigurd's funeral pyre. She requests that Sigurd's hawks be laid at each side and his dog at their feet. Their horses are to be slain and laid beside them. The sword Gram is to lie unsheathed between them as on their only night together. Her wishes are obeyed and both Sigurd and Brynhild are carried to Valhalla in the flames of a Viking funeral. Later, Odin and the other Völsungs welcome the serpent slayer whose coming they have awaited for so long. On the day of Ragnarök, Brynhild will attire Sigurd for war and he shall stand deathless against the wolf Fenrir and the Midgard serpent. Although most of the Aesir gods shall die, the forces of darkness shall be struck down at Sigurd's hands. Then, under the rule of Baldur, the nine worlds shall be created anew. As the flames of the funeral pyre sink down and the ashes turn cold, a devastated Gudrun wanders through the forest witless. Despite loathing every moment of her life, she cannot bring herself to commit suicide. Meanwhile, King Atli's Hunnic Empire grows ever stronger. Although Atli has overthrown the Goths and seized many treasures, the gold hoard of Fafnir and the beauty of Gudrun have caught his interest. Determined to claim both as his own, Atli's Huns hasten westward. As the news reaches the Niflung court at Worms, Gunnar asks Högni whether Atli should be met with violent resistance or appeased with tribute. Högni comments that now they have further reason to mourn the passing of Sigurd, as Atli would never have grown so bold if the serpent slayer still lived. Despite the dangers, he advises Gunnar to meet Atli on the field of battle. Grimhild, however, has another idea and counsels that Atli's friendship can be bought via Gudrun's hand in marriage. It is this advice which the Niflungs choose to take. Gudrun they find in a forest hut where she has been weaving a tapestry which depicts the story of the gold hoard, the Völsungs, and the arrival of Sigurd into the court at Worms. Although they offer her a large payment of gold as weregild for her husband's death, Gudrun refuses to forgive her brothers or even acknowledge their presence. Only Grimhild is able to gain a response from the widow. Grimhild advises her daughter to mourn no longer, commenting that Brynhild is dead and that Gudrun is still beautiful. She explains that King Atli wishes her hand in marriage and speaks of the great respect which the Queen of Hunland will command. Gudrun, however, is unmoved. The widow speaks longingly of the days before Sigurd came, saying that then only nightmares vexed her. She speaks again of the dream she had before Sigurd's arrival, commenting that one half of it has already been fulfilled in Sigurd's death. Gudrun further declares that, although she now has little love for her brothers, she has no desire to see them slaughtered. Believing also that she will never again know happiness, Gudrun sees no point in remarrying. Grimhild retorts that Gudrun should not blame her brothers. Brynhild was responsible for Sigurd's death and the Niflungs are, quite sensibly, in grief for it. Grimhild continues urging Gudrun to marry, saying that a Queen's bed is better than one cold and empty. When Gudrun angrily orders her mother to leave, Grimhild threatens to curse her daughter to unimaginable torment if she will not obey. Intimidated, Gudrun caves in to her mother's demands. At their wedding feast, Atli blissfully drinks to Gudrun, moved both by her beauty and by dreams of the dragon hoard. After swearing oaths of kinship to the Niflungs, Atli takes Gudrun back with him to Hunland. As the years pass, Gudrun remains unmoved, both by the glories of Hunland and by the love which Atli feels for her. Meanwhile, Atli's lust for the dragon hoard remains unquenched. At long last, he sends his herald, Vingi, to summon the Niflungs to a feast in Hunland. In response to the summons, Gunnar asks Högni whether they are vassals of Atli that they must come when he calls them. Högni is troubled, commenting that Gudrun has sent him a ring with wolf's hair woven around it. He is certain, therefore that there is a trap waiting for them in Hunland. Gunnar, however, comments that Gudrun sent him a wooden slab graven with, "runes of healing." In response, he summons for wine to be brought to the herald of Atli. As the feast continues in Gunnar's mead hall, Grimhild arrives and gives her opinion of the runic tablet. The original runes, she says, have been shaven off the tablet but may still be read. Therefore, it is clear that the original message from Gudrun was a warning of danger. In response to his mother's advice, Gunnar informs the herald Vingi that he will not be coming to the feast in Hunland. Laughing in amusement, Vingi responds that, as Grimhild clearly rules the Niflung kingdom, there is no need for Gunnar to come. Atli, however, had only wished for their assistance. The King of the Huns is growing old and wished for his sons by Gudrun, Erp and Eitill, to have a strong protector after his death. Therefore, he had hoped that Gunnar and Högni would one day rule the Hunnic Empire in their names. Although Gunnar still suspects a trap, he agrees to come to the feast. Although he states that he will be accompanying his brother, Högni is troubled that they aren't taking their mother's counsel. Vingi, despite knowing exactly what Atli has in mind for his in-laws, swears that the gallows shall take him and that ravens shall devour his flesh if the runes are lying. Later, as the Niflungs depart for Hunland with Vingi, Grimhild watches as they disappear. Although silent, she is certain that she will never again look upon her sons. After a long journey in longship and on horseback, the Niflungs arrive in Hunland and sound their horns to announce their coming. To their surprise, they find the gates barred. Vingi at last reveals the real reason for the invitation: Atli has prepared a gallows where ravens will rend the flesh of the Niflungs. Although the lives of heralds are considered sacrosanct, Högni vows that the treacherous Vingi has forfeited his life. Dragging him to a nearby oak, the Niflungs hang Vingi within sight of the Huns. Seething with hatred, the Huns pour forth from the mead hall's gates and hurl themselves upon the Niflungs. To Atli's surprise, Gunnar and Högni drive the Huns back inside the mead hall. With frigid loathing, Atli comes forth and refers to the Niflungs as his vassals. He further demands Fafnir's gold hoard as the price of their lives. Gunnar, however, is unimpressed. He vows that Atli will never receive any gold from him at all. If the King of the Huns desires the Niflungs' lives, he will pay dearly in many dead lords and warriors. Changing tactic, Atli demands the gold as weregild for Sigurd, saying that he is entitled to it as Gudrun's husband. Gunnar, however, insists that these words are not his sister's. The lust for the gold is Atli's alone. Högni adds that, as the fighting has already begun, the time for atonement is over. Doors spring open and dozens of Hun warriors charge the Niflungs, who defend themselves until the mead hall is filled with carnage. Meanwhile, Gudrun sits listening to the battle below and ponders that her dream has finally been fulfilled. Devastated, she curses the hour of her birth. She calls upon her husband's Gothic vassals to defend her brothers from the Hunnic "troll people." Recalling their past wars against Atli and his Huns, the Goths turn against their lord and make common cause with the Niflungs. Högni sings of the great warriors of the past until his son Snaevar is slain before him. Unweeping, Högni continues hewing a pathway through the mead hall. Coming at last upon Gudrun, Gunnar and Högni declare that the Norns have fated them to always give her in marriage and then slay her husband. However, Gudrun pleads with them not to tempt fate and to spare Atli's life. In response, they mock Atli as unfit for a warrior's death and grudgingly allow him to slink forth from the bloodied mead hall. As he departs in shame and anguish, the Goths and Niflungs hurl the Hunnish corpses from the roof. Meanwhile, night falls as Atli rallies warriors throughout the countryside. Later, as the Goths and Niflungs begin nodding off to sleep, Högni notices a large column of fire moving toward the mead hall. Commenting that there are no dragons in Hunland, Gunnar rallies his men for the final battle. Declaring that Valhalla lies open to receive them, the defenders of the mead hall succeed in holding the doorways until dawn arrives. Five days later, the mead hall is still held by the Niflungs and Goths. Bewailing his fate, Atli declares that his power, wealth, vassals, and wife have all deserted him in the evening of his life. His counselor Beiti, however, declares that there is still another way. Deciding to take Beiti's advice, Atli orders the mead hall built by his father to be set afire. Just before the blazing ceiling of the mead hall falls upon them, the Goths and Niflungs charge forth and are set upon by Atli's minions. Although for weapons the former have only their fists, many Hunnic necks and knees are broken before the Niflung lords are taken. Casting his captives before Gudrun, Atli vows that he will avenge Sigurd by hurling her brothers into a pit of adders. Disgusted, Gudrun calls her husband evil and expresses hope that his death will be shameful. However, she also reminds Atli that the Niflungs are the uncles of their son Erp and Eitil. For this reason, she pleads for their lives. Atli vows that the only way he will release the Niflungs is if he is given the gold hoard that haunts his dreams. At last relenting, Gunnar agrees to give Atli the gold, but only if his brother Högni is first slain and the heart is delivered to him. Now frantic, Gudrun pleads with Atli to spare her brother Högni. Atli, however, vows that he will have the gold despite the tears of his wife. Atli's wise men, however, plead for caution. Fearing the queen, they persuade Atli to instead slay the thrall Hjalli. When the heart of Hjalli is delivered to him, Gunnar is unimpressed, having heard the thrall's screams. He declares that his brother's heart would never quake in such a manner. In response, the Huns visit Högni's dungeon and cut out his heart and the Niflung laughs in their faces. Upon seeing his brother's heart, Gunnar also laughs in the faces of the Huns. The gold, he declares, is long gone, having been cast into the Rhine after Sigurd's death. Gunnar curses Atli, calling him a gold-haunted murderer. Enraged and devastated at the loss of the gold, Atli orders Gunnar to be stripped naked and cast into the pit of adders. As her heart hardens in hatred for her husband, Gudrun orders a harp to be sent to her brother in the pit. Smiting the strings, Gunnar chants of Odin and the Aesir, of ancient kings, and the coming doom of Hunland. The whole palace listens in wonder and the snakes are stilled to sleep. At long last, an ancient adder stings Gunnar in the chest. Crying out in a loud voice, Gunnar topples over dead and the harp is stilled. Gudrun hears the cry as she sits aghast in her bower. At last realizing how to avenge her brothers, Gudrun summons her sons Erp and Eitil. Viking funerals are prepared for the Niflung lords and the champions of Hunland and a funeral feast is held in the remnants of Atli's palace. At long last, Gudrun appears and, presenting two goblets to her husband, she toasts his health. As he drinks deep from the goblets, Atli feels regret over the loss of the gold. However, he also feels satisfaction that Gunnar is dead. Gudrun then announces that, in vengeance for her brothers, she has slain their sons Erp and Eitil. The goblets were made from their skulls and have been filled with a mixture of their blood and honey. The remnants of their bodies have been fed to Atli's hounds. As the mead hall explodes in horror and anguish, Atli turns pale and falls into a swoon. As the horned moon rises, Atli is carried to his bed, as sick as one poisoned. Intending to wreak her final vengeance, Gudrun enters his chambers, wakes her husband, and drives a knife into Atli's breast. As his life drains away, Atli snarls that Gudrun deserves to be torn apart by hounds, stoned, branded, and then burned at the stake. Laughing, Gudrun taunts him with the news that his funeral pyre has already been kindled. Within moments, a blazing inferno consumes Atli's palace and the surrounding town. The night that has proven so fatal to so many at last ends in dawn. In the aftermath, Gudrun again wanders witless through the forest. At last, detesting her life, Gudrun casts herself into the sea, which refuses to take her. Sitting on the edge of the sea, Gudrun ponders her woes. At long last, she calls upon Sigurd and, reminding him of their wedding vows, she implores him to return to her. Again she casts herself into the sea, wherein her grief is finally drowned. :"Thus glory endeth, :and gold fadeth, :on noise and clamours :the night falleth. :Lift up your hearts, :lords and maidens, :for the song of sorrow :that was sung of old." |
The Price of Murder | Bruce Cook | 2,003 | Sir John and Jeremy are drawn deep into the notorious Seven Dials area of London, where they must contend with the most sordid inclinations of both the working class and the aristocracy. When the body of a young girl is pulled from the Thames, the search for the girl's mother takes Jeremy to the races. |
Rules of Engagement: A Sir John Fielding Mystery | Bruce Cook | 2,005 | Sir John and Jeremy are confronted with a series of bizarre deaths (including an unmotivated suicide) on the streets of Georgian London in a mystery that tests even Sir John's legendary skills of deduction. This book ends the series. |
Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross | L. Frank Baum | null | The novel opens on 7 September 1914; the continuing characters Patsy Doyle, Beth De Graf, and their uncle John Merrick are reading a newspaper account of the end of the Siege of Maubeuge and the German victory. Both of the girls are intensely concerned with the war news; Beth in particular is a partisan of the French cause. The protagonists are soon re-united with "Ajo" Jones and the movie star Maud Stanton, two characters from the previous book in the series, Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West. (Baum arrived at Maud Stanton's name by combining his wife's first name, Maud, with his mother's maiden name, Stanton.) Maud Stanton takes the place of the third of the trio of cousins, Louise Merrick, who does not appear in the final book. Both Maud and Ajo have come to New York; Maud is one her way to Europe to serve as a nurse. (She trained in nursing before becoming a film actress.) Patsy and Beth are struck with admiration for her action, and are eager to follow her example. When Uncle John finds that he cannot dissuade them, he resolves to back their effort; he uses his wealth and influence to form a connection with the American Red Cross. Jones, also enthusiastic for the cause, volunteers his ocean-going yacht, the Arabella, for conversion to a hospital ship. Uncle John pays for its refitting and for two ambulances to carry the wounded. Merrrick's money and the girls' enthusiasm work wonders; by the end of September the Arabella, painted with large red crosses, is in Dunkirk. Among their staff is a talented surgeon, Doctor Gys. He is "an eccentric, a character...erratic and whimsical," an adventurer who has been from the Arctic to the Yucatán, and in the process has been badly disfigured by various hard-luck accidents (involving icebergs and poisoned cacti). Gys calls himself a coward, but also sees death as a release from his disfigured body; he wonders what kind of death would be preferable, and has a morbid interest in confronting the violence of the War. The Americans also acquire a Belgian chauffeur named Maurie as an ambulance driver; he provides comic relief for the book, in somewhat the same way as the chauffeur Wampus does in Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John. The protagonists cope with military bureaucracies and confront the horrors of the battlefield — though Baum, "in keeping with his Van Dyne persona...kept his descriptions mild." Beth has previously had a year of nursing training; but Patsy is a neophyte who is shocked at the conditions she encounters. Doctor Gys reacts with paralyzing fear on his first exposure to combat, but his medical discipline soon takes over and he functions effectively. In the climax of the story, Patsy is injured but recovers, but Dr. Gys is killed on the battlefield. Though Gys had repeatedly proclaimed his cowardice, his death is heroic. The Americans lose the confidence of the French authorities at Dunkirk when a German prisoner they are treating escapes their custody; fewer wounded come to their ship as a result, and it appears that their usefulness is limited. After three months of service, the girls return to the United States. Uncle John tells them that "You have unselfishly devoted your lives for three strenuous months to the injured soldiers of a foreign war, and I hope you're satisfied that you've done your full duty." |
A Person of Interest | Susan Choi | 2,008 | The novel begins with a deadly explosion in the office of a successful mathematics professor at a midwestern university. The neighbouring office houses Lee, a tenured but near-retirement professor who, until the bomb, is slowly drifting into career obscurity. Tired and solitary after two divorces, Lee suddenly finds himself in the public eye. This draws Lee to the attention of the bomber who reveals in a letter to Lee that he was once a colleague. Although not supplying his identity, events in Lee's early career at graduate school furnish an obvious candidate, and one that reopens unhealed wounds in Lee's life. His first marriage, to the now long-dead Aileen, was actually her second. An affair with Lee broke up Aileen's first marriage to the evangelical Christian Gaither, with the repercussion that Aileen never saw her son again. Lee's indifference to this lost son ultimately cost him his marriage to Aileen, the realisation of which gradually dawns on Lee as his thoughts return to Gaither after the bombing. However, embarrassed by these events in his life, Lee withholds the letter from the police and, now lost in reflections on his early life with Aileen, Lee becomes an increasingly isolated figure, suspiciously so to the authorities. Consequently, when Lee's failure to disclose the letter comes to light, they identify him as a "person of interest", a label that attracts the unwelcome attention of both the press and his suspicious neighbours. Forced by twitchy administrators into a leave of absence from his university, Lee is increasingly viewed, de facto, as the bomber, just waiting for his status to switch to "suspect". Backed into a corner in large part by his own actions, Lee decides to track down Gaither by himself, determined to unmask him as the bomber and to lay to rest his ghosts from the past. Secretly journeying to a remote countryside cabin, Lee discovers that his hatred of Gaither has blinded him, and that a different colleague from the same period as Gaither is actually the bomber. Fortunately for Lee, his efforts to evade the authorities have been amateurish, and they too close in on the cabin and apprehend the bomber. The novel closes with Lee now more clearly aware and understanding of the mistakes he has made in his life. |
The Jukebox Queen of Malta | Nicholas Rinaldi | 1,999 | It concerns Rocco Raven, an American radio operator posted to Malta to join a small intelligence unit during the Siege of Malta working closely with the British RAF who are defending the Island. Central to the novel is Rocco's affair with Melita, a Maltese woman who travels the island repairing jukeboxes. The story tells how the Maltese people and the military defence of the island react to the increasing privations caused by the siege, and the destruction caused by the German bombing raids... |
A Woman With No Clothes On | null | null | The aristocratic Manet and the working-class Victorine Meurent narrate A Woman With No Clothes On. A chance meeting between the two leads to an intense relationship of painting and sexual tension. Manet creates a scandal when he exhibits Le déjeuner sur l'herbe and Olympia in which the naked model is a young Victorine. While critics and the general public dismiss the works, and label Victorine a common prostitute, she is determined to make her mark in the art world as a painter in her own right. Her bitter struggle to succeed is punctuated by the exchanges between Manet and his friend Baudelaire on the matter of modernism. |
Le Système Ribadier | Georges Feydeau | null | Eugène Ribadier is the second husband of Angèle, the widow of M. Robineau. In the wake of her first husband's deceits (he deceived her 365 times in 8 years!) Angele has developed a jealousy that borders on paranoia and she narrowly watches the activities of her second husband. Ribadier however possesses the gift of hypnotism — the eponymous system — and he profits from it by putting his wife to sleep at the time of his escapades. He wakes her on his return thanks to a trick he alone knows. Until the day that is, that he tactlessly reveals the trick to Aristide Thommereux, a friend of Robineau, who has returned from several years away in the East, hoping to renew his secret love for Angèle. While Ribadier is off on one of his escapades Thommereux uses the trick to wake Angèle to tell her again of his passion. She rejects him, but as he gets more insistent they hear a loud noise from below. It is Ribadier returning early, hotly pursued by Savinet, a wine merchant and husband of Ribadier's mistress. Thommereux escapes by the window and Angèle feigns a deep hypnotic sleep. She therefore overhears Ribadier admit his guilt to Savinet and bounds up furious as soon as the wine merchant departs. Ribadier tries various stratagems to recover his position including hypnotizing her again and trying to convince her she has dreamt what she heard. She however discovers the secret of the system and turns the tables by pretending that a lover has visited her every time she has been hypnotized. Thommereux thinks she means him, and abets Ribadier's outraged search for the unknown intruder. On the balcony they discover a button torn from a man's trousers. It turns out to belong to the amorous coachman Gusman who has been climbing up past the window to visit the maid Sophie. For a fee, Gusman readily admits that he has been climbing in to see a woman who received him eagerly; Ribadier and Thommereux are aghast and confront Angèle. Her denial convinces them, and Gusman relieves them all by telling them he was seeing Sophie and is dismissed with less than half his fee. Ribadier and Angèle are reconciled — Thommereux returns to the East disappointed. |
Day of Reckoning | Jack Higgins | null | Katherine Johnson, a New York journalist, befriends businessman Jack Fox in order to write an article on his business success. Fox learns that she plans to expose him as a Mafia member and nephew of a Mafia family, and he has her killed. Her ex-husband, Blake Johnson, an ex-FBI agent now heading a special unit in the White House learns of the death, and he vows to destroy Fox and all he represents. Armed with a Presidential mandate, he flies to London and contacts Brigadier Ferguson of the Ministry of Defence. Together with Hannah Bernstein, a Detective Superintendent with Special Branch and Sean Dillon, an ex-IRA gunman and mercenary now working for the British government on 'black' operations, he launches a series of operations to bring Fox down. Their first foray involves causing Fox's London casino to be caught using loaded dice; this has the effect of closing down the casino and Fox's other gambling interests. The next operation sees Johnson and Dillon join with a Mossad commando force to destroy a ship in Beirut harbour which is loaded with missiles destined to be used against Israel. Johnson is wounded in the action. Dillon recruits Billy Salter, a young but enthusiastic London gangster, for the next operation, in which they land commando-style on the coast on County Louth in Ireland to destroy a cache of weaponry in which Fox has a large financial interest. Finally, they foil a plot by gangsters working for Fox to steal several million pounds worth of diamonds from a London safe deposit. Johnson is captured by Fox's henchmen and taken to his mansion in Cornwall. Dillon and Billy plan a parachute landing and attack the mansion. Whilst Johnson is released, Fox is killed. His minders escape to London and report to Fox's uncle and patron Don Marco Solazzo, who comes himself to London for what he hopes will be a final showdown. Solazzo and his henchmen die in the ensuing fight on a boat in the Thames. |
Seekers of the Sky | Sergey Lukyanenko | null | A renowned thief named Ilmar the Slick is captured and sent to a penal colony, sentenced to mine iron for the rest of his life on the Isles of Sorrow. On the prison ship, he meets a teenager named Mark. He soon discovers that Mark knows the Word and keeps a dagger on it, among other things. Using this knowledge, Ilmar comes up with an escape plan and puts it into motion when the ship arrives to its destination. However, they are unable to get off the island, as the local administration takes radical and over-the-top measures to catch the escapees, which makes Ilmar wonder what is really happening. Mark reveals that he is the reason, as he was sent to the mines by mistake; his true sins are much more serious (he refuses to explain further, although Ilmar realizes that the boy is of noble blood). Ilmar and Mark then sneak onto the island airstrip, as the only other way out is blocked by a State warship. They find only one glider on the strip. It belongs to Helen, who has brought a warrant for Mark's arrest to the island. Ilmar and Mark force Helen to fly them to the mainland. Helen does as she is told, but her glider crashes on landing. As both Ilmar and Helen are in worse condition than he is, Mark departs. However, before leaving, in return for rescuing him, Mark grants Ilmar the title of the Count of the Isles of Sorrow. After Mark's departure, Helen helps Ilmar recover by having sex with him (he is pretty much helpless at that point). After his recovery, Ilmar secretly arrives to Amsterdam. There he finds wanted posters of him and Mark, whose real name is Marcus. Marcus is a junior prince of the House (official title of the Possessor's bastard children). Ilmar is discovered and nearly caught by officer Arnold, but the thief manages to escape and hide in a church. There he discovers that the Church of the Sister is carrying out a separate investigation and search for Marcus. Ilmar, as a valuable witness, is sent to Urbis (possibly, Rome) to meet with the head of the Church to give his statement. He is escorted out of the cordoned off city by a paladin. Unfortunately, their stagecoach is intercepted by a party of clerics (headed by another paladin) from the Church of the Redeemer, whose orders are to kill Ilmar and Marcus. In the ensuing fight, both paladins kill each other, and Ilmar manages to slip away. Shortly after that, Ilmar accidentally encounters Jean, who recognizes Ilmar as the escaped thief, but lets him go, as he has fond memories of Marcus. Some time later, Helen finds Ilmar. She explains what is happening. Apparently, shortly before his escape, Marcus stole an ancient (two thousand years old) book from a restricted church archive. The highly-bureaucratic administrators of the archive had no idea about the true value of the book, but informed the heads of the Church just the same. They immediately ordered the immediate recovery of the book, but Marcus has disappeared along with it. The value of the book is the reason why the entire nation is out to get Marcus. However, Helen does not know why the book is so valuable. After discussing their situation, Ilmar and Helen decide that their only chance for survival is to find Marcus and convince him to return the book. After some investigative work, they manage to find the boy, who was hiding in a female monastery as a nun. The mother superior of the monastery, Sister Louisa, is a former lady of the court and hid the boy, as she believes that it is the will of God. Marcus and Sister Louisa meet with Ilmar and Helen. Marcus explains the true value of the book. The book was written by the Sister, one of the Redeemer's disciples, and contains in it the True Word. This information is extremely valuable, as the wielder of the True Word would have access to everything that anyone has ever placed into the Cold, including all the treasures of the world. After learning this, Ilmar and Helen realize that simply giving Marcus up will not spare them, as they will be executed for fear of knowing the True Word. They decide to run and hide. However, officer Arnold manages to find them and attempts to detain Marcus. Then Marcus, as the Redeemer had done in his own time, performs a wonder by putting all the weapons of the guards, including Arnold's revolver, into the Cold without touching them. This convinces Arnold to help the escapees, as he believes that the Redeemer has finally returned. Ilmar, Helen, Sister Louisa, Arnold, and Marcus attempt to leave the State, but they are found. Ilmar stays behind to delay the pursuers. Ilmar is captured by the Church. The head of the Church (analogous to the Pope) interrogates him, after which the thief is thrown into the dungeon of Urbis. Despite this, Ilmar manages to escape, along with Brother Jähns. They arrive to Jean's house, seeking his counsel on what they should do next. There they meet Antoine of Lyon. The four of them decide to search for Marcus together to find if he really is the next Redeemer or the Tempter (the Antichrist). They come to the conclusion that Marcus is going to attempt to reach Judea, the Holy Land. They split up into pairs: Jean with Brother Jähns and Ilmar with Antoine, and agree to meet at Aquincum. At a boarding house, Ilmar and Antoine encounter Bishop Gerard Lightbringer, who recognizes Ilmar. However, he also wants to find out which of the prophesied figures is Marcus, so he helps the escapees and joins their quest. In Aquincum, Bishop Gerard cures a Magyar boy named Peter, who wants to help the trio search for Marcus. While he initially does not know who exactly they are searching for, he soon manages to figure it out. During Bishop Gerard's stay in Aquincum, Baron Fahrid Komarov of the Russian Khanate asks him for an audience. While he claims to be a traveler and a négociant, in reality, he is a Russian spy, as his government has their own interest in Marcus. Eventually, Ilmar and Antoine locate Marcus and his companions. Together, they try to leave Aquincum, but the State's army surrounds the city. With Komarov's help, they use underground tunnels to escape the city and the State into the Ottoman Empire. There, they finally meet Jean and Jähns. Realizing where Marcus has escaped to, the State and the Khanate both demand that the Ottomans capture and extradite the escapees. However, the escapees make their way to an air field and capture two gliders, which they use to get to Judea. The State and the Khanate wish to capture Marcus and the True Word at any cost. They send their elite forces to Judea: the State sends the Grey Vests, an elite praetorian legion, while the Khanate sends the Semetskiy guard regiment. They chase the escapees to the top of Tel Megiddo, but, at the last moment, there is a conflict of interest between the two forces. The Grey Vests and the Semetskiy regiment are almost at each others' throats. However, before they can kill each other, Marcus, who has reached his full potential at the top of the hill, performs the greatest wonder of them all by pulling everything that has ever been stored in the Cold for the last two thousand years. |
Dying to Live | null | null | Dying to Live is told in the first person narrative and seen through the eyes of a middle aged survivor named Jonah. Jonah had been traveling alone in the apocalyptic world but soon meets a large group of others. The society of people trying to continue life in the zombie ridden hell of a world are led by an efficient military man called Jack and Milton a mysterious, quizzical prophet who holds a very special power over the dead. |
Son of Interflux | null | null | Simon Irving has just moved to the town of Greenbush, New York with his parents. His father is the Senior Vice President of Interflux, a large corporation that makes only parts of things. He enters into Nassau County High School for Visual, Literary and Performing Arts, an arts school, in an attempt to become a painter and therefore avoid the business job that his father has planned for him. When he finds out that a major expansion is in the works and that the schools greenspace (a small wood and stream) will have be cut down to make way, Simon finds a way to get back at Interflux. He uses Student Council funds to purchase a crazily shaped strip of land that Interflux is not aware of and therefore does not own. Inventing the rival group "Antiflux", he convinces most of the schools 1500 students to go along with him. By blockading the land, Antiflux causes the expansion to grind to a halt. On top of this, Simon has to keep his grades up and keep the student body from finding out that he is the Son of Interflux. |
Suck It Up | null | null | After graduating from the International Vampire League, a scrawny teenage vampire named Morning McCobb is given the chance to fulfill his childhood dream of becoming a superhero when he embarks on a mission to become the first vampire to reveal his identity to humans and to demonstrate how peacefully-evolved, blood-substitute-drinking vampires can use their powers to help humanity. He ends up falling for Portia Dredful, a beautiful, strong willed girl. Things get harder, however, as he has to resist the temptation of sucking Portia's blood. The book is filled with many adventures and lots of almost death situations. |
Bad Monkeys | null | null | The beginning of the book takes place in the mental disabilites wing of the Las Vegas Clark County Detention Center. A psychiatrist named Dr. Vale interviews Jane Charlotte, who is there for the murder of a man called Dixon. Jane claims that she works for a secret organization devoted to fighting evil and that she is the operative for the Department for the Final Disposition of Irredeemable Persons, which is also known as Bad Monkeys. She also claims that her job is to eliminate individuals who are guilty of heinous crimes, but might elude normal channels of justice. Jane tells her story to Dr. Vale about her life working with Bad Monkeys. |
Zanesville | Kris Saknussemm | 2,005 | The story is set forty years into the future, in an America in which distinctions between government, religion, and corporations have vanished. The main character, Elijah Clearfather, is found by a resistance cell outside their camouflaged borders in Central Park, New York City. After the cell witnesses the Clearfather's powers, they learn a little about his true identity but decide, in the interests of everyone, to send him away, with the only safe clues to his identity they can provide: a bus pass marked with three important locations and a note written in disappearing ink. Clearfather is set on a journey of self-discovery pursued by murderous Vitessa Cultporation agents, and accompanied by Aretha Nightengale, once a lawyer, now a cross-dressing resistance leader; Dooley Duck and Ubba Dubba, hologram cartoon characters leading a sexual revolution; and the mysterious Kokomo. |
Diana of Dobson's | Cicely Hamilton | null | Diana is an under-paid worker in an Edwardian department store in Clapham and, when she inherits £300 unexpectedly, she spends it on a holiday at a holiday resort in Switzerland. Pretending to be a wealthy widow, she finds herself pursued by an impecunious ex-guardsman and his predatory aunt. |
The Mystery of the Missing Necklace | null | null | Together again in the summer holidays, the Five Find Outers are finding the hot summer rather dull - until they learn that Peterswood is apparently the headquarters of a gang of poachers who are carrying out burglaries outside of the village. It appears that the gang may be passing messages to each other in Peterswood. Fatty's voice has broken, and this allows him to use a wide range of new adult disguises. Fatty tries out various new disguises including that of an old balloon selling woman, and finally disguising himself as an old tramp who spends his afternoons sitting on a bench in the middle of the village. The children discover that the old man was being used by the gang to pass on messages. The children learn that the gang plan to meet at a waxworks hall, to discuss their next robbery. Fatty disguises himself as Napoleon so that he can listen in on the gang's meeting. Mr Goon, however, has the same idea and disguises himself as a policeman. Unfortunately, during the gang meeting, Mr.Goon sneezes, giving the game away - but Fatty is caught instead. The gang tie Fatty up and lock him in a cupboard before leaving to carry out their latest jewellery robbery. Mr. Goon leaves Fatty locked in the cupboard to teach him a lesson, but luckily Larry returns to the Town hall and frees him. The children believe that Mr Goon has solved the mystery before them, as the jewel thieves are arrested. However, a pearl necklace they stole is missing. The grand mystery has a grand ending, then. |
Autonomy | Daniel Blythe | null | Hyperville is 2013's top hi-tech, 24-hour entertainment complex - a sprawling palace of fun under one massive roof. A place to go shopping, or experience the excitement of Doomcastle, Winterland, or Wild West World. But things are about to get a lot more exciting - and dangerous. But what exactly is lurking on Level Zero of Hyperville? And what will happen when the entire complex goes over to Central Computer Control? |
No Coins, Please | null | null | Juniortours is an outfit that tours children around America during the summer months. When Group Ambulance's Artie Geller, a precocious 11-year-old con artist from Montreal signs on, Rob and Dennis find they have more than the usual summer job on their hands. From the streets of New York City to the casinos of Las Vegas, Artie proves as slippery as ever. First Scheme - New York City, NY. Artie sells grape jelly for $10 a jar under the title "Attack Jelly". Makes his first fortune. Second Scheme - Washington, DC. Artie buys a toy race track and convinces senators, congressman and other government officials to place bets on the toy cars. One Senator ends up losing all his money in the process. Third Scheme - Ogallala, NE. Artie convinces the other boys to help him run a "no-frills" milk store where he charges $1 a minute to milk a cow, usually resulting in less than a teaspoon of milk. Makes thousands of dollars. Fourth Scheme - Denver, CO. Artie disappears for several days. During this time he transforms an abandoned pretzel factory into a world-class discothèque visited by many prominent celebrities, then shuts it all down and flees with over $60,000. Fifth Scheme - Las Vegas, NV. Artie disguises himself as an old man and takes tens of thousands of dollars apiece from nine different casinos. The FBI catches him as he attempts to flee to Toronto with his winnings. They eventually agree to drop all criminal charges in exchange for payment of fines totaling $149,922.04 Final Scheme - Los Angeles, CA. Since Artie is now under FBI surveillance, he convinces the other boys to carry out his five previous schemes simultaneously. |
Triptych | Wendy Coakley-Thompson | null | Triptych opens in June 2004 in The Bahamas. Jonathan and Ally, both surgeons, celebrate their tenth anniversary at a party filled with friends and family. One of those family members is Jonathan’s second cousin Tim, a recent widower who lives in New Jersey. Tim and Ally had dated when he was seventeen, and she, fifteen. Jonathan collapses at the anniversary party. Tim and Ally rush him to the hospital. Doctors diagnose an inoperable brain tumor. Flash ahead to the summer of 2005. Jonathan is between cancer treatments. Tim has taken a teaching position in The Bahamas. He still feels as connected to Ally as when they first dated. Ally has taken a sabbatical from her medical career in order to care for Jonathan and their children. As Jonathan’s treatments have rendered him impotent, acute sexual frustration dogs her. Time passes; Ally’s feelings for Tim evolve into sexual attraction. Despite valiant efforts not to, Tim and Ally succumb. Jonathan senses the attraction between Tim and Ally. He makes an unorthodox proposition to his cousin, suggesting that Tim take care of Ally’s sexual needs. Tim’s instincts tell him to protect his heart. However, he cannot refuse his dying cousin. Tim and Ally begin a guilt-ridden affair. The rapid progression of Jonathan’s symptoms makes him realize that he is dying. He writes a series of letters to his loved ones, in which he expresses his feelings while he is still able. His doctors confirm his suspicions. Jonathan, wishing to die in peace, takes the family away to a second home in a place called Harbour Island. Ally watches helplessly as Jonathan suffers a fatal seizure. Almost a year passes. Ally feels comfortable enough to go on a first date with Tim. They make love with vigor and renewed affection. Afterwards, Tim suggests a vacation for two. Ally balks. Tim is frustrated and angry at what he views as rejection. After the disastrous date, Ally retreats to the Harbour Island home where Jonathan died. She removes her engagement, wedding, and remembrance rings. She revisits the hammock where he died, folds it up, and stores it away. Slowly, she makes her peace. Jonathan’s grown daughter Terri, visibly upset, appears at Tim’s office. The family has gone to Harbour Island without her. She feels guilt at how she treated her father in his last days. She begs Tim to come with her to the island. The thought of seeing Ally fills him with trepidation. Still, Tim agrees to go. Tim and Terri arrive in Harbour Island. Tim learns that Ally has gone to a party at a friend’s home, her so-called “coming out” after Jonathan’s death. Determined, Tim crashes the party in search of her. Ally is surprised and overjoyed to see him. They confess their love for each other. |
Chroniques du Pays des Mères | Élisabeth Vonarburg | 1,992 | The action takes place several centuries after the events of Le Silence de la Cité. Large areas have been drowned by the rising sea and most of Europe is now a poisoned wasteland. Due to a genetic mutation, women now outnumber men by 70 to 1. The collapsed society described in Le Silence de la Cité has been slowly rebuilt. Post-collapse warlord states have evolved into patriarchal kingdoms - the Harems - before being overthrown by the hives, female-run city-states, every bit as warlike and tyrannical as their male-run predecessors. Those have in turn been replaced by a more peaceful female dominated society organized as a loose federation of local communities. The novel follows the life of Lisbeï, the daughter of the "mother" of the Betely community, in the province of Litale. Destined to succeed her she grows up with her sister and friend, Tula, her being barren prevents her from doing so. While exploring ruined tunnels she discovers documents which question everything her society thought it knew about its past. |
Frozen Fire | Tim Bowler | 2,006 | The story begins with Dusty, the main character, receiving a mysterious phone call from an anonymous boy who claims to be dying. He soon reveals to her over the phone that he has taken an overdose with the intention of killing himself and that he rang her phone so he would have someone to talk to as he slipped away. At first he gives himself the false name Josh, which is the name of Dusty's brother who went missing a few years previously, leading Dusty to believe that he knows something about his disappearance. Dusty leaves the house to find the dying boy and attempt to save him. She searches around the local park but cannot find him anywhere. Instead she gets chased down by three men with two dogs that eventually corner her and assault her. Dusty receives frequent phone calls from the strange boy. He constantly talks about how he is suffering and how he is unable to kill himself. People start to talk about seeing this odd boy around the town. He is described as having snow-white skin and wearing a duffel coat. Stories start to spread about the boy raping a girl in another town and keeping her prisoner and when Dusty asks the boy if this is true he replies by saying he does not know or remember. When the locals start to suspect that Dusty is harbouring the boy, angry mobs go to her house and vandalise her room. When a mob traps the boy and confronts him he takes off his clothes and reveals that he has no genitals, proving that he could not have possibly raped anyone. Eventually the boy drives into a lake and when it is searched the van he drove into the lake is found but his body is not. However, while they are searching the lake, they find the body of Dusty's missing brother Josh. It is also revealed that Josh was the pale boy who raped the girl from another town. Dusty Is thrown into turmoil but an observation from Silas, an old miser, reveals that the boy is not in fact, dead. |
Roberto: The Insect Architect | null | null | A termite named Roberto tries to fulfill his dream of becoming an architect. He moves to the city so that he can become an architect and when he is there, he is influenced by great architects. Roberto finds ways to help the community and use his talents. |
The Krillitane Storm | null | null | The Doctor arrives in Worcester in 1139. There have been disappearances in last few months and people live in terror, afraid to leave their dwellings once the dark falls. When the Doctor meets with a Krillitane, he knows they have every reason to be afraid. |
Curtain Up | Noel Streatfeild | 1,944 | Curtain Up recounts the story of three siblings: Sorrel, Mark, and Holly Forbes. After their widowed father is reported missing during the war, and his father (their grandfather) dies, the children go to live in London with their grandmother on their mother's side, a retired actress. She sends them to the Children's Academy for Dancing and Stage Training, much against their will. However, it is clear that the stage is in their blood, as they discover talents they never knew they had: Sorrel shines at acting, Mark at singing, and Holly at dancing and impressions. The book also involves the Fossil sisters from Streatfeild's Ballet Shoes, as each Fossil girl provides each of the Forbes children with a scholarship to cover school expenses. Pauline sponsors Sorrel, Petrova, Mark, and Posy, Holly. The Fossil girls also exchange letters with the Forbes children, although when Miriam, the Forbes' cousin and another student at the school, shows herself to be an exceptionally talented dancer, Posy decides to sponsor her, as well, and to communicate with Miriam instead of with Holly. From these letters we learn that Pauline and Posy have made careers for themselves in Hollywood, after Posy and her teacher had to leave Czechoslovakia due to the war. |
Harriet Said... | Beryl Bainbridge | 1,972 | It concerns two schoolgirls spending their holiday in a run-down northern resort. Harriet is the older at 14. The 13-year-old unnamed narrator develops a crush on an unhappily married middle-aged man whom they call the Tsar. Led by Harriet they study his relationship with his wife, planning to humiliate him. Their plan quickly goes wrong, however, with tragic results. |
The Siege of Trencher's Farm | Gordon Williams | null | George Magruder, an American professor of English, moves with his wife Louise and eight-year-old daughter Karen, to Trencher's Farm in Cornwall, England, so that George can finish a book he is writing. George accidentally hits a child killer with his car and takes him back to the farm, not knowing who he is. When the locals find out, they form to a mob to break into George's house and the professor has to fight them off and protect his family. |
The Visitors | null | null | The story outlines contact between Earth and the title Visitors, a group of mysterious objects from deep space. The Visitors are simple black oblong boxes, as large as buildings, which approach from space and orbit the Earth before descending to the United States. The nature of the visitors is kept rather mysterious — it's not clear if they are vehicles or living things in their own right. They are apparently unable to communicate with humans in any meaningful way; on one occasion a human is taken inside a Visitor, only to be released after experiencing a jumble of confusing colored lights and smells which he didn't understand. The Visitors are composed largely of a dense form of cellulose, and they proceed to consume a quantity of trees and plant life in the US. Eventually they start producing vehicles, superficially resembling human cars but capable of flying using the same unknown principles as the Visitors themselves, and apparently incorporating some element of intelligence, or at least instinct, since they do not crash into things as they move. The humans assume that the Visitors have created these vehicles as a gift in return for the plant matter which the Visitors are consuming, and the novel touches on the disruption such well-meaning gifts might incur on the Earth's economic systems. Toward the end of the book the Visitors also start producing housing units for humans, and it is even implied that something living may be inside them — perhaps even a Visitor-produced version of humans themselves. |
The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution | Richard Dawkins | 2,009 | The book is divided into 13 chapters spanning over 400 pages, and includes an appendix called "The History-Deniers" in the end material. #Only a Theory? (Nature of scientific theory and fallibility) #Dogs, Cows and Cabbages (Artificial Selection) #The Primrose Path to Macro-Evolution #Silence and Slow Time (Discusses the Age of the Earth and the Geological Time Scale) #Before Our Very Eyes (Examples of Evolution Observed) #Missing link? What do you mean, 'Missing'? (the fossil record) #Missing persons? Missing no longer (Human Evolution) #You did it yourself in nine months (a statement attributed to J. B. S. Haldane; discusses developmental biology) #The ark of the continents (biogeography and plate tectonics) #The tree of cousinship (the tree of life, homology and analogy) #History written all over us (vestigiality and unintelligent design) #Arms races and 'evolutionary theodicy' (coevolution and evolutionary arms races) #There is grandeur in this view of life (based on the final passage of On the Origin of Species) |
Ionia | null | null | A London banker named David Musgrave dies prematurely in his mid-fifties, leaving a large fortune to his young wife and small son. The widow devotes her money, time, and energy to improving her home village in Surrey. She educates her son, Alexander Musgrave, to be generous and idealistic; when he comes into his majority and his own fortune, the younger Musgrave devotes himself to a philanthropic enterprise in a London parish. In the course of that work, he meets an impressive man named Jason Delphion, who seems to exist on a level of physical and intellectual development superior to average human beings. Delphion, an admirer of Musgrave's philanthropic efforts, tells the young Englishman about a hidden country in the remote Himalayas where an ideal and utopian society has evolved. Delphion invites Musgrave to visit the country, and Musgrave is eager to do so. They travel to northern India, and from there they fly, via Ionian aircraft, to the secret valley. Musgrave learns that the people are largely Greek in origin, descended from a cohort of seven thousand ancient Greek mercenaries who served the Persian Empire, and who fled eastward after the victories of Alexander the Great. The Greeks established themselves in their Himalayan valley, and for many generations lived as farmers, herders, and mercenaries in the armies of Indian princes. At the time of the Mughal Empire, a local prince named Timoleon travelled to Europe and brought back knowledge and technology; he led the Ionians in their development of an advanced and deliberately isolated culture. The travelers land at Iolkos, the Ionian capital, where the buildings are "palatial halls" with "towers and domes," constructed of marble in varying shades. The government is headquartered on an Acropolis, built on an island in the valley's main lake. (Craig's description of the Acropolis of Iolkos, with palaces divided by canals surrounding a "central basin" in which is set a great statue, recalls the Court of Honor at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, the famous "White City.") The language of the Ionians remains Greek, and the country's main rivers are the Pharos and the Styx. The people are well-educated (university training is common for all), and rational in their dress, manners, and customs. Musgrave finds that the Ionians have created a technology based on electricity, drawn from windmills and from the Earth's magnetic field. Electricity powers their land vehicles and aircraft, and lights and heats their homes and cities. Their most common metal is aluminum. They irrigate their valley into a lush agricultural garden; all the land is owned by the state. Their government is a republic, under an elected archon; the state controls marriage and practices eugenics, and the people generally live to be one hundred years old. Inherited wealth is limited, and poverty is unknown. The Ionians run their commerce and manufacturing along highly rational and organized lines, with no debt or advertising; they control pollution and recycle waste. Musgrave is awed and amazed by life in Ionia, and quickly becomes a convert to its values. He leaves the country after a stay of several months, though; he is determined to bring Ionian advances to England and the rest of the world. |
Snabba cash | Jens Lapidus | 2,006 | JW is a young man living in Stockholm, originally from the countryside. JW feigns the appearance of a Stekare (in Swedish parlance, a lifestyle based on flaunting one's apparent wealth; a jetsetter), actually leading a double life driving taxi illegally to finance his expensive life on Stureplan. Abdulkarim, who runs the taxi business, offers JW a job selling cocaine instead. JW accepts the offer and enters the criminal underground of Stockholm. Jorge Salinas Barrio is a Latino who has gone to prison after taking the blame for drug business in which the Yugoslav mafia was involved. He escapes from Österåker Prison with plans to flee the country. Mrado Slovovic is a Serbian henchman who runs errands for the Yugoslav mafia, but secretly he dreams of a normal life with his daughter Lovisa. The three characters unite in the book through their dreams about quick earnings. Once JW and Abdulkarim have the cocaine sales going they want to expand. Abdulkarim has heard of Jorge, the recent escapee. The word on the street is that Jorge got very knowledgeable about the cocaine trade while he was in prison and thus JW gets an assignment to hire him. Simultaneously Jorge has tried to blackmail the Yugoslav mafia boss. The hitman Mrado has been contracted to dissuade him. When JW finally finds Jorge he is laying beaten-up in a forest, courtesy of Mrado. |
Murder Most Fab | null | null | Still haunted by memories of his mentally ill mother and a doomed romance with a man called Timothy, rent boy Johnny Debonair moves on in the world when he breaks into the entertainment industry, eventually becoming 'Mr. Friday Night'. However, his path to fame is littered with corpses... Told in the style of a final confession, the story follows Debonair as he finds himself drawn towards serial murder so he can maintain his hold on the spotlight. |
Colossus and the Crab | Dennis Feltham Jones | 1,977 | The novel begins where its predecessor, The Fall of Colossus leaves off, with the supercomputer immobilized and the Martians arriving on Earth. They appear before Charles Forbin and his friend Edward Blake in the form of two black spheres, and quickly demonstrate vast intellect and powers of transformation and telepathy. After immobilizing Blake, they explain to Forbin their purpose in immobilizing Colossus — their desire to take half of the Earth's oxygen, a process that will kill nearly a quarter of the human population. In order to proceed with construction of the "Collector" designed to harvest the oxygen, the Martians reactivate the parts of Colossus necessary to manage human society. Though having no other option but to agree to the Martians' plan, Forbin continues to search for an alternative. He discovers in conversation with the Martians that their need for the oxygen is driven by the threat of radiation emanating from the Crab Nebula, which will kill the Martians without the protection of an oxygenated atmosphere. As construction of the Collector proceeds, a humbled Blake proposes to Forbin that the old Colossus — the "parent" of the crippled system, be reactivated. With little other alternative, Forbin agrees. Construction equipment controlled by Colossus soon complete work on the Collector. An initial five-minute test of the device proves enormously destructive. With a second, final test imminent, Blake travels to Colorado with Angela, Forbin's private secretary. Racing against time, Blake and a small team of workers succeeds in penetrating the mountain where the old Colossus is located and re-activating the computer, only to discover that, once imputed with the facts of the situation, Colossus argues that the collection program is in the best interests of humans' long-term future and should move forward. Informed of the failure of their plan, Forbin watches the second test proceed. Upon its conclusion he embarks on a new plan. With his new secretary, a fervently devout woman named Joan, he flies to Portsmouth and takes command of the battleships stationed there for the Sea War Games. Yet doing so puts him out of contact with Blake and the old Colossus, who informs Blake that a solution might exist that is acceptable to both the Martians and humanity. Regaining control of the nuclear arsenal, Colossus contacts the Martians, who inform it of Forbin's attempt to use the battleships to destroy the Collector. Though the Martians attempt to destroy the fleet using their device, they underestimate the power of the battleships' guns, which succeed in destroying the Collector. Though the Martians are defeated Forbin dies in the process. He is buried by the reactivated Colossus, who reaches an agreement with the Martians. A smaller version of the Collector will extract the oxygen more gradually and sustainably; in return, humanity, with the guidance of Colossus, will retreat to Mars once the Sun has become a red giant and destroys the Earth. |
We Couldn't Leave Dinah | Mary Treadgold | 1,941 | The setting is the summer holidays early in the Second World War. The Templetons are English residents on the fictional island of Clerinel in the English Channel. The children are all members of the local Pony Club. Caroline rides the spirited Dinah, Mick the more placid Punch, and their little brother the chubby Bellman. Meanwhile, there are rumours that the Germans who have occupied the nearby Channel Islands may be planning to take over Clerinel too. The location and topography of the island are ideally suited as a platform for launching an invasion of the South Coast. Mr. Templeton discusses leaving with the children, prompting Caroline's horrified response: "We couldn't leave Dinah". The Pony Club's chairman, Peter Beaumarchais, has surprisingly opted for a fancy-dress carnival as their Anniversary Day celebration in mid-September. Caroline decides to go as Elaine the Lily Maid of Astolat; Mick chooses to dress simply as a local fisherboy and borrows some clothes from Petit-Jean. During the celebration Caroline spots some unfamiliar riders in fancy dress. These riders turn out to be a party of German invaders taking advantage of the fancy dress to gain easy access to the Martello tower. The English residents hurriedly evacuate, but in the confusion Caroline and Mick are left behind. Their home having been requisitioned by the German general, they camp in some caves which have been fitted out as stables. With the help of Peter they manage to survive and stay hidden while planning their escape. After Mick stumbles across a hidden message and decodes it, they realize there are spies on the English side working on the island. Believing he can help discover some useful information, Mick volunteers to coach Nannerl, the German general's granddaughter, in riding. Nannerl joins the Pony Club, and when Caroline leaves the island she feels Dinah is safe with the German girl until they can return. |
Chronic City | Jonathan Lethem | 2,009 | Lethem began work on Chronic City in early 2007, and has said that the novel is "set on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, it’s strongly influenced by Saul Bellow, Philip K. Dick, Charles Finney and Hitchcock’s Vertigo, and it concerns a circle of friends including a faded child-star actor, a cultural critic, a hack ghost-writer of autobiographies, and a city official." |
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