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Home, and Other Big, Fat Lies | null | null | Whitney has been in so many foster homes that she can give a complete rundown on the most common varieties of foster parents—from the look-on-the-bright-side types to those unfortunate examples of pure evil. But one thing she doesn’t know much about is trees. This means heading for Foster Home #12 (which is all the way at the top of the map of California, where there looks to be nothing but trees) has Whitney feeling a little nervous. She is pretty sure that the middle of nowhere is going to be just one more place where a hyper, loud-mouthed kid who is messy and small for her age won’t be welcome for long. |
Waking the Dead | Scott Spencer | 1,986 | The book is a love story about two passionate liberals with vastly different approaches to their ideologies: Fielding Pierce is a lawyer and aspiring politician, and Sarah Williams is a social activist who despises the political system. During a mission to assist Chilean refugees, Williams is killed by a terrorist car-bomb. Years later, Pierce is offered the Democratic candidacy for an Illinois congressional seat, but during the campaign Pierce becomes convinced he has seen and heard Williams on several occasions. As Pierce becomes obsessed with finding out if his lost lover is alive, he is pushed to the brink of insanity and begins to fear he has become fully absorbed and changed by the political system Williams so hated. |
The Dip | Seth Godin | null | Godin introduces the book with a quote from Vince Lombardi: "Quitters never win and winners never quit." He follows this with "Bad advice. Winners quit all the time. They just quit the right stuff at the right time." Godin first makes the assertion that "being the best in the world is seriously underrated," although he defines the term 'best' as "best for them based on what they believe and what they know," and 'world' as "the world they have access to." He supports this by illustrating that vanilla ice cream is almost four times as popular as the next-most popular ice cream, further stating that this is seen in Zipf's Law. Godin's central thesis is that in order to be the best in the world, one must quit the wrong stuff and stick with the right stuff. In illustrating this, Godin introduces several curves: 'the dip,' 'the cul-de-sac,' and 'the cliff.' Godin gives examples of the dip, ways to recognize when an apparent dip is really a cul-de-sac, and presents strategies of when to quit, amongst other things. The book is also accompanied with cartoons from Hugh MacLeod, who publishes his cartoons on his blog gapingvoid and is the author of "How To Be Creative." |
The Missing Peace | null | 2,004 | After beginning with an anecdote of Yasser Arafat coming to see President Clinton just days before the end of Clinton's second term in office, Ross returns to the period of the British Mandate and continues through the 1980s, giving a brief history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its roots. His own involvement begins in the run-up to the Gulf War and the 1991 Madrid Conference. The book then covers the negotiations between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, as well as the emergence of the 1993 Oslo Accords. Ross then moves on to the 1994 Israel–Jordan peace treaty, the 1995 Interim Agreement, and the November 1995 assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. He proceeds to the diplomatic fallout from the assassination to the election of Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister, followed by several chapters dedicated to the negotiations on the 1997 Hebron Agreement. One year later, Netanyahu and Arafat agreed on the Wye River Memorandum. In 1998 Ehud Barak succeeded Netanyahu as prime minister and placed a priority on negotiations with Syria. After recounting the fall of that deal, Ross moves on to the 2000 Camp David Summit, and from that to the outbreak of the second intifada and the Taba Summit in January 2001. |
Glass | Ellen Hopkins | 2,007 | Kristina thinks that now she has a baby to care for and love, she can let go of the old addiction. But she finds herself searching for Robyn, her old contact for the "street crank". While over at her house she meets a boy named Trey and starts to crave for people to look like they want or need her. Once she gets home, she begins to work at a 7-Eleven to get the money to buy more crank. The manager there is a porn dealer and offers her a job as a prostitute, but she declines. After learning that her father is coming to her mother's home to be at the christening of her new baby, Hunter Seth, she begs her mother to let him come and she agrees, on the condition that Kristina has to be the one to tell her older sister. Once her father comes, he takes her to casinos for her eighteenth birthday party and they snort some lines while there. This causes Kristina to be almost late for Hunter's christening, but she manages to make it on time. Meanwhile, Kristina has started dating Trey and began smoking "glass", which is much more harmful than smoking crank because it is pure meth in rock size quantities. Kristina begins to smoke it every day, becoming skinnier and crashing more often. After crashing one day, her mother kicks her out of the house because she didn't even try to wake to save Hunter, who had rolled himself under a chair and couldn't get out. Kristina then moves in with Brad, Trey's cousin, while serving as the babysitter of Brad's two young daughters, Devon and LeTreya. She quits working at 7-Eleven by using blackmail and gets a call from Robyn. After finding out that Robyn now works at a "whorehouse", Kristina goes over and is able to sell the girls ice, instead of street crank, which was the only meth they'd had access to. Trey leaves for college and Kristina soon finds herself becoming attracted to Brad. After Trey comes home, she asks him why he hadn't been answering the phone and he responds with that he had been seeing a girl for sex only and that he still loved Kristina. She passes out and finds him gone. This saddens Kristina and she begins to have sex with Brad. When Trey comes home, he finds Kristina sleeping in the same bed as Brad but instead of getting mad at her, he starts having sex with her while Brad is sleeping. Brad's estranged wife Angela comes back because she wants another try to be together with Brad. So, Brad kicks Kristina out. Thus, Kristina is forced to move out and into a motel nearby. She is also able to meet the man that gives Brad the crystal meth, Cesar. Once Trey comes back, he confesses to Kristina that the girl he had been sleeping with was Angela until she came back to Brad. So, he was also forced to move out. She agrees to him moving in and they soon begin to live together. They then move to an apartment together. Kristina asks her mother if she can bring Hunter over to her apartment so Hunter could stay with his mother and stepfather. But Kristina gives him back when she finds Hunter on the ground after having fallen from his high chair. She realizes that her mother was right and that she is not ready to raise Hunter. Kristina, desperate for some money, steals most of her mother's jewelry and check books. When Kristina gets a court order because her mother thinks that Kristina is an unfit mother, she and Trey decide to make a run for it after a picture of her is put in the newspaper asking for people to turn her in. They soon arrive in California with only a few pairs of clothes, all their meth, and money. They fall asleep in the car after a meal at McDonalds and are awakened by a cop. He asks them to step outside and he finds the half pound of crystal meth. They are arrested and taken to jail. They have to stay the entire weekend and during this time Kristina detoxes from the meth. Because Kristina had a history in Nevada, she and Trey are put behind homestate bars. They are offered the chance of ratting on Cesar to shorten their jail sentence to six months which they agree to. During her checkup, Kristina finds out that she is pregnant with Trey's baby and hopes the baby is a girl so that Kristina will be able to love the baby like she should have done with Hunter. She hopes she can stay in touch with Trey and if not she knows she will with Quade. The novel ends with Kristina hoping that things will get better in her life even though she has no reason to be hopeful. |
Your Heart Belongs to Me | Dean Koontz | 2,008 | The central character, Ryan Perry, is the wealthy founder and owner of an online social networking site, Be2Do. Ryan is dating an author named Samantha, who had interviewed him for a magazine article. Although seemingly in good health and only 34 years old, Ryan begins to have seizures at random times of the day, and decides to seek the assistance of his doctor, Dr. Gupta. He is informed that he has a rare, inherited heart condition (cardiomyopathy) of which there is no cure. Ryan is only given one year to live unless he can receive a heart transplant, so he is put on a waiting list. Meanwhile, Samantha reveals to Ryan that her mother, assumed dead by Ryan, is in fact alive and living in Las Vegas, Nevada. Ryan becomes temporarily suspicious of Samantha, and believes she may have something to do with his sudden decline in health. He makes a secret trip to Las Vegas to investigate Samantha’s mother and her boyfriend, Spencer Barguest. While searching the home of Barguest, Ryan discovers photographs of dead bodies with their eyes taped open. One of the photographs appears to be of Samantha’s identical twin sister, who was declared brain dead after a car accident and later died. This discovery leads Ryan to believe that Barguest is involved in assisted-suicide, or euthanasia. Still distrustful of those close to him, Ryan secretly switches doctors from Dr. Gupta to Dr. Hobb, who specializes in wealthy clients. He also replaces his household staff. Within a month, Ryan is informed that a heart donor has been found and successfully receives the transplant. After returning home, his relationship with Samantha ends for unknown reasons. One year later, a series of mysterious events unfolds at Ryan’s home. His personal handgun is stolen from his vault, and several heart-themed items appear in his room with the message ‘Be Mine.’ After reading her first novel, Ryan attempts to rekindle his relationship with Samantha. He meets with her outside a book store, but she tells him that she can no longer love him. An Asian woman standing nearby tries to offer lilies to Ryan, but he refuses. Later on, the same woman stabs him in his stomach while at a parking lot mall and tells him that she can kill him whenever she wants. After answering his cell phone later, the same woman tells him that his heart belongs to her and she wants him dead. Concerned for his safety, Ryan decides to investigate his anonymous heart donor. Through Dr. Hobb, he is able to obtain a photograph and first name of the donor, who was declared brain dead after a car accident and later died when her heart was removed. The young woman’s name was Lily, and she is identical to the woman who has threatened Ryan. After reviewing security footage from within his estate, Ryan discovers that Lily's twin sister looped the video to make her appear invisible to security cameras. This leads him to the belief that she is involved in a large conspiracy to kill him, but she later denies this and claims to be working alone. Ryan must once more fight to save his life – this time from a woman who claims his heart belongs to her. |
With Her in Ourland: Sequel to Herland | Charlotte Perkins Gilman | null | With Her in Ourland begins where its predecessor Herland ends: Vandyck Jennings, his newlywed Herlandian wife Ellador, and the exiled Terry Nicholson proceed by airplane and motor launch away from Herland and back to the outside world. (Ourland is narrated by the Jennings character.) At an unnamed Eastern seaport, the three board a ship for the United States. Their craft is battered by a storm, however; the three travelers take alternative passage on a Swedish ship that is heading to Europe. This detour brings Van and Ellador into contact with World War I, then raging; and Ellador is devastated by the carnage and horrors of the conflict. This new dark knowledge inaugurates Ellador's education in the nature of the male-dominated world beyond Herland. Van praises the quality of her intellect — though he regularly finds himself discomfitted as Ellador's penetrating mind examines the logical lapses and the moral and ethical failures of human society. Ellador pursues a detailed understanding of the world, interviewing and studying with historians and other experts (while keeping the existence of her own society secret). Van and Ellador take a long journey on their way to Van's home in the United States; they travel through the Mediterranean to Egypt, and then eastward through Persia and India, China and Japan. On the way, Ellador examines the differing customs of the cultures they visit. By the middle of the book, Van and Ellador arrive in San Francisco, and Ellador begins her study of American conditions. Van is forced to confront and recognize many of the inadequacies and contradictions of American culture through Ellador's patient, objective, relentless scrutiny; in the process, Gilman can advocate her own feminist program of social reform. Van has to confront the fact that Ellador's view of America rattles his previously "unshaken inner conviction of our superiority." The novel concludes with the return of Ellador and Van to Herland; they settle there, and in time Ellador gives birth to a son. |
The Little Fur Family | Margaret Wise Brown | 1,946 | A little fur family (mother, father, and a child) live in a cozy house in a tree trunk. Secure in his cozy home, the fur child goes out to explore his world. He finds some creatures that are like him and others that are very different, including fish, a flying bug, and in one of the book's most memorable sequences, a tiny version of himself (which he kisses and sends it on its way). Even in the fur child's comfortable, familiar surroundings, there are just enough unfamiliar things to make his day interesting. At the end of the day, the child's parents and his dinner are waiting for him at home. |
Something Borrowed | Emily Giffin | 2,005 | The novel centers around the protagonist and narrator, Rachel White, a thirty-year-old single woman who is a consummate good-girl. She and Darcy Rhone have been best friends since childhood, and hard-working Rachel is often in the shadow of flashy, sometimes selfish Darcy. Then, after a night of drinking on Rachel's thirtieth birthday, she sleeps with Darcy's fiance, Dex. After this turns into an affair, Rachel explores the meaning of friendship, true love, |
Manga: The Complete Guide | null | 2,007 | Each title has at least a one paragraph description that includes the demographic (shōjo, shōnen, seinen or josei), a rating out of four stars, and an age advisory, including a description of any objectionable content. Yaoi and "adult" manga each have their own section at the back of the book. In addition to covering individual titles, Manga: The Complete Guide includes information on the basics of the Japanese language and a glossary containing information on numerous anime and manga related terms, |
Flight | Sherman Alexie | 2,007 | Flight begins with Zits waking up in a new foster home. Not liking his new family, he shoves his foster mom against the wall and runs out the door. Eventually Officer Dave catches up with him and takes him to jail. While in jail Zits meets Justice, a young white boy who takes Zits under his wing. When Zits is released from jail he finds Justice and they begin their training on how to shoot people. Once Justice believes Zits is ready to commit a real crime, he sends him off to a bank. After opening fire in the lobby, Zits perceives he has been shot in the head, ultimately sending him back in time. During his flashback, Zits transforms into many different historical characters. The first character he transforms into is FBI Agent Hank Storm. While in Hank's body Zits witnesses a meeting with two Indians involved with IRON. He watches his partner kill an innocent Indian and is forced to shoot the corpse in the chest. The next character he becomes is a mute Indian boy. He is thrown back into the time of General Custer's last stand. He gets to witness this historical battle and at the end is told by his father to slash a fallen soldier's throat as revenge for his own muteness. While trying to figure out what to do, Zits is taken into yet another character, Gus. Gus is known as "Indian Tracker" and has to lead the cavalry to an Indian camp. Gus is trained to hunt and track down Indians. Trying to take over Gus's actions, Zits forces himself to not attack the Indians. He helps Bow Boy and Small Saint escape from the advancing cavalry. Next, Zits becomes Jimmy, a pilot who teaches Abbad to fly a plane. He witnesses Jimmy's affair on his wife, and Abbad using the knowledge to carry out a terrorist attack, and Jimmy's suicide. Finally, Zits ends up as his own father. While in his father's body, he begins to understand why his father left his mother. He also begins to understand that his father does love him and that by leaving he was doing the best for his son. When Zits reinhabits his own body, he is standing in the bank staring at a small boy. Realizing that his crime could affect many more than just him, he walks out and takes himself to Officer Dave. Knowing he has to help this boy, Officer Dave brings Zits to his brother's house where Zits is offered to stay with them. Zits finally realizes that he can trust these people and for once in his life finally feels at home. |
Slaves of the Shinar | Justin Allen | null | The storied land of Shinar can be brutal and unforgiving. For two men making their way under its harsh sun, it is a land of fate, blood, and strife. Uruk is a nomadic thief from the jungles of sub-Saharan Africa. His destination is the fabled city of Ur, its temples swollen with riches. Ander has been a slave since youth. But when a chance at freedom presents itself, he strikes, vowing to destroy his captors by any means necessary. As these two men navigate the world they share - an ancient world, their stories converge in a tale of destiny, triumph, and death. Set against them are the legendary Niphilim, a race born for conquest and bred for killing. They are the world's greatest fighters, capable of nearly superhuman speed, strength, and endurance. As an army or thousands, led into war by a captain of unsurpassed cunning and strategic mastery, and armed with the world's first iron weapons, the Niphilim are a force of nature. Uruk and Ander must make their stand against this unstoppable juggernaut, or else be wiped from the face of history. Fortunately, Uruk and Ander are not alone. With them are a motley crew of warriors dredged from the bottom-most rungs of society: Barley, a half-blind farmer; Doran and Isin, two priests thrust into military duty; the Falcon, an old soldier whose best days are behind him; Jared, the King of Thieves; and an army composed of young boys. day-laborers, holy men, burglars, cooks, slaves, self-important politicians, the dirt-poor denizens of the Shinar's worst slums — and a vicious dog that Uruk rescued from starving to death in the desert. Slaves of the Shinar is the story of a land consumed by war, of a people trying to survive, and of two men in the middle of it all, redefining themselves and their futures. Set against the chaotic and bloody backdrop of the Middle East's first great war, this fantasy epic — part Genesis, part Gilgamesh — brings us into a gritty, realistic world where destiny is foretold by gods, and death is never more than a sword-stroke away. |
For Lust of Knowing | Robert Graham Irwin | 2,006 | While For Lust of Knowing is a riposte to Said's Orientalism, much of the book is taken up with a general history of Orientalism as an academic discipline. Unlike Said's work, it does not examine fiction, painting or other art forms. It focuses mainly in the work of British, French and German Orientalists and contrasts their different approaches and occasional idiosyncrasies. When Irwin does mention Said, it is usually to point out an error or inconsistency in Said's analysis. For example, one of the few Orientalists Said professes to admire is Louis Massignon. Irwin points out that Said "fail[ed] to note Massignon's anti-Semitism" and "his decidedly patronising attitude to Arabs", as well as Massignon's debt to Ernest Renan, one of the villains of Orientalism. In the chapter that specifically focuses on Said's Orientalism, Irwin highlights Said's inconsistent melding of the work of Foucault and Gramsci. |
Philosophical Inquiries into the Essence of Human Freedom | null | null | This is an approximate summary of the content of the Freiheitsschrift using page numbering as appears in Schelling's Works. There is no division except into paragraphs. *336-8 There is a traditional view that system excludes individual freedom; but on the contrary it does have "a place in the universe". This is a problem to solve. *338-343 Reformulation as the issue of pantheism and fatalism. *343-8 Spinoza and Leibniz. *348 German idealism versus French atheistic mechanism; Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre. *349-352 It is a mistake to believe that idealism has simply displaced pantheism. *352-355 The real conception of freedom is the possibility of good and evil. *356-357 Critique of the abstract conception of God; Naturphilosophie. *357-358 Ground of God and light. *359-366 Critique of immanence. *366-373 Conception of evil according to Baader. *373-376 Evil is necessary for God's revelation; exegesis of "matter" in Plato. *376-7 The irrational element in organic beings; disjunction of light and darkness. *379 Golden Age. *382-3 Formal conception of freedom; Buridan's Ass. *383 Idealism defines freedom. *385 Man's being is his own deed. *387 Predestination. *389-394 General possibility of evil and inversion of selfhood's place. *394 God's freedom. *396 Leibniz on laws of nature. *399 God is not a system, but a life; finite life in man. *402 God brought forward order from chaos. *403 History is incomprehensible without a concept of a humanly suffering God. *406 Primal ground (Ungrund) is before all antitheses; groundlessness self-divides. *409 Evil is a parody. *412 Revelation and reason. *413 Paganism and Christianity. *413 Personality rests on a dark foundation, which is also the foundation of knowledge. *414 Dialectical philosophy. *415 Historical foundation of philosophy. *416 Nature as revelation, and its archetypes. Promise of further treatises. |
The Skating Rink | null | null | Set in the seaside town of Z, on the Costa Brava, north of Barcelona, The Skating Rink is told by three male narrators, revolving around a beautiful figure-skating champion, Nuria Martí. When she is suddenly dropped from the Olympic team, a pompous but besotted civil servant secretly builds a skating rink in a local ruin of a mansion, using public funds. But Nuria has affairs, provokes jealousy, and the skating rink becomes a crime scene. |
Monsieur Pain | null | null | The novel is set in Paris and narrated by the Mesmerist Pierre Pain. In April 1938 Pain is approached by Madame Reynaud, whose late husband he had failed to help, to assist the Peruvian poet César Vallejo who is in the hospital, afflicted with an undiagnosed illness and unable to stop hiccuping. Pain's attempts to reach and treat Vallejo are thwarted by skeptical doctors and two mysterious Spanish men who bribe him not to treat Vallejo. Though he accepts the bribe, Pain attempts to treat the poet but is barred from the hospital and loses contact with Madame Reynaud. He has several run-ins with friends, strangers, and old acquaintances, and finds himself lost in the hospital and later in a warehouse, chasing strangers through the rain, and watching ambiguous events unfold, but he is unable to make sense of any of these events. The novel ends with an "epilogue for voices" which offers brief biographical reminiscences, or perhaps obituaries, of the novel's main characters, which still fails to offer a resolution to the mystery. |
Crime | Irvine Welsh | 2,008 | Detective Inspector Ray Lennox is recovering from a mental breakdown induced by stress and taking drugs, and a child murder case back home in Edinburgh. On vacation in Florida his fiancée, Trudi, is only interested in planning their wedding and, after an argument, abandons Lennox in a bar. He meets two women in a bar and goes back to their place to have a cocaine binge, but they are interrupted by two strangers. After a fight Lennox is left in the apartment with Tianna, the 10-year-old daughter of one of the women. Lennox takes her across the state to an exclusive marina where he walks right into a hornets' nest of paeodophiles, just like the one that had haunted him on a similar case in Edinburgh. Now he must protect the girl from them at all costs. |
Beric the Briton, A Story of the Roman Invasion | G. A. Henty | 1,893 | The main character is Beric, a young Briton under Roman subjugation. After he is raised to the rank of chief among his tribe, known as the Iceni, he and his tribe rise up against Roman rule under Queen Boudica. The strong but untrained Britons have success for a short time, but are quickly conquered again by the well-trained legionaries. Beric and a small band of men fight to the last from the swamps, conducting a sort of guerrilla warfare. At last he and his men are captured, and Beric is sent to Rome as a gladiator. While in Rome, he becomes friends with some who belong to the rising sect of Christians. When a Christian girl is given to the lions in the Roman amphitheatre, Beric dashes to the rescue and kills a lion single-handedly. Taken as a guard to Nero, the mighty emperor, Beric is horrified at the drunken revelry which takes place, and escapes from the palace. At last he is enabled to go back to Britain, though not after many more adventures. |
City of Ashes | Cassandra Clare | 2,008 | Because her mother is still in the hospital and has yet to wake up, Clary is now living at Luke's house. Her emotions are further tangled when Simon abruptly kisses her one day at his house and begins calling her his girlfriend. Jace has been exiled from the Institute under suspicions of being a spy for Valentine. He heads to a bar, having nowhere to live now, only to discover that a were child was slain nearby and that the pack wants his help. Jace refuses to help and is attacked by the pack, only to be saved by Luke. After some prompting by Luke, Jace goes to the Institute to confront Alec and Isabelle's mother who had kicked him out, who reveals that the Inquisitor was coming and she was only trying to spare him. Clary returns to Luke's home and receives a text message from Isabelle; Jace has angered the Inquisitor and has been imprisoned in the Silent City. While sitting in his cell, Jace hears something attacking everyone and discovers that Valentine has killed the Silent Brothers to get the second Mortal Instrument, the Soul-Sword. Clary, Isabelle, and Alec respond to a distress call from the Silent City, only to discover the slaying of the Silent Brothers. Clary frees Jace, only for the Inquisitor to appear and accuse Jace of going along with Valentine, as the sword was the only way to prove his guilt or innocence. Magnus Bane offers to keep Jace as a prisoner in his apartment, where he and the others try to figure out Valentine's potential plans. In order to prove Jace's innocence they go to the Fairy Realm. However, Clary is tricked into consuming fairy food, and is only allowed to leave by kissing "whom she most desires", at first Simon offers to kiss her, however Clary instead kisses Jace in order to gain her freedom. This angers Simon, who storms off after they return to their realm. Clary later argues with Jace over their obvious feelings for each other despite being siblings. Jace suggests keeping the relationship a secret, to which Clary replies that it would eventually be discovered anyway and is unwilling to lie to their friends and family. Later Raphael shows up with Simon, who has been almost completely drained of blood and fed vampire blood. As the only way left to save him, Simon is transformed into a vampire, which causes Clary to ignore Jace as a result of her guilt over his death and transformation. While discussing how to potentially tell Simon's mother about his new undead status, Maia is brought into the house with wounds too severe for Luke to treat. Magnus is brought to heal Maia while Jace, Simon, and Clary battle demons outside the house. Jace and Clary later go after the demons to finish them off, where Valentine offers protection if Jace joins him and comes back to Idris. Jace refuses and the next morning the Inquisitor appears with claims that Jace was with Valentine and threatens to kill Jace if Valentine doesn't return the Mortal Instruments. The Inquisitor once again imprisons Jace, planning to have a trade with Valentine; Jace's life for the Mortal Instruments. Jace tries to tell her that it won't work, which the Inquisitor refuses to believe. During this time Maia is attacked by the Demon of Fear while traveling to see Simon, after which Valentine kidnaps her. Clary and the others discover Maia's kidnapping and rescue her, but not before Valentine kills the newborn Simon. Jace manages to restore life to Simon by feeding him his blood, after which the Inquisitor appears. After seeing Jace's star shaped scar, she suddenly kills a demon that was attacking him. She dies during the process, leaving Jace confused at her sudden change. Meanwhile Clary confronts Valentine on the boat after being kidnapped by one of his demons and brought to him, where she falls in the water and is saved by nixies the Fairy Queen sent to help. The group escapes by truck, where Simon discovers that Jace's blood has made him a "Daylighter" that can tolerate the sun. After a talk with Luke about love and his regrets of not telling Clary's mother how he felt about her, Clary attempts to tell Jace of her love for him and sudden change of mind to start a relationship needless of its consequences. However, before she can say anything, he tells her that he will only act as her brother from then on, breaking her heart. As Clary reels from this, she's then informed by a woman named Madeline that she knows how to wake her mother. |
The Magician's Apprentice | Trudi Canavan | 2,009 | In the remote village of Mandryn in Kyralia, Tessia serves as assistant to her father, the village Healer - much to the frustration of her mother, who would rather she found a husband. Despite knowing that women aren’t readily accepted by the Guild of Healers, Tessia is determined to follow in her father’s footsteps. Kyralia and the neighbouring country Sachaka have been at a certain "peace" for centuries, though the countries dislike each other, for Kyralia was once part of the Sachakan Empire. Lord Dakon is housing a visiting Sachakan Lord and Magician (Takado), much to his dislike. Dakon is a kind man with noble intentions. He is wary of Takado and dislikes the Sachakans for not abolishing slavery, especially when Takado beats his slave (Hanara) to near death. Tessia and her father are called to heal him. One day when Tessia comes by herself to Lord Dakon's mansion to re-apply bandages to Hanara, Takado tries to force himself upon her, holding her body still with magic. Tessia removes the magical influence on her mind with magic of her own, which she had no idea she had (blowing apart the corner of the room in the process), discovering she is a natural. She becomes the second apprentice of Lord Dakon, and Takado leaves the premises. There are long hours of study and self-discipline, and Lord Dakon's other apprentice, Jayan, makes clear his dislike of her, Tessia’s new life also offers more opportunities than she had ever hoped for, and an exciting new world opens up to her. There are fine clothes and servants, and - she is delighted to learn - regular trips to the great city of Imardin. While staying in Imardin her home town is attacked. A "mental" call is produced from another magician who is in the ley (town) closest to Dakon's. Tessia is able to hear this while she is out shopping with her fellow female magicians, who all hear the same thing. Upon arriving at the ley they find that Takado has slaughtered the entire village except for some children and deserters. Tessia is then distressed to find graves marked for her parents. Upon this discovery, Tessia is hurt by the fact she never got to tell her father about visiting the healer's guild (in which their family are now somewhat respected in the guild through their grandfather), or about visiting a dissection at which she found a friend, Kendaria. Tessia then sets out to be a healer. During the process, Jayan and Tessia become friends. The Kyralian magicians then come together and decide to attack the Sachakan 'Ichani' (people branded as outcasts in Sachakan society) as they realise a plot to take their country. Meanwhile Takado has gathered an army of his own. In the "first fight", the Kyralian magicians use a technique of sharing magical energy, allowing them to send magic to another without harming them and so enabling them to attack in groups. None fall on the Kyralian side but the Sachakans lose many. Tessia treats many people and soon develops a way to stop pain with magic, something never before achieved as Magicians never become healers. A subplot revolves around Stara, a mixed race woman born to an Ashaki (Sachakan magician of high social standing) and an Elyne woman, Elyne being a neighbouring country to both Kyralia and Sachaka. Living in Arvice (the Sachakan capital) Stara is forced to marry against her will, yet when she shows her father her magic, which she has kept secret for years, her father is forced to decide another, Karicho. Stara must bed Karicho in order to heir a son, or her sister-in-law, being infertile, will be killed by her father. Yet there is one problem: Karicho is a "lad" (a male homosexual). Stara becomes friends with other wives, and they invite her into a group made up of wives and slaves called the "Traitors", who secretly declare themselves a neutral third party in the Kyralian-Sachakan conflict. Unintentionally, Stara becomes the leader with her natural beauty, magic and leadership skills. She and her slave, who is also her best friend, set out to find a way to get the "Traitors" away from Arvice before the invading Kyralians kill any of them. The invading Kyralians take Arvice, but Jayan and Tessia are separated from them. Jayan is badly wounded, but Tessia figures out how to heal with magic, and saves him. While she is healing him, he confesses his love for her, and she him. They hide in a house and fall asleep. The next morning, they hear horses, and go outside to see it is their allies. They join up with the rest of the army, and Dakon is relieved to see his ex-apprentice (Jayan is now a full magician) and his apprentice are safe. However, Dakon is staying behind to help rule Sachaka, so Lady Avaria takes over Tessia's apprenticeship, and Jayan, Avaria and Tessia return to Kyralia together. Jayan founds the Magician's Guild and Tessia teaches her healing magic to others. Stara and the Traitors escape Arvice and find a refuge in the mountains. There are ruins of a house there, filled with jewels. A river is nearby and the land is fertile. The Traitor society has begun. 10 years later Narvelan, one of Sachaka's rulers, is forced to retire by the king, taking his loyal servant, Hanara, with him. He breaks the storestone, a stone filled with magic, which kills him and Hanara and renders acres of Sachakan land infertile. It is revealed Dakon was assassinated. Jayan and his friend Prinan come to look at the land. Jayan reflects on the establishment of the Magician's Guild and that Tessia is just about to give birth to his son. Tessia is now famous for her discovery of healing magic, and is the best healing magician in the world. |
Cold Hands, Warm Heart | null | null | Fifteen-year-old Dani was born with her heart on the wrong side of her body, a condition called dextrocardia. Fourteen-year-old Amanda puts her heart and soul into competitive gymnastics. One girl lives a life of x-rays, tests, and endless hospital visits while the other is on the fast-track to the national championship. During a brilliant gymnastic routine, Amanda slips and a young life with so much potential comes to an end. With Amanda's death, Dani, in desperate need of a heart transplant, gets a second chance. |
The Lost Train of Thought | null | null | The third and final book on The Seems begin with Becker Drane on trial against his breaking the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule forbids any employee that has had access a person's Case File to communicate with them. At the end of The Split Second, Becker Drane came in contact with Jenifer Kaley who he got her Case File in The Glitch in Sleep. When tried, he was found guilty on all counts. He was suspended from duty for one year, unremembered of Jenifer Kaley and has his Seems Credit Card revoked. Jenifer Kaley and Benjamin Drane will also be unremembered of all they know about The Seems. When about to tell Jenifer about his punishment, Simly, Becker's favorite Briefer calls Becker in for a Mission. He along with the Octogenarian, Shahzad Hassan and Jelani Blaque are called in as a second team to find a missing train of Thought that was supposed to supply The World with enough Thought for the next six weeks. When Thought was first discovered, it was debated on how it should be used. Some felt the Raw Thought should be given directly to the people of the World while others felt it should be processed first. It was decided for Raw Thought to be given to people in The World so they can think for themselves. However, without Thought to keep emotions such as Jealousy and Anger in, the Unthinkable could occur causing mass destruction to The World. The first team consisted of Li Po, Casey Lake, Lisa Simms and Greg the Journeyman, but they went missing when a sudden bright light appeared. The second team go into The Middle of Nowhere in hope of finding the Train and if possible, rescuing the missing Fixers of the first team. The team first makes a pit stop at Seemsberia, the prison in The Seems where Blaque asks Thibadeau, a previous member of the Tide a few questions. The Tide is an organization trying to overthrow the current order of The Seems. In the journey to Meanwhile the team manages to find Lisa Simms and Greg the Journeyman, but Li Po and Casey Lake are still missing. Meanwhile, in The Seems, The Tide has taken over many major departments of The Seems and even Seemsberia. To rescue The Seems, Freck reveals he is a double agent for The Seems and gets the help of the Glitches in exchange for a place to live. The Glitches succeed in destroying The Tide and recapture The Seems, but the Unthinkable is about to occur. All the extra Thought was used during the siege to The Seems. In the Middle of Nowhere, the team along with Casey Lake has found the lost Train of Thought. However, the natives of the Middle of Nowhere have trapped all the Fixers except Becker who is trying to get the train back to The Seems. With the so little time left before the Unthinkable occurs, Becker has no choice to use the In-Betweener, an automated freight line previously used to pile wares. Becker succeeds, but is lost when the Train crashes into the entrance of the In-Betweener. With the Thought delivered and The Tide defeated, the Unthinkable does not occur. Two days later, Freck is cleared of all charges by the new Second in Command, Samuel Hightower, who is also Triton, leader of The Tide. Despite wanting to recreate The World, he now feels that The World will now grow into a new place after all that happened in the last few days. In the epilogue, Becker finds himself swimming through an ocean and finally arriving on a beach. On the beach, he meets Li Po, the only Fixer in the first team never to be found. Po talks although his Vow of Silence prevented him before. Becker suddenly realizes he is in A Better Place, where people go when they die. |
The Universe Maker | A. E. van Vogt | 1,953 | Morton Cargill, Korean War soldier, accidentally kills a girl named Marie while driving drunk. He runs from the scene. A year later, he gets a letter from the girl asking to meet him. But this is not Marie, but a remote descendant from the future, who is suffering an inherited form of neurosis which time travelers, called 'The Shadows', have traced back to his negligent crime. The only therapy to cure her is if she witnesses him being murdered. He then wakes 400 years into the future, to the Shadow City to be executed. He escapes, with help from Ann Reece, who represents a group called 'Tweeners', who are organized by a Shadow named Grannis. Grannis is apparently a traitor to the Shadows and wishes the Tweeners to attack and destroy the Shadow City. Cargill is overcome by suspicions against the Tweeners, so during his rescue he escapes into the woods where he is immediately captured. His captors this time are futuristic nomads or 'trailer trash' called 'Planiacs' who live in floating airships. The Planiacs have rejected civilization and its intolerable psychological pressures. Their airships are stocked and repaired by the Shadows, and they live utterly purposeless lives floating from place to place, occasionally stopping to fish. Grannis the Shadow shows up among the Planiacs, apparently to seize Cargill. Cargill escapes by seducing his jailer's daughter, Lela Bouvey, and stealing an airship. He spends several months as a nomad, and begins to organize a political revolution among them, but is recaptured by the Shadows, and sent back in time to the same night he escaped. Ann Reece, the Tweener agent, again frees him, brings him to their city, where he is hypnotically programmed. He has no choice but to carry out his mission, to enter the Shadow city and shut off its defensive energy field, so that an air raid might destroy the Shadows. The Tweeners are those Planiacs who attempted to join the Shadows, but could not pass their tests. They plan to destroy the Shadows and force the Planiacs out of their nomadic existence and back to earthbound labor. Cargill has several dreams where is encounters beings from previous or future eons, which convinces him that the fate of the universe hangs in the success or failure of the Shadow-Tweener war. As a delaying tactic, he advises the Tweeners how to reorganize their air force to make a successful raid, he again seduces his jailer (which this time is Ann Reece), and he again begins to organize a political revolt among his captors, hoping an uprising of peacelovers among the Tweeners will stop the coming attack. Now firmly convinced that the Shadows are innocent, and that the planned Tweener attack is wrong, Cargill is unable to halt or even hinder the hypnotic programming that forces him to enter the Shadow City. The Shadows are superhumans able to travel through time, walk through walls, and revive the dead. Once in the city, Cargill is given the Shadow training, which consists of a single lecture hypnotically imprinted on his brain. Now armed with all their powers and abilities, Cargill emerges from the training session to witness a celebration of the election results: the Shadows elect their leaders retroactively through time, voting only after the leader's term of office is up, and reporting it back through time to themselves on election day. To his surprise and dread, Cargill finds he is the new leader. The leader of the Shadows is Grannis; Cargill himself is Grannis. He spends the last chapter of the book traveling back through time to organize the various pointless conspiracies among the Tweeners and Planiacs which brought him here. While being killed and raised from the dead, he recalls that he and all other participants in the life-force of the cosmos created the universe as a game, and became bound to it, and to its tragedies, due to their psychological limitations: greed creates time, the desire for revenge creates death, and so on. Cargill-Grannis discovers he is innocent of the original death of Marie, but now he must arrange that death in order to prevent a time paradox which would otherwise destroy the universe. |
Seiken no Blacksmith | null | null | 44 years ago, a great war known as the Valbanill War ravaged the land. One of the war's most dangerous weapons was the Demon Contract, where humans sacrifice their bodies to become powerful demons. Realizing the damage the contracts have caused the land, the surviving nations made peace and banned the use of the Demon contracts. Cecily Cambell is a 3rd generation Knight from Housman, one of the cities of the Independent Trade Cities, a democratic federation of cities. As her grandfather was one of the founders of the Independent Trade Cities, she is proud of her heritage and wishes to protect her city as a knight, like her father and grandfather before her. One day, she fights a mad veteran of the war causing trouble in the market, and, inexperienced and outmatched, faces defeat. But she is saved by a mysterious blacksmith named Luke Ainsworth. Cecily is impressed by Luke's katana, a weapon she has never seen before, and asks him to make one for her. Her involvement with Luke will bring her to an adventure she never expected. |
Smaller and Smaller Circles | null | null | Its main protagonists are Gus Saenz and Jerome Lucero, Jesuit priests who also perform forensic work. The mystery revolves around the murders of young boys in a poor region of Payatas, Philippines. |
Loved Ones | Diana Mitford | 1,985 | The book includes pen portraits of leading figures that featured prominently in Mitford's life. These include Lytton Strachey and Dora Carrington, former neighbours and friends of hers. Violet Hammersley, an author, close friend of her mother's and prominent figure in childhood. The writer, Evelyn Waugh a close personal friend. Professor Derek Jackson, a leading physicist and her former brother-in-law. Lord Berners, a close personal friend she stayed with often at Faringdon House. Prince and Princess Clary, close friends of hers after the Second World War. The final portrait is of her second husband, Sir. Oswald Mosley. The book also features several photographs of the selected subjects. |
Our Southern Highlanders | null | null | The bulk of Our Southern Highlanders is based on observations Kephart made while at Hazel Creek (1904–1907), although several chapters added in 1922 were based on events that occurred later when Kephart lived in Bryson City. Chapters 9 ("The Snake-Stick Man") and 10 ("A Raid Into the Sugarlands") were based on events that occurred in 1919. Chapter 11 ("The Killing of Hol Rose") was based on events that occurred in late 1920. *Chapter I, "Something Hidden; Go and Find It," discusses the remoteness and ruggedness of the Southern Appalachian Mountains, the lack of realistic literature regarding its inhabitants, and gives a brief history of the region. *Chapter II, "The Back of Beyond," gives a description of Medlin and discusses how the mountaineers have adapted to their environment, the difficulties in farming the rugged terrain, and grazing in the highland meadows. *Chapter III, "The Great Smoky Mountains," discusses the topography, geology, wildlife and plant life of the Great Smokies range. Kephart also relates a story by a "Mr. and Mrs. Ferris" who ventured across the nearly-impassable crest of the central and eastern Smokies to Mount Guyot in search of plant specimens. He also discusses the harshness of the highland meadows, and recounts a story of 17 cattle freezing to death at Silers Meadow. *Chapter IV, "A Bear Hunt In the Smokies," recounts a bear hunt undertaken by Kephart and several Hazel Creek natives. The party includes Granville Calhoun, a Bone Valley resident named Bill Cope ("the hunchback"), John Baker "Little John" Cable, Jr. (1855–1939), Matt Hyde, and Andrew Jackson "Doc" Jones (1851–1935). The chapter begins at Hall cabin amidst a windstorm and ends with the successful killing of a bear. This chapter contains one of the earliest references to the Appalachian folk song Cumberland Gap. *Chapter V, "Moonshine Land," discusses Kephart's initial curiosity about moonshining, and recount's one mountaineer's justification for the practice. *Chapter VI, "Ways That Are Dark," continues Kephart's discussion of moonshining, particularly how it is made in Southern Appalachia, the typical size and settings of stills, etc. *Chapter VII, "A Leaf from the Past," traces the roots of moonshining to the British Isles, and explains how the practice made its way to Southern Appalachia. *Chapter VIII, "Blockaders and the Revenue," discusses the ongoing conflict between moonshiners and federal revenue agents. *Chapter IX, "The Snake-Stick Man," tells the story of a federal revenue agent whom Kephart calls "Mr. Quick" (an alias). Quick, who has a hobby of carving sticks into the form of snakes, has a polymathic expertise that Kephart finds most impressive. He is in the area to investigate illegal liquor sales at the nearby Cherokee Reservation. *Chapter X, "A Raid Into the Sugarlands," recounts a manhunt led by "Mr. Quick" into the Sugarlands, a remote valley south of Gatlinburg on the Tennessee side of the Smokies. The chapter includes an anachronistic story about a mountaineer named "Jasper Fenn" (based on a real-life Sugarlander named Davis Bracken, who lived near what is now the Chimneys Campground) who claimed to have read a copy of Our Southern Highlanders given to him by the Pi Beta Phi settlement school in Gatlinburg. *Chapter XI, "The Killing of Hol Rose," recounts the killing of revenuer James Holland "Hol" Rose by J.E. "Babe" Burnett and Burnett's subsequent trial. *Chapter XII, "The Outlander and the Native," discusses the mountaineers' attitudes toward outsiders. *Chapter XIII, "The People of the Hills," describes the mountaineers' typical physical traits, work ethic, their ability to endure harsh conditions, and their general preference for mountain life over urban life. *Chapter XIV, "The Land of Do Without," discusses the mountaineers' homelife, their manner of dress, the prevalence of poverty and the mountaineers' scorn of charity. *Chapter XV, "Home Folks and Neighbor People," discusses gender and family roles, religion and funerary rights, music and dancing, and Christmas and New Years Day customs among the mountain people. *Chapter XVI, "The Mountain Dialect," discusses mountain speech. Kephart's observations in this chapter mark one of the first serious analyses of the Southern Appalachian dialect, and one of the first to label it a distinct dialect rather than merely the speech habits of the uneducated. While Kephart overemphasizes archaic "Elizabethan" traits in the dialect, linguists acknowledge his keen observations and painstaking scholarship in this analysis. *Chapter XVII, "The Law of the Wilderness," discusses the mountaineers' penchant for self-reliance and individualism, the importance of family bonds, and attitudes toward government. *Chapter XVIII, "The Blood-Feud," discusses Appalachian clan feuding, its typical causes, and how it compares to other cultural clan feuds, such as Corsican vendettas. *Chapter XIV, "Who Are the Mountaineers?", traces the Scotch-Irish roots and migration patterns of the Southern Appalachian mountaineers, and emphasizes that the Appalachian culture is a distinct culture spread across the highlands of several states. *Chapter XX, "When the Sleeper Awakes," discusses how encroaching commercialism and modernity, brought to the region by logging firms and other corporations, threatened to erode the mountain culture. |
Wings | null | 2,009 | Fifteen-year-old Laurel has lived her whole life on her family's land near Orick, California and the Redwood National and State Parks, where she was homeschooled by her hippie parents, Sarah and Mark. So when she moves to Crescent City, California to attend public school at Del Norte High School, Laurel has some adjustments to make. The reason for them to move is because of her father buying a bookstore, which was always a dream for the both of her parents. While she misses being outdoors all the time, she's getting along pretty well at her new school and soon befriends David, a handsome and sweet boy who understands Laurel and her strict vegan diet. Things are looking up until a bump between Laurel's shoulders sprouts into a giant flower on her back. Hesitant to confide her recent affliction to her parents, Laurel seeks help from David, and together they investigate the strange phenomenon of her "wings" or blossom. Their only clue is that when she was about three years old, she was found on her parents' doorstep in a basket, with no knowledge of where she came from. It turns out that Laurel is actually a more advanced evolution of a plant; more or less a faerie. The two soon discover that Laurel's whole body is of plant cells and that she is a plant. On a trip back to the family home, Laurel's world is forever changed when she encounters Tamani. Laurel finds herself inexplicably drawn to him, and he provides many of the answers she has been seeking. It turns out she’s not even human; like Tamani, she’s a faerie. As a scion, a faerie sent to the humans, she was sent to her parents to inherit their land, which holds something very important to the fae. This plan is nearly thwarted when Laurel’s family moves and puts the land up for sale. The gate to Avalon, which the faeries have protected for ages, is now threatened, and Laurel must help save the faeries' secret, protect her family, sort out her confused feelings for David and Tamani, and figure out her own identity—and her place in both worlds. |
Tea Time for the Traditionally Built | Alexander McCall Smith | 2,009 | Mma Ramotswe and her assistant Mma Makutsi agree that there are things that men know and ladies do not, and vice versa. The glamorous Violet Sephotho sets her sights on Mma Makutsi's unsuspecting fiance and it becomes clear that some men do not know how to recognise a ruthless Jezebel even when she is bouncing up and down on the best bed in the Double Comfort Furniture Shop. In her attempt to foster understanding between the sexes and find the traitor on Mr Football's team, Mma Ramotswe ventures into new territory, with the help of an observant small boy. |
It's Just a Plant | Ricardo Cortés | null | The main character is a little girl named Jackie. She is awakened one night in her bedroom by an unusual smell in the air, and she sets out to find its source. She goes to her parents' room and discovers her parents smoking marijuana. When she asks what they're doing, they tell her they are smoking marijuana. Her parents decide to teach her the facts about marijuana. They travel to the farm where the family buys vegetables. The farmer shows her the variety of crops he grows, including some marijuana plants. He tells her about the history of marijuana, and remarks that many people use the drug, including doctors, teachers, and politicians. Following the trip to the farm, they visit their family doctor. The doctor tells Jackie that marijuana has many medicinal uses, and that it can ease pain and help people relax. She emphasizes that only adults should use it, and that it is not for children. Shortly afterward, Jackie sees a group of people smoking marijuana on the street. Two police officers appear and promptly arrest them, to Jackie's bewilderment. The police officers explain that smoking marijuana is against the law, and that's why they are arresting the marijuana smokers. One of the officers tells her that “a small but powerful group decided to make a law against marijuana.” She comes to the conclusion that she wants to vote for the legalization of marijuana when she is older. |
Cross my heart and hope to spy | Ally Carter | 2,007 | When Cammie returns to school, she and the other girls are frustrated because the East Wing is off-limits. Fumes from the chemistry lab have supposedly contaminated the area making the girls have to walk around the wing adding ten minutes to their walk back to their rooms. The next day on a CoveOps mission at the National Mall the class must get to the ruby slippers exhibit by five o'clock practicing counter-surveillance. Only one girl in the class succeeds in the mission. Cammie fails when Zach, whom Cammie believes to be a teenage boy, follows her from the elevator. After the failed mission fifteen boys, Zach being one of them, and their teacher Dr. Steve from the Blackthorne Institute, come to the Gallagher Academy and they take up residence in the East Wing. Cammie meets Josh again during an exercise in Roseville, VA and finds out that he is dating DeeDee. For Cammie the incident confirms her mother gave Josh the special memory wiping tea. During a CoveOps/Culture and Assimilation cumulative exam Cammie and Zach dance together. Cammie has a slight wardrobe malfunction and she tries to leave via a passageway where Zach is waiting. A Code Black occurs,meaning the school's secret is in danger of being released,and Cammie gets blamed when Zach mysteriously disappears. Cammie, Liz, Bex, and Macey decide to investigate the Blackthorne boys, but the covert listening devices in the boys rooms, and the tracking systems/trackers in their shoes, don't give them any information. Then Cammie goes on a study date with Zach. On a Saturday trip into Roseville, Cammie and Zach are walking around town together, and Zach tries to kiss Cammie while knowing that Josh and DeeDee were watching. Cammie suddenly becomes aware of this and seeing that she hurt Josh, doesn't let Zach kiss her. On the same trip, the Gallagher girls have to come back early when Zach lies about seeing a trailer before. The girls arrive at the mansion to a massive security breach – a disk containing the information about all the alumni of the Gallagher Academy has been stolen. Using a secret passage, the girls get out of the mansion and follow trackers that Bex and Liz planted on the Blackthorne boys. Macey comes across them outside in a Gallagher Academy van she "commandeered" and they follow the tracking devices. They meet up with the boys outside an abandoned manufacturing plant owned by the school. Zach convinces Cammie that he and the boys are innocent and they team up to get the alumni disk back from Dr. Steve, who stole it. They succeed in stopping Dr Steve from getting away when Bex puts him in a choke hold, and it is revealed that the recovery of the disk was a test to see if the girls could accomplish the mission with the boys. At the end the Blackthorne boys have to leave and Zach kisses Cammie telling her "I always finish what I start" referring to the Saturday trip to Roseville. |
Great Olympic Encyclopedia | null | 2,006 | The encyclopedia has only one author Valeri Shteinbakh, and contains 10,070 entries about the history of the Ancient Olympic Games, the results of the Summer Olympic Games and the Winter Olympic Games, the sports included or not in the Olympic program, biographies of the sportspersons and other stuff. |
Gaia's Toys | Rebecca Ore | 1,995 | Willie Hunsucker is a veteran on the dole, taking a monthly trip to Roanoke so the government can use his brain power for whatever purposes it deems appropriate. Willie is starting to remember bits and pieces of this time. He has an unusually large praying mantis that soothes him when he flashes back to his war service. He doesn't know it but the mantis's pheromes are increasing his memories and his initiative. Dorcas Rae is a gene technician and mistress to the lab supervisor. On the sly, she created the mantises that have become so popular with people on the dole. The government wants to find who did this. She has also created a wasp that will sting when it senses aggressiveness in people. Allison is an eco-terrorist. She delivers a car to an oil refinery but her contact doesn't arrive. Just after she's captured by government agents, the car explodes a nuclear device that damages much of the oil refining capacity of the southern U.S. She agrees to cooperate and become an undercover agent—donating brain time to help with Dorca's research. After Willie's house is robbed, he falls in with a group of people who've each suffered from environmental or nanotechnological damage. As a result of an assignment he'd had while on the dole, they become aware of Allison and Dorcas and determine to rescue Dorcas from the government net that's about to close around her. The chase is on. In a world where nanotechnology can alter one's appearance in a few hours and brain images can be tracked if one uses the net to ask for any information, the chase is an intriguing combination of high and low tech. |
Antifanaticism: A Tale of the South | null | null | The story takes place somewhere in Virginia, and depicts a group of white plantation owners who put charity towards their black slaves before the harvesting and selling of the cotton on their own plantations, as well as successfully converting several troublesome abolitionists into friendly socialites through a process referred to throughout the novel as "Southern hospitality". |
The Slab Boys Trilogy | John Byrne | null | The Slab Boys is set in the Slab Room of A. F. Stobo & Co. Carpet Manufactures. This story focuses on a handful of young people who have to grow up fast in the tough working-class culture of 1950s industrial Scotland. It is a semi autobiographical work. The play is set in 1957, the year Byrne worked in Stoddard's carpet factory as a slab boy, and the year Byrne applied to Glasgow Art School. In 1958 he was accepted to the Art School, unlike the character Phil McCann, whose application was refused. He described the factory as a ‘technicolour hell hole’.. Byrne was raised in Ferguslie Park, Paisley not far from the carpet factory. The opening scene introduces the three incumbent slab boys bantering away on a Friday morning. Phil and Spanky are the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid of the slab room and Hector is the target and source of most of their humour. Enter, Mr. Curry, the boss, who is always trying to shame Phil and Spanky into doing some actual work. Unfortunately, Phil and Spanky are far too clever to fall for that old ruse. In comes Jack Hogg. He used to be a slab boy, but has come up in the world and is now a designer. This is not as grand as it sounds – he is only one step further up the ladder and Phil and Spanky never let him forget it. Jack brings with him Alan Downie – an obviously better off youngster whose father knows the boss, and who is going to work in the company for a while before going off to University. This does not endear him to Phil or Spanky. Once some of the early hilarity subsides, we learn that Phil's mother has been yet-again incarcerated in a ward for the mentally unstable. We also find out the real reason for Phil being late this morning: he was presenting his portfolio at the Glasgow School of Art. He is now waiting on a phone call that will tell him how he got on. Eventually, Sadie, the world-weary tea-lady, wanders in. She is wise to Phil and Spanky, but is charmed by Alan's superior manners. Sadie is also selling tickets for the Staff Dance that takes place that night. To everyone's amazement Hector buys two, and reveals that his mystery date is Lucille – a beautiful young woman who clearly has herself set on someone better looking, and probably more importantly, richer, than Hector. Finally, in strolls Lucille. Phil and Spanky badger her for details about Hector's courtship and it transpires that it is only in Hector's fantasy-world that she is going with him. The two turn on Hector but end up feeling rather sorry for him and resolve to help him win the fair dame. How they do this is by crudely tailoring his already crudely-tailored clothing and attempting to give him a haircut but succeed only in injuring his scalp with the scissors. After the lunch-break (which provides the interval in the play), the Slab Boys re-assemble. Lucille appears and Phil starts to broach the subject of Hector – he's going to ask Lucille out on Hector's behalf. Before he can reach the punch line, Hector's bloodied face appears at the window and terrifies her. They are hiding him while his clothes are being "altered". There thus ensues some typical farce as Hector is hidden during various walk-ons by Jack, Lucille and Mr. Curry. Sadie re-appears for the afternoon tea-break and bemoans her useless husband. It appears that, following a recent mastectomy, he even threw out her prosthetic breast, believing it to be a burst football. She advises Lucille to avoid men and the trouble they cause. At last Phil gets round to asking Lucille about the Staffie. Thinking he is asking on his own behalf, she agrees to go with him. Phil points out he was actually asking on the behalf of Hector. Lucille bluntly refuses. The wages come round while Phil is out and Spanky is perturbed to find that Phil's and Hector's are missing – they will come round later having been specially made up. This suggests that they are going to be sacked. This is indeed the case for Phil, but then Hector comes in looking rather shocked and Phil and Spanky assume he has also been sacked. However, to their surprise, is actually getting promoted to the design room. Alan then enters and delivers Phil another piece of bad news. He has just taken a phone call for Phil, and curtly tells him that he did not get in to the Art School. While he is digesting this a note arrives that his mother, who had briefly escaped from the asylum, is back in custody. Finally, Curry appears. Phil blows off at him over the sacking but Curry retorts that he actually stood up for Phil. Spanky knuckles under and gets back to grinding the paste as Phil, all his hopes gone, leaves the stage. |
They Burn the Thistles | Yaşar Kemal | 1,969 | The plot of "They Burn the Thistles" is much the same as in the first novel "Memed, My Hawk", where Memed, a young boy from a village in Anatolia is abused and beaten by the villainous Abdi Agha, the local landowner. Having endured great cruelty towards himself and his mother, he finally escapes with his beloved, a girl named Hatche. Abdi Agha catches up with the young couple, but only manages to capture Hatche, while Memed is able to avoid his pursuers and runs into the mountains whereupon he joins a band of brigands and exacts revenge against his old adversary. |
The American People | null | null | Chapter One, Ancient Americas and Africa: Includes the history of the peoples of America before Columbus, Africa on the eve of contact, Europe on the eve of contact, and a conclusion on the approach of a new global age. Chapter Two, Europeans and Africans Reach the Americas: Includes the breaching of the Atlantic, the Spanish conquest of America, England looking west, African bondage, and a conclusion on converging worlds. Chapter Three, Colonizing a Continent in the Seventeenth Century: Includes the history of Chesapeake tobacco coast, Massachusetts and its offspring, the French in Canada, proprietary Carolina, the Quakers and their "peaceable kingdom," New Spain and its northern frontier, the Era of Instability, and a conclusion on the achievement of new societies. Chapter Four, The Maturíng of Colonial Society: Includes the history of the Northern and Southern colonies, conflict in the New World, the urban world of commerce and ideas, the Great Awakening, political life in the colonies, and a conclusion on America in 1750. Chapter Five, The Strains of Empire: Includes the climatic Seven Years' War, the crisis with England, the ideology of Revolutionary Republicanism, the turmoil of a rebellious people, and a conclusion on the time where the colonies were on the brink of revolution. Chapter Six, A People in Revolution: Includes the bursting of the colonial bonds, the American War for Independence, the experiences of war, the ferment of revolutionary politics, and a conclusion on the crucible of revolution. Chapter Seven, Consolidating the Revolution: Includes the struggle of a peacetime agenda, sources of political conflict, the political tumult in the states, the movement toward a new national government, and a conclusion on completing the revolution. Chapter Eight, Creating a Nation: Includes the launching of the national republic, the republic in a threatening world, how the political crisis deepened, the restoration of American liberty, the building of an agrarian nation, foreign policy of the new nation, and a conclusion on the period of trial and transition. Chapter Nine, Society and Politics in the Early Republic: Includes how America was a nation of regions, Indian-White relations in the early republic, the end of Neo-Colonialism, how America was knitted together, how politics were in transition, and a conclusion on the passing of an era. Chapter Ten, Economic Transformations in the Northeast and the Old Northwest: Chapter Eleven, Slavery and the Old South: Chapter Twelve, Shaping America in the Antebellum Age: Chapter Thirteen, Moving West: Chapter Fourteen, The Union in Peril: Chapter Fifteen, The Union Severed: Chapter Sixteen, The Union Reconstructed: Chapter Seventeen, Rural America; The West and the New South: Chapter Eighteen, The Rise of Smokestack America: Chapter Nineteen, Politics and Reform: Chapter Twenty, Becoming a World Power: Chapter Twenty-One, The Progressives Confront Industrial Capitalism: Chapter Twenty-Two, The Great War: Chapter Twenty-Three, Affluence and Anxiety: Chapter Twenty-Four, The Great Depression and the New Deal: Chapter Twenty-Five, Wold War Two: Chapter Twenty-Six, Postwar America at Home, 1945-1960: Chapter Twenty-Seven, Chills and Fever During the Cold War, 1945-1960: Chapter Twenty-Eight, Reform and Rebellion in the Turbulent Sixties, 1960-1969: Chapter Twenty-Nine, Disorder and Discontent, 1969-1980: Chapter Thirty, The Revival of Conservatism, 1980-1992: Chapter Thirty-One, The Post-Cold War World, 1992-2002: Includes the Declaration of Independence, Constitution of the United States of America, chart of United States presidential elections, States of the United States, chart of the Population of the United States. Sixty-two pages covering the entire text. |
The Immortals | Chris Riddell | 2,009 | The story is set approximately 500 years after Freeglader. The Edge is much different from previous novels, with the advent of the Third Age of Flight, using stormphrax crystals as a source of power (stormphrax is highly volatile, gaining weight when in darkness and becoming unstable when in light. Twilight is the level of light needed for neutrality.). Three main settlements have arisen in the Deepwoods: Great Glade, Hive, and Riverrise. The protagonist is Nate Quarter, a lowly miner of phraxcrystals. Nate's father was the past mine sergeant before he died in a suspicious accident involving Grint Grayle, the present mine sergeant. Grayle is corrupt and only thinks about lining his own pockets. He doesn't care whether the people in his mine live or die. Late in the day after a hard day's work, Nate and his friend Rudd, a cloddertrog, leave the mine and go to a tavern which is made out of two skewered sky ships. It is a very friendly establishment. Nate and his friends are enjoying the evening drinking when suddenly the owner of the mine bursts in and tries to kill Nate. He has been trying to do this for three years. He does not succeed; instead Nate's friend Rudd is killed with a phraxpistol. Then some of the mining guards chase Nate into the woods and he hides there for a while. After this Nate returns to the mine and wakes his friend Slip, a gray goblin who sweeps the mine. Nate asks him to collect a few things from his dormitory while he goes to sort a few things out. While the goblin goes off, Nate sneaks into the mine building. He discovers a secret passage and uncovers a vast amount of wealth which the mine sergeant has built up over the three years. Nate gets discovered by the mine sergeant, secretly adjusts a light and leaves the building. When he meets up with the goblin they hide in a cart and the mine HQ blows up. Nate had planned this. They get on a steamer and buy passage to Great Glade on a ship called the Deadbolt Vulpoon. About a week later they arrive in Great Glade. Not much happens on the journey except that Nate makes friends with a man called "The Professor" because he calls history out to the people in the boxes in the gaming room for money. When they dock in Great Glade (formerly called the Free Glades but now split into 12 districts) they borrow a prowlgrin and set off to find work, finding the owner of the mine they used to work in. They arrive at the house of the mine owner, Galston Prade, and try to speak to him. Instead they speak to his secretary, the dishonest Felftis Brack, because he refuses to see them. The secretary appears to be shocked at what Nate tells him and says that the mine owner will be told as soon as possible. They leave, still feeling a little anxious. They proceed to travel to Cloud Quarter which houses the academies. Nate tries to speak to his dead mother's uncle, the High Professor of Flight, to persuade him to lend money or find him a place to work, but he is obnoxious and hostile, so Nate leaves angrily. They travel to a posting pole (like the ones in old Undertown, but they don't post up places on Sky Ships, they post up work around the 12 districts). They find one in a stilt shop and travel to it. When they are let through the doors a heavily coated figure opens the gate and lets them in. This figure is later revealed to be a banderbear, Weelum. Nate and the grey goblin go up and talk to the secretary of the man who runs the workshop, asking him for work, but because they have no experience working in stilt shops, he turns them away. Disappointed, they turn around, but the owner sees them and asks Nate to fix a lantern on his desk. He obliges, and the owner is pleased and rewards them by offering them both a job, accommodation and 60 gladers each per month, which they both gladly accept. Six months pass. Nate has become close friends with Galston's daughter, Eudoxia Prade. She was originally friends with Branxford Drew, the son of the stilt shop owner, but she came to dislike him because he stole from his father and was obnoxious and spoiled. She and Nate become good, close friends. Earlier when Nate was at the Lake Landing Academy, he came across a picture of Rook and made a connection between Rook and himself. On the evening before the thousand stick match, Nate is called to Friston Drew's office and is given an offer which he finds hard to believe. Friston Drew offers the inheritance of the company to Nate, as well as Nate being his junior partner in the business. On the day of the thousand stick match, Nate is enjoying the game, when suddenly a noise like thunder ripples across the sky, coming from the Copperwood district. Nate is about to win the game, when Drew's son throws him off the pole after confessing that he set up the plot to kill his father, after hearing the father's offer to him. Nate wakes up in the grey goblin's garden shed. They are hiding from the city's watch. They determine what happened and decide to leave Great Glade and travel to Hive, where the "Professor's" brother used to attend the Sumpwood Bridge Academy. They travel to the man who is going to take them to Midwood Decks, a settlement where they can charter a ship to Hive. As they leave the Great Glade they are shot down and are forced to continue the journey on foot. On the journey the Banderbear makes a shelter for them every night, but during their journey they are attacked by Wig Wigs. Nate manages to fight them off by using sky crystals to scare the Wig Wigs away. They then reach Midwood Docks where they meet a pilot that drives a sumpwood vehicle called the Varis Lodd. The vehicle is reminiscent of the flight machines in the second age of flight. They witness a pro hiver murder another citizen and escape as quickly as they can. When they reach Hive they go to the Sumpwood Academy and stay there, while trying to find Eudoxia's father. In this period they find out that he has been captured by the Gyle goblins and their Gross Mother. To rescue him they steal some military outfits but during the escape they are seen by a drill sergeant and are drafted into the military, where they are trained for the battle with the Great Glade. When they reach Midwood Docks they fight the Great Glade army, while the Hive army is all but wiped out and Eudoxia had been shot above the ear. After Nate is knocked out at Midwood Decks, he wakes up on a sky ship heading to Riverrise, because it is the only place that can heal Eudoxia's wound as it is slowly killing her. On the journey the ship is described and landmarks are pointed out and Keris, Twig's daughter, is mentioned as they go over the lake where she met the Great Blueshell Clam, as she is the only being other than the Webfoot Goblins to meet with it. They get to the Thorn Gate and the librarian scholar leaves them to tell Eudoxia's father of her fate. Nate and a waif guide travel to the city of Riverrise where they meet two gabtrolls and travel together. When they get to Riverrise it is revealed that the two gabtrolls work for Golderayce, the absolute ruler of Riverrise. A doctor comes and gets the bullet out of Eudoxia's head but needs to give her medicine which, after a couple of weeks, doesn't work. Nate decides to break into the keep to get pure Riverrise water instead of the less powerful stuff that they have to live with. Nate breaks in with the gabtrolls' help but Goldrayce finds out and pursues him. Just as he is about to kill Nate with a dart, a caterbird knocks the dart back which kills Goldrayce. Nate reaches the spring where he sees a gravestone for Maugin the stone pilot, and meets up with Twig Verginix and Rook Barkwater. It is revealed that Twig was flown back to Riverrise by the Caterbird after being mortally wounded during the battle with the Tower of Night. Upon his arrival he saw his former Stone Pilot, Maugin - but jealous of his love for her, Golderayce killed her just before they were reunited. He then goaded Twig with the fact that they would never be together again. Years later Rook traveled to Riverrise to see if Twig was waiting for him, and was ambushed. He managed to shoot Golderayce, hence leaving him the way he looks. Twig and Rook lived there for years, waiting for Nate to reach them. When he did, a great storm came that picked up both Twig and Rook and there, waiting for them, was the young Quintinius Verginix. Nate managed to escape, and released the healing waters of Riverrise. Eudoxia is healed, as well as Galston Prade who was dying of phraxlung, a cough contracted in the phraxmines, where Galston once worked. They return home where they meet their friends, and they travel towards the Edge where Old Undertown used to be. Along the way they meet two Shrykes, which tell them they are heading to a city of shiny spires. It turns out to be Sanctaphrax, which had blown back to where it was after Twig cut the Anchor Chain. It looked exactly as it did before, and the group are eager to explore it. When they reach the landing, they are greeted by Linius Pallitax the former Most High Academe, which worries the Professor, as he knows that Linius Pallitax had died after the fire in his Palace. The Professor visits the library where he meets his brother. They then discover that all the people on the rock are gloamglozers, created by the original which hunted Twig, and while the Professor's brother describes it, he is killed. The original gloamglozer plans to kill Nate when he realizes that Nate is related to Quint, whom he swore to destroy, and releases him. The gloamglozer reveals his illusion; Sanctaphrax is actually in an advanced state of ruin. The Caterbird saves Nate and takes the old painting of Quint. Shortly afterward, three golden objects fall down which the gloamglozers are attracted to, and it is then that Quint, Twig and Rook emerge. Quint, Rook and Twig kill the gloamglozers. Nate then talks to Quint, Twig and Rook. They explain that none of them had a proper death; Quint disappeared into a storm, Twig and Rook lived as immortals. Gloamglozers were attracted to them because of the years of pain they'd had. Shortly afterward they disappear again, after telling Nate that their stories were over, but his is just beginning. It is revealed that the Edge has always been seeded with life, by glisters. The first glister became the Sanctaphrax rock. The second became the great Blueshell clam. The third became the Caterbird. All life began this way, except the gloamglozer, and with its creation came the disease affecting flight rocks, known as stone sickness. Nate and the Professor both decide to go over the Edge. The others stay in the ruins of Sanctaphrax and build the city again as it always should have been. When the city is restored they will bring back its population, and the new Phraxdocks, which are located where Old Undertown used to be. fr:La Guerre du phrax |
Catching Fire | Suzanne Collins | 2,009 | After winning the 74th Hunger Games in the previous novel, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark return home to District 12, the poorest sector in the country of Panem. On the day that Katniss and Peeta are to start a "Victory Tour" of the country, she is visited by President Snow. After agreeing not to lie to each other, President Snow explains that he is angry with her for breaking the rules at the end of the last Hunger Games, which permitted them both to win. President Snow tells Katniss that when she defied the Capitol, she inspired rebellion in the districts. The first stop on the Victory Tour is District 11, the home of Katniss's friend and ally in the Hunger Games, Rue, before she died. During the ceremony, Katniss delivers a quick speech to the people of District 11, thanking them for their tributes. When she is done, an old man whistles a tune that Katniss used in the arena to tell Rue that she was safe. The song acts as a signal and everyone salutes Katniss using the same gesture that she used to say farewell to Rue. Katniss and Peeta then proceed to travel to all of the twelve districts and the Capitol. During an interview, Peeta proposes to Katniss publicly, hoping to settle the dispute between Katniss and President Snow. Despite this, Katniss learns that their attempts of subduing rebellion in the districts have failed. Shortly after returning to District 12, Katniss encounters two runaways from District 8. They explain a theory that District 13 was not wiped out by the Capitol, due to its residents going underground, and that stock footage of 13 is played instead of new film on television. Later, it is announced that, for the 75th Hunger Games, 24 victors from previous years will be forced to compete once again. This is in honor of the "Quarter Quell": an event that occurs every 25th year of the Games and allows the Capitol to introduce a twist. Knowing that she and Peeta will both be competing in the Games a second time, Katniss decides that she will devote herself to protecting Peeta. However, Peeta is devoted to protecting her. During the Games, Katniss and Peeta join up with two other previous victors, Finnick Odair: a 24-year-old man who successfully survived the Games at the age of 14 and Mags: Finnick's 80-year-old mentor, both from District 4. After Mags's death, Katniss, Peeta and Finnick join forces with Johanna Mason, a sarcastic and often cruel victor from District 7, and Beetee and Wiress, an older couple from District 3 who are said to be "exceptionally smart". Wiress soon proves her genius by revealing to Katniss that the arena is arranged like a clock, with all of the arena's disasters occurring on a timed chart. After Wiress is killed, Katniss learns of Beetee's plan to harness lightning in order to supposedly electrocute two other contenders. In the final chapters, Katniss directs the lightning at the force field that contains the arena, thereby destroying the arena and resulting in her temporary paralysis. When she wakes up, she is being transported to District 13: a place that is widely thought to no longer exist. She is joined by Finnick, Beetee, and Haymitch but learns that Peeta and Johanna have been captured by the Capitol. Katniss is informed that there had been a plan among most of the contestants to break out of the arena and that Beetee had been attempting to destroy the force field in the same way that she did. The book ends when Katniss's best friend, Gale, comes to visit her and informs her that, though he got her family out in time, District 12 has been bombed and destroyed. |
A Civil Action | Jonathan Harr | 1,996 | After finding that her child is diagnosed with leukemia, Anne Anderson notices a high incidence of leukemia, a relatively rare disease, in her city. Eventually she gathers other families and seeks a lawyer, Jan Schlichtmann, to consider their options. Schlichtmann originally decides not to take the case due to both the lack of evidence and a clear defendant. Later picking up the case, Schlichtmann finds evidence suggesting trichloroethylene (TCE) contamination of the town's water supply by Riley Tannery, a subsidiary of Beatrice Foods; a chemical company, W.R. Grace; and another company named Unifirst. In the course of the lawsuit Schlichtmann gets other attorneys to assist him. He spends lavishly as he had in his prior lawsuits, but the length of the discovery process and trial stretch all of their assets to their limit. Though Unifirst settles for a little over $1 million, the money immediately is invested in the case against Grace and Beatrice. The plaintiffs' case against Grace is far stronger for two reasons: (1) Schlichtmann has personal testimony of a former employee of Grace who had witnessed dumping, and (2) a river between Beatrice's tannery and the contaminated wells make their contribution to the contamination less plausible. The case against Beatrice is dismissed by Judge Skinner. Though Schlichtmann's firm anticipates a much higher settlement, the dire state of its finances forces it to accept settlement from W.R. Grace for $8 million. Schlichtmann disburses the settlement to the families, excluding expenses and attorney's fees (which resulted in approx. $375,000 per family). When some families think Schlichtmann had overbilled expenses, he acquiesces and surrenders more of his fee. Schlichtmann later files for bankruptcy after losing his condo and car; he lives in his office for a time. Schlichtmann eventually practices environmental, civil and personal injury law. A report from the Environmental Protection Agency (which later filed its own lawsuits against the companies based on new evidence) concludes that both companies had contaminated the wells from sludge removed from the site. In 1988 Schlichtmann attempts to reraise the case against Beatrice, but the judge dismisses the case, citing testimony from Beatrice's soil chemist. However, due to the lawsuits brought forward by the Environmental Protection Agency W.R. Grace and Beatrice Foods are eventually forced to pay for the largest chemical clean up in the history of the Northeastern United States which cost about $64 million. |
Canyons | Gary Paulsen | 1,990 | Canyons is a book about two boys. One boy is named Coyote Runs (age 14) and the other boy is Brennan Cole (age 15). The story starts with Brennan making a short narrative about his life and switches back and forth from Brennan and Coyote Runs. Later in the story, the switching ends when Coyote Runs gets shot in the head during his first raid that would, if successful, will make him a man among his Apache tribe. However, he is shot by American soldiers and dies instantly. Nearly two hundred years later, Brennan finds his skull with a bullet hole in its forehead, and becomes obsessive of it. From that point on in the novel, a mystical link connects Brennan's mind with Coyote Runs' spirit. After talking to his old biology teacher, he runs sixty miles in a day and a night to retrieve the skull to the top of a canyon - a place Coyote Runs calls his “medicine place." After a grueling run and chased by so-called rescuers, he gets Coyote Runs' skull back to his medicine place ending the bond and the novel. |
Giving Is Living | null | 2,009 | Giving is Living presents a clear, practical guide to making generosity a part of our everyday lives. It shows us how small efforts to reach out to help those in need can make a real difference. Authors (and sisters) Marnie Howard and Tisha Howard write that to function in a world of limited resources and burgeoning demands, we need provide aid to each other. Through the book, the authors explain that generosity does not have to be about giving money, but can freely and easily extend into our everyday lives. |
Irish Thoroughbred | Nora Roberts | 1,981 | The novel follows the relationship between Irishwoman Adelia "Dee" Cunnane and American Travis Grant. As the story begins, the young and penniless Dee emigrates to the United States to live with her uncle, Paddy, who works on a large horse farm. Dee's love for animals is evident, and she is given a job working alongside her uncle. Dee has a fiery temper and often argues with Travis, the wealthy farm owner; many of their arguments lead to passionate embraces. Travis later rescues Dee from an attempted rape. When Paddy suffers a heart attack, he becomes very concerned about his mortality and Dee's future. He becomes overwrought and insists that Travis take care of Dee. After privately agreeing to a temporary marriage of convenience, Travis and Dee exchange vows in Paddy's hospital room. As the story progresses, the protagonists become increasingly unhappy, with neither willing to admit their love for the other. Although still unwilling to vocalize their feelings, Dee and Travis appear more confident in their relationship after they finally consummate their marriage. Soon, however, Dee's insecurities are exploited by Travis's sophisticated former girlfriend, Margot, who has returned to the area to win him back. Dee runs away. Travis follows, and the two confess their love and resolve to make their marriage work. |
Carazamba | null | null | The novel is a narrative describing Guatemala in the 1940s. The book takes the reader to different parts of the country, from the port city of Livingston, Izabal, to the jungle region of Petén, where much of the action occurs. The novel tells the story of the misfortunes of the nameless narrator and his butler Pedro, who come to know Carazamba and her secrets. This book, apart from containing much action and romance, is told in an emotional style and with the sense of the position towards the military government in power in Guatemala in the 1940s. |
Gingersnaps | Cathy Cassidy | 2,008 | The story starts with Ginger, an overweight child with no friends and red hair. Then the book forwards to when she's 12, popular and confident, having lost weight, found make-up, and hair-straighteners, and with a best friend, Shannon. Ginger is happy, until she and Shannon befriend a lonely girl from Ginger's old school, Emily Croft. Ginger finds that Shannon likes Emily more than her, making her upset, and breaking their friendship. Meanwhile, Ginger meets Sam, a boy at her school that doesn't wear uniform and ditches class often. Shannon doesn't like him and thinks he's weird (Ginger later says that Shannon doesn't like him because he's the only boy that doesn't fall to her feet) but Ginger starts to, and they are secretly together. Mr. Hunter, their English teacher (who everyone likes but Sam, and Shannon has a crush on) announces that they will make a school magazine (S'cool). Shannon is the Editor. After the magazine is completed, the students throw a release party which falls on Shannon's 13th birthday. Shannon's parents aren't home at the party, so some of her friends bring in beer, and soon everyone starts to get drunk except Emily and Ginger. Mr. Hunter arrives and tries to calm things down, but it doesn't work. Sam also comes and Shannon tells him to get lost, and says that Ginger thinks he's weird and is too nice to tell him. Ginger is shocked and Sam gets hurt and leaves. Ginger ends up crying. Shannon gets rejected by Mr. Hunter and then becomes upset. Soon a fight starts up when the student photographer, Jas Kapoor, starts taking pictures of the party (part of his idea for the next issue of the magazine, The truth behind teen parties) and he takes a picture of Andy Collins drinking and smoking with Shannon on his leg and also a picture of ginger and Sam about to kiss under the staircase. Soon a neighbour calls the police, and Ginger calls Shannon's parents. Back at school, Ginger gets called to the principal's office. Her parents are called in too. She doesn't know what she is in trouble for. The principal brings out a picture from the party with Mr.Hunter and his arm over her shoulder (which was just Mr. Hunter trying to comfort her after everything started to go wrong)and they ask her many questions but when Jas Kapoor was called in he said that the picture was edited and this never happened. Soon Shannon starts telling everyone lies about Mr.Hunter that he was after herself and Ginger, and parents get worried about having Mr.Hunter teaching their children. Soon Mr.Hunter leaves, even though he didn't do anything. Six weeks after the party, Shannon talks to Ginger saying that she should come hang out with her again (Ginger has become friends with people Shannon call 'freaks', Sam and Ginger and has now started dating openly) but Ginger refuses, and later thinks that Shannon is the one at loss. Afterward, Shannon gets a new 'friend' Nisha Choudhury, which in Ginger's words, is 'an experiment, like Emily, and me.' But Ginger is happy with her new boyfriend and the band all of them started. |
M or F? | Lisa Papademetriou | 2,005 | Frannie Falconer has a crush on someone. For once, it's on someone who doesn't look like a Museum of Natural History exhibit- hot vegetarian volunteer Jeffrey Osbourne, who even her gay best friend and 'brain twin' Marcus Beauregard can't find anything to laugh about. She's chronically shy around him, though, so Marcus suggests that she chat with him online, as it takes away some of the nausea of face-to-face conversation. Even that doesn't work, so Marcus decides to 'help out' a little- by taking over the keyboard and writing the conversations for her. At first, this works out perfectly, because Frannie's hovering over his shoulder making sure he doesn't do anything stupid. Later, however, Marcus becomes tempted to continue on these conversations when Frannie's not around using her screen name--and it becomes unclear exactly who Jeffrey likes- Marcus or Frannie. Meanwhile, Frannie and Jeffrey's so-called 'relationship' is suffering—as chronicled with such madcap adventures as Marcus signing Frannie up for the school carnival's "Shoot the Freak" booth while he's online talking to Jeffrey. Frannie begins to worry that Marcus may be jealous of her spending so much time with Jeffrey and his group, especially after Jeffrey's best friend Glenn makes a somewhat nasty homophobic joke. Eventually, however, Frannie finds out that Marcus has been posing as her online, and they get into a huge fight. She calls Jenn, one of her other friends, and they realize that Jeffrey wasn't falling for Frannie at all, but actually for Marcus, who he thought was Frannie. This leads them to believe that Jeffrey might be gay. Frannie decides to find out by trying to seduce Jeffrey by wearing a negligee and serving him ginseng-laced hot cacao, but when he throws up, she decides he must be gay. Marcus and Frannie reconcile, and she tells him of her suspicions of Jeffrey's sexuality. They decide to take Jeffrey to a meeting of the school's Gay-Straight Alliance, but this doesn't give them any information. Marcus decides to try and hook up with Jeffrey. The next day, Frannie is waiting outside of the Lincoln Park Cinema, waiting for Marcus to arrive so they can see a special showing of King Kong. To her surprise, Glenn, Jeffrey's best friend, shows up, telling her that Marcus told him to go there. Marcus calls, telling Frannie he has a flat and will be 'unable to make it,' and Frannie realizes what Marcus is going to do—and that he's trying to set her and Glenn up. She tells Glenn about it, and he reveals to her that he's gay, denying the fact that Jeffrey is. Frannie puts two and two together and realizes that Marcus is about to make the 'most humiliating mistake of his life' by trying to hit on Jeffrey. They rush over to Buckingham Fountain, where Marcus is just about to kiss Jeffrey. Everything gets sorted out, and Jeffrey confesses that he needed help with the online conversations as well, so Glenn helped him, and eventually the same thing that happened with Marcus and Frannie happened with them as well. Jeffrey and Frannie walk off, while Glenn talks to Marcus and eventually kisses him. Meanwhile, Frannie tells Jeffrey that they would be better off as friends. In the end, Glenn ends up with Marcus, the German girl Astrid is still hitting on Jeffrey, and Frannie ends up with a freaky quasi-cowboy she met at a line-dancing place Marcus's grandmother made them go. |
Just David | Eleanor H. Porter | 1,916 | David is a ten-year old boy who plays the violin and does not know his last name. He leads an idyllic life in the mountains with his father, until his father becomes gravely ill, forcing them to go down into the valley. With his father's health worsening, they spend the night in a barn. Just before he dies, the father gives David a large number of gold coins, telling him to hide them until they are needed. David plays the violin to soothe his "sleeping father" and is found by Simeon Holly and his wife. Realizing the man is dead, they try to figure out who David is, but all he can tell them is that he is "just David." David is unable to tell them his last name, his father's name, or if he has any relatives. They find some letters on the dead man, but the signature on it is illegible. The couple reluctantly let him stay with them as he reminds them of their own son, John, whom they no longer speak with. David learns to adjust to live in the village, taking one of his two violins with him wherever he goes and "playing" the world around him, such as playing "the sunset" and "the flowers," and using his music to express his feelings. His innocence and musical skills charm the villagers and change several of their lives, uniting in marriage two childhood sweethearts who had grown apart. He also changes the Hollys, healing Simeon's heart enough that he reconnects with his son and allows him to come visit with his new wife and child. During the visit, they learn that David's violins are quite valuable. His own is an Amati and his father's, which he had loaned to a blind friend, a Stradivarius. Reading the old letter from David's father, John recognizes the signature and realizes that David's father was a world-famous violinist who had disappeared with his son after his wife's death. David is sent to be reunited with his relatives and to study the violin. He becomes famous and wealthy, but continues to visit the Hollys every year to play for them. |
The Colour | Rose Tremain | 2,003 | Joseph and Harriet Blackstone, and Joseph's mother Lilian, are immigrants from England on the SS Albert into the South Island of New Zealand in 1860s. After settling the two women into accommodation in Christchurch, Joseph travels to the foothills near the Okuku river to build their Cob House. Joseph returns to Christchurch once the house has been built and the three of them set off to start their new lives on their farm. The harsh first winter brings with it problems which threaten the viability of their farm, but Joseph's chance finding of gold in the nearby creek changes the situation. Not telling Harriet about the find, Joseph abandons the farm and travels by boat to Hokitika on the West Coast of the South Island where major gold strikes have occurred. After Lilian's death, Harriet also travels to Hokitika and delivers that news to Joseph. The search for gold, the 'colour', goes on in difficult conditions. Joseph's encounters with Will Sefton, a young man whom he met on the boat bringing them to the West Coast, and Pao Yi, a Chinese gardener befriended by Harriet, add flavour to the dynamics of the searching couple's relationship which has become distant and strained. Joseph's guilt surrounding events in England prior to their emigration impact on this separation. |
A Fringe of Leaves | Patrick White | 1,976 | {| cellpadding="5" style="width:40%; float:right; font-size:85%;border-collapse:collapse; background:transparent; border-style:none;" |- | width="20" valign=top | | align="left" |... she fell back upon the dust, amongst intimations of the nightmare which threatened to re-shape itself around her. Her trembling only gradually subsided as she lay fingering the ring threaded into her fringe of leaves... |- | colspan="3" | A Fringe of Leaves, p 223 |}A young Cornish woman, Mrs Ellen Roxburgh, travels to the Australian colonies in the early 1830s with her much older husband, Austin, to visit the "black sheep" of the family, Austin's brother Garnet Roxburgh. After witnessing the brutalities of Van Diemens Land, the Roxburghs embark on their return trip to England on The Bristol Maid. However, the ship runs aground on the coral reef off Fraser Island on the coast of what is now Queensland. Ellen is the only survivor from the leaky vessel in which the passengers and crew travel to the shore. She is rescued by the aboriginal people of the island, and she later meets Jack Chance, a convict who has escaped from Moreton Bay (now Brisbane), the brutal penal settlement to the south. It is Chance who escorts her through the dangerous coastal territory south to the outskirts of the settlement, but who refuses to accompany her further and returns to his exile. She returns to "civilisation" transformed and tormented by her experience with Garnet in Van Diemen's Land, with the aboriginal people, and with Chance. The novel sets in sharp relief the distinctions between men and women, whites and blacks, the convicts and the free, and English colonists and Australian settlers. The contrast between Ellen's rural Cornish background and the English middle-class she has married into is also highlighted. |
Bluebeard's Egg | null | null | In this collection, Atwood explores the politics of sex and heterosexual relationships, examining the emotions, betrayals, and casualties of such relationships. Four of the stories in the collection depart from this theme to instead present presumably autobiographic ruminations on the narrator’s childhood influences. The majority of these stories are set in downtown Toronto. |
A Girl from Lübeck | Bruce Marshall | 1,962 | Versory, a literary lecturer engaged in spreading English culture (“From Beowulf to Dylan Thomas”) throughout Germany, needs a ride after delivering a talk to a group of matrons. Imagine his surprise when his driver is the gorgeous Hannelore, a girl in a thousand. Her blond beauty and charming personality ensnare his heart and imagination. They arrange to meet again in Paris, to attend a meeting of literary lecturers from other countries. It is in Paris that Versory’s suspicions are aroused. How does she afford her expensive clothes and other habits? Hannelore claims that there is no way to contact her, that she will get in touch with him. Even though she contacts him regularly and her affection for him is obvious, he wonders if Hannelore is what she seems. And for that matter, Versory himself is not what he appears to be, his career as a lecturer is actually just a convenient cover for other activities. In fact, in this fast-moving and paradoxical story, few people are what they seem to be, even to themselves. Is the lecturer from Russia interested only in stimulating an appreciation of Russian literature? And what is his connection with the gentleman from South America? What is Hannelore doing in the elegant establishment of Mme. Putiphar? Where is Vesory’s chief taking her in the sports car -- and why? Does she really love Versory or is she only using him? The answers to these questions are revealed as "A Girl from Lübeck" unfolds. It is a story with several levels: it is a romance, a tale of suspense and intrigue, a lighthearted satire, but it is also a parable. For in the end, the mystery surrounding the girl from Lübeck is cleared away and the meaning of Faith and Grace is revealed. |
The Slap | Christos Tsiolkas | 2,008 | At a barbecue in suburban Melbourne, a man slaps a three year old boy across the face. The child, Hugo, has been misbehaving without any intervention by his parents, "the steely-eyed Rosie and the wimpish Gary". The slapper is Harry, cousin of the barbecue host and adulterous businessman whose slightly older son, Rocco, is being threatened by Hugo. This event sends the other characters "into a spiral, agonising and arguing over the notion that striking a child can ever be justified. Some believe a naughty boy should be taught some discipline, others maintain the police ought to be brought in to investigate a common assault" with a range of positions in between. |
Riven | null | null | Brady Darby's Story Sixteen-year-old Brady Wayne Darby and his eight-year-old brother Peter live in Touhy Avenue Trailer-Park with their alcoholic chain-smoking mother Erlene; Erlene's husband had abandoned her shortly after Peter's birth. Brady, who dreams of buying a car and fleeing the trailer-park, has obtained a part-time job sweeping up the local laundrette—from which he often takes a share of the coins in the machines' boxes to supplement his wages. At school, he is on the Football Team; however, he generally does not perform well academically, which causes him to be cut from the athletic squad—with a suggestion from the coach to try the Drama Club. Thomas Carey's Story Fortysix-year-old Thomas Carey, a pastor who has never been long at one church, finds a posting in Georgia. While going there, he and his wife Grace visit their twentyfour-year-old daughter Ravinia, a law student at Emory University of whose spiritual position they have great concern. The Careys are eventually driven out of this posting by the Selection Board chairman, who has decided hypocritically (as his own five sons have a combined-total of eight marriages) that Thomas Carey is a poor example of a Christian, having not raised Ravinia properly. They eventually move to Adamsville, OH where Carey is appointed as the chaplain of the Adamsville State Prison, a super-maximum-security facility which houses a death row. ASP's warden, Frank "Yanno" (so nicknamed due to his oft starting sentences with "yeah, no"--a nickname he dislikes to hear) LeRoy allows inmates condemned to death to choose their method of execution, assuming they will choose between: * hanging (he boasts to Carey that ASP is one of the few prisons to still have a gallows) * electrocution * gas-chamber * lethal-injection When they reach Adamsville, Grace Carey is diagnosed as having a severe form of leukemia, for which inducing remission is possible for short-term, but not permanently. Brady Darby's Conversion After Brady, now 30, is convicted of the horrific murder of twentythree-year-old Katie North (whom he believed to be in love with him), he is sentenced to death speedily—and though there is a mandatory appeals process which can take several (at least three) years, he informs his lawyer that he will be uncooperative so that his execution will be guaranteed. He is taken to ASP in Adamsville. After his 90-day administrative-break-in period, Brady asks for a meeting with Carey, and is mailed a literature packet (which includes The Romans Road and a modern-English translation of the New Testament). Within a month, he asks for a personal visit from Carey so that he can "confess Christ with his mouth". About six months into his time at ASP, Brady chooses the method of his execution—crucifixion, complete with thorn-crown and spear-pierce of his side after his death—which surprises not only Carey and Ravinia, but even Yanno who initially reacts that Brady must choose from the four methods he has in-situ. Ravinia is, however, able to persuade Yanno on this, as Brady's idea is to show exactly how ugly and cruel that first-century Roman punishment was. As Ohio's Director Of Corrections and its Governor argue against the appeals—successfully—and anti-death-penalty activists protest against the planned execution, the Government Of Israel donates a cross specifying it as "roughly of original Roman dimensions". Eventually, Brady's request to be crucified is granted—but his requests for thorn-crown and post-mortem piercing are denied. As the date draws closer, Brady sees his mother claim on TV that she "had raised him to know Jesus" and that she is "glad he is coming back to his faith", and then wailing that she cannot fly from her current address in Florida to visit her son. The International Cable Network, which is covering the execution and its leadup, flies her to Adamsville for a visit. Brady, meanwhile, reads the Bible aloud for other inmates, hoping that some of them will also convert. |
Shangri-La | null | null | In the mid-21st century, the international committee decided to forcefully reduce CO2 emission levels to mitigate the global warming crisis. As a result, the economic market was transferred mainly into the trade of carbon. A great earthquake destroys much of Japan, yet the carbon tax placed on the country is not lifted, so Tokyo is turned into the world’s largest "jungle-polis" that absorbs carbon dioxide. Project Atlas is commenced to plan the rebuilding of Tokyo and oversee the government organization, which the Metal Age group opposes due to its oppressive nature. However, Atlas is only built with enough room for 3,500,000 people and most people are not allowed to migrate into the city. The disparity between the elite within Atlas and the refugees living in the jungles outside of its walls set up the background of the story. |
Typewriter in the Sky | L. Ron Hubbard | null | The main character, Mike de Wolf, is a struggling pianist in New York. His friend, Horace Hackett, is an author and popular pulp fiction writer, who writes about Mike as the villain in his book, Mike enters the bathroom of Hackett's apartment, and hears the sound of someone typing on a typewriter. Mike learns he is regarded in this world as the villain, Spanish Admiral Miguel de Lobo, a "pirate potboiler". He knows that the villains in stories written by Hackett often do not come to a favorable end, and is therefore eager to safely leave the realm to which he was transported. The story takes place on the high seas in the Caribbean during the 17th century with a conflict among colonists. Hackett writes under pressure, as he is facing a deadline. He falls in love with a woman in the story, but grows frustrated after realizing that she is just another of Hackett's fictional creations. Mike looks up into the sky in search of this mystical device or its controller, "Abruptly Mike de Wolfe stopped. His jaw slackened a trifle and his hand went up to his mouth to cover it. His eyes were fixed upon the fleecy clouds which scurried across the moon. Up there – God? In a dirty bathrobe?" |
The Mistletoe Mystery | null | null | This story begins when Nancy and George go to meet Nancy's friend and George's cousin, Bess who has been hired by Special Effects to decorate Albemarle's Department store for the Christmas holidays. The three girls, there then meet Bess' old conselor at camp when she was 10 whose name was Ali Marie. She is at first thrilled that Ali Marie is working at Albemarle's. But then some Ellen-Louise dresses are swiped. Ali is accused of the theft, since she was the last person to see them. Bess is sure of Ali's innocence, so she calls for Nancy's help to find the thief. They have many suspects and many misleading clues. |
The Riding Club Crime | Carolyn Keene | 2,003 | Nancy, George and Elsa are enjoying a horse ride, when Nancy's horse falls into a hole while attempting a jump over a post-and-rail, four-foot jump. Elsa is a counselor at Green Spring Pony Club summer camp. The camp has been vandalised by unknown persons. The owner, Mrs Rogers, is getting worried. Nancy, disguised as a counselor, tries to figure out who the culprit is. As more incidents happen, the more Nancy realizes she has to work quickly. Will Nancy and her friends be able to keep the Green Spring Farm going? |
Inspector Ghote Hunts the Peacock | H. R. F. Keating | 1,968 | Inspector Ghote is tasked by his Superintendent to attend the London police conference and present a prepared speech. On arrival at London airport Inspector Ghote is met by his cousins, Mr and Mrs Datta, who run a London restaurant. Their niece, 17 year old Ranee, known as the Peacock for her brightness, has disappeared. The family suspect her boyfriend, 35 year old pop music star Johnny Bull. An interview with the girl's friends reveals that they believe she has been killed but do not know who by. Ghote visits the singer in his flat where he is told that Johnny has not seen the Peacock since she disappeared and that Johnny has taken up with another girl, Susan. Johnny is a self-confessed opium user and informs Ghote that the Peacock herself was a drug user who acquired her drugs from a local public house known as the "Robin's Nest". At the "Robin's Nest", Ghote extracts a confession from the owner of having supplied opium to Peacock. He learns of a protection racket being run by the Smith brothers and is surprised to find that the Peacock's uncle, Vidur Datta, is an opium user. Later, Ghote manages to confront the Smith brothers at their home (where they live with their mother), only to find himself in immediate danger. He is rescued by a passing policeman who advises Ghote against interfering in an investigation being conducted by the British Police and suggests in a patronising manner that Ghote should stay in busy well-lit streets. Ghote decides to take up the matter with the local police station where he encounters a prejudiced desk sergeant. Believing he has reached a dead end to his enquiries, Ghote decides to drop the case. The Peacock's aunt, Mrs Datta, quickly changes his mind by making it an issue of professional pride. Ghote keeps watch on the Smith bother's home the following night and gains access while they are out. While talking to their mother he learns they were in police custody before and after the disappearance of the Peacock. Returning to the "Robin's Nest" Ghote accuses the owner of lying and attempting to steer him into harm's way. Ghote satisfies himself that the man could not have murdered the Peacock however. Ghote attempts to interview Johnny Bull again, but fails to get past Susan. He learns that Johnny will be at a particular recording studio that afternoon. He returns to the conference where he listens to a superb presentation and learns that his own presentation must follow it the next day. He begins to become nervous about addressing a crowd. At the recording studio, Ghote conceals himself and overhears enough from Susan to realise that Johnny Bull could not have kidnapped or murdered the Peacock. When he returns to his cousins he informs them of his findings so far and is promptly scolded for spending so much time finding out who has not kidnapped or murdered the girl. The next day Ghote has developed a cold as a result of the British climate. He finds the conference has moved into a much larger and grander room for the last day. His speech will be the last of the conference and he becomes increasingly nervous as the time for him to speak. However, the man who is to introduce Ghote is twenty minutes late, leaving him in a state of consternation. Finally Ghote gives his presentation and makes an appalling job of it. Frustrated and angry at everything that has happened, he adds what he has learned about Johnny Bull using opium and walks out. That evening at his cousin's restaurant, Ghote realises he has solved the mystery of the Peacock's disappearance. Ghote accuses his cousin, Vidur Datta, of murdering Ranee "The Peacock" Datta because she was blackmailing him with his secret opium habit. The body is concealed under the restaurant's rubbish. No sooner has Ghote made the accusation and secured a confession than the British Police arrive, eager to congratulate him on the information he supplied about Johnny Bull. Johnny has been arrested and confessed to smuggling drugs in the Indian harmonium he has been using in his latest songs. |
The Scarlet Empire | null | null | John Walker is a young American socialist, active and dedicated. Yet his personal poverty, and the slow progress of his cause, leave him despondent. In a fit of depression he decides on suicide by drowning: he hurls himself off "the long pier...called the Suicides' Promenade" at Coney Island. He loses consciousness—but is revived by a man in a strange diving suit; Walker at first mistakes him for a kind of fish/man. In fact, the man is a surgeon engaged in research; he explains to Walker that they are in Atlantis, at the bottom of the sea, and gives the American a cursory explanation of the nature of Atlantean society. (He cannot say much; Atlanteans are limited to a thousand words of speech per day, as measured by the "verbometers" they wear.) Socialist literature found in Walker's pockets suggests to the Atlantean authorities that Walker might be acceptable to their regime. (A few other Americans have penetrated to Atlantis in the past, though no one from the Earth's surface is there when Walker arrives.) The American is assigned to a barracks; the doctor who serves it is appointed his guide in all things Atlantean (and is given a dispensation to speak more than 1000 words per day). Together, the surgeon and the doctor become Walker's closest companions in his new life. The people of the domed city dress in red; their buildings, and even the cigars they smoke, are of the same color, giving their society its nickname, the Scarlet Empire. At first, Walker (or Citizen No. 489 ADG, as he is designated) is delighted to have awakened in a socialist state; but his enthusiasm quickly fades as he experiences the capricious irrationality and the privations of life in a dictatorship of the proletariat. He soon learns that his guide, the doctor, shares his repulsion from Atlantean life. Walker meets, and quickly falls in love with, a beautiful young woman, No. 7891 OCD; since she has no name, he comes to call her Astraea—"the last goddess of heaven to visit the earth". Yet he is shocked to learn that his new love is condemned as an "atavar" (from "atavism"), a reactionary individualist, a dissenter who cannot or will not conform to the dictates of society. As such, she is confined to an insane asylum (another anticipation of Soviet times). Atavars are given chances to conform; the recalcitrant ones are fed to a kraken outside the dome of Atlantis, in a ceremony reminiscent of the Christian sacrifices in the Colosseum of ancient Rome. The plot quickly resolves into Walker's struggle to rescue Astraea and escape back to the surface. The Atlanteans keep all they recover from the surface world in their Hall of Curiosities; its contents include everything from ships' figureheads and waterlogged books to enormous heaps of jewels and gold coins. In his research work, the surgeon comes into possession of a sunken miniature submarine; Walker and the doctor decide to use the vessel to escape. Their plan reaches a crisis when Walker is caught consorting with the imprisoned Astraea; the two are sentenced to be devoured by the kraken. Yet the hero and his friends manage a suspenseful getaway from the Atlanteans. Walker, Astraea, the doctor and the surgeon depart in their (treasure-laden) submarine; in a confrontation with the attacking kraken, they fire a torpedo, which kills the monster and also punctures the dome of Atlantis, destroying the city. Walker and friends reach dry land. With the advantage of enormous wealth (the appropriated Atlantean treasure), they manage to make their way through the individualistic capitalist world. The surgeon and doctor distinguish themselves in science and medicine; Astraea and Walker enjoy a long happy marriage. After her eventual death, Walker writes the story of their adventure. |
The Liquidator | null | null | In Paris in 1944 Tank Corps Sergeant Boysie Oakes kills two Germans attempting to assassinate an Intelligence Corps officer named Mostyn. Twenty years later Mostyn's memories have transformed Oakes (who is in reality cowardly and hedonistic) into a fearless master assassin though nothing could be further from the truth. Mostyn recruits Oakes into the Secret Service where after a training course he is given an enviable lifestyle. Oakes' function is to "liquidate" security risks for the State. Oakes hires a mild mannered professional assassin to do his dirty work for him. Going for a "dirty weekend" leads to Boysie being captured by enemy agents who involve him in an assassination plot. |
Falling from Grace | null | 2,006 | In this dramatic tale of a girl gone missing, Harry's multilayered novel explores familial relationships and the nature of truth. This award-winning Australian writer opens her story with sisters Annie and Grace squeezing in one last game of "Tracking" with their dad at the seashore, the beach by Point Nepean. There is a storm coming and it is getting dark. Annie, younger by eleven months and more agile than her sister, Grace, scrambles up the side of a steep hill while Grace struggles when suddenly the ground falls away. Hampered by bad weather, the search is further thwarted by the police's conviction that the young man who found Grace's backpack on the beach may have had something to do with her disappearance. |
Glubbslyme | Jacqueline Wilson | 1,990 | A girl called Rebecca has just had a row with her best friend Sarah. Then Sarah goes off with another girl. After that, Rebecca comes across a witches' pond and meets a toad called Glubbslyme. Glubbslyme is not just a normal toad, he is magic from his late master. They embark on a magical adventure together and try and get Sarah and Rebecca back together. |
A Spell of Winter | null | null | Abandoned by their parents and brought up by the servants on their grandfather's estate, Catherine and Rob have no one but each other. However, as their love for each other oversteps boundaries, the siblings' relationship becomes chaotic as the state of the outside world heading for World War I. As the world around Catherine changes dramatically, will she find the will to break the spell of winter and leave her isolated world? |
When Red Is Black | Qiu Xiaolong | 2,004 | Inspector Chen Cao of the Shanghai Police Bureau is taking a vacation, in part because he is annoyed at his boss, the Party Secretary Li, but also because a triad-connected businessman has made him an offer he can not refuse. For what seems to be a fortune and with no apparent strings attached (like a laptop or medical care for his mother) he is asked to translate into English a business proposal for the New World, a complex of shops and restaurants to be built in Central Shanghai evoking nostalgia for the "glitter and glamour" of the '30s. A murder is reported: Chen is reluctant to shorten his working holiday, so Sergeant Yu is forced to take charge of the investigation. A novelist has been murdered in her room. At first it seems that only a neighbor could have committed the crime, but when someone else confesses, Detective Yu cannot believe that he is really the murderer. It is only when Chen returns and starts to investigate the past that he finds answers. And Chen also discovers how the triad has played him. This is the third critically acclaimed Inspector Chen mystery set in post-Cultural Revolution China. |
A Case of Two Cities | null | null | Inspector Chen Cao of the Shanghai Police Department is assigned a high-profile anti-corruption case, one in which the principal figure has long since fled to the United States and beyond the reach of the Chinese government. But he left behind the organization and his partners-in-crime, and Inspector Chen is charged to uncover those responsible and act as necessary to end the corruption ring though he is not sure whether he's actually being set up to fail. The investigation takes him from Shanghai all the way to the U.S. where he meets his colleague and counterpart from the U.S. Marshall's Service, Inspector Catherine Rhon. |
The Great Eight | null | 2,009 | Gold Medal Olympian and Hall of Fame figure skater, Scott Hamilton has overcome overcome multiple life-threatening challenges and disappointments in his life In this autobiographical book, Hamilton uses stories from his life to illustrate the principles that have shaped his life. Hamilton lists eight principles that he states will help readers live happier lives: * Fall, Get Up, and Land Your First Jumps * Trust Your Almighty Coach * Make Your Losses Your Wins * Keep the Ice Clear * Think Positive, Laugh, and Smile Like Kristi Yamaguchi * Win by Going Last * Learn a New Routine * Stand in the Spotlight |
The Broken Anchor | Carolyn Keene | null | Nancy receives an invitation to the Sweet Spring Resort on Anchor island, Bahamas. |
The Car | Gary Paulsen | 1,994 | Terry Anders is a fourteen year old boy who lives in Cleveland, Ohio. His parents are constantly fighting and arguing. One day, his mom calls saying she has left his dad. During the evening of the same day, his dad calls saying he has left his mom. Therefore, Terry was left alone. Terry then built a car that his dad got from his job being a mechanic to drive to Oregon to live with an uncle. After his first day of driving, he comes upon a man named Waylon Jackson who was a Vietnam war veteran. Together they set out to Omaha to visit Waylon's friend, Wayne Holtz. When they arrive in Omaha, Wayne installs a turbocharger into the kit-car and he joins the journey on a Harley-Davidson he named Baby. They then travel to South Dakota to visit their friend, Samuel. Samuel is a very old man who speaks about random historical facts. While they were there, he talks about the Civil War and General Custer. Their next stop takes them to a small town, still in South Dakota. There, Waylon plays poker and wins $6,000 or $7,000. He then gives $6,000 each to Wayne and Terry. The threesome continues to travel west. In a fast-food place in Wyoming, they come upon four cocky cow boys. After taunting Waylon, he beats one of them up and rushes out to the car with Wayne and Terry. They continue west being chased by the bullriders. Eventually, they stop and proceed to beat the rest of them up. However, the police were on their trail so Terry escaped, because Wayne and Waylon said that they can handle business, and Terry should get away from the police due to being underage. Heading west for a little while, the novel ends as Terry turns around and decides to help out Waylon and Wayne. |
Timoleon Vieta Come Home | Dan Rhodes | 2,003 | The novel centres around Timoleon Vieta, a little mongrel dog with black and white patches of fur and eyes as pretty as a girl's. Timoleon lives with Cockcroft, a retired, gay composer, who lives in a run-down farmhouse in Umbria financed by the occasional royalties he receives from the theme tunes he wrote. He reminisces on his failed career and former lovers, but is surprised when a man claiming to be a Bosnian shows up at his door with a business card he says Cockcroft gave him in a bar in Florence; Cockcroft often has such drunken weekends when he attempts to pick up men. In return for the occasional odd job and weekly fellatio Cockcroft puts him up, but Timoleon Vieta, who is a good judge of character, takes against the Bosnian, and the dislike is reciprocated. Cockcroft is forced to choose between them and agrees to abandon the dog in Rome. The remainder of the novel is about Timoleon Vieta's journey back home, and the people he briefly comes into contact with, as he tries to make his way back to his beloved Cockcroft. |
Action | Carolyn Keene | null | Nancy was playing the part Esther Rackham, the sister of the Rackham brothers, who pulled off a big heist at the Mahoney Anvil Company. This heist put Nancy's hometown River Heights on the map. In the 5th volume of the Nancy Drew series Lights, Camera... a producer came to make a television movie from it named "Stealing Thunder". The production is set back many times. Nancy solved this case and is now ready to play the part of Esther, however, when the cameras start rolling a huge fire breaks out on the set which sets the production back again. Will she be able to solve this mystery before the director says "cut"? |
Videssos cycle | Harry Turtledove | null | During an encounter with a Celtic force, a Roman legion is magically transported to another world when the two opposing leader’s swords touch. The Roman force and Celtic leader find themselves in an empire called Videssos. This empire hires them as a mercenary force to help defend their lands from an enemy nation, Yezd. It quickly becomes apparent to the leader of the legionaries, Marcus Aemilius Scaurus, that the Empire is rife with political intrigue. With steadfast loyalty to the Emperor and a certain bull-headedness, Marcus manages to safely navigate the particularly dangerous political landscape and advance the place of himself and his men. At a party to celebrate the arrival of the Romans held by the Emperor Mavrikios, Marcus, slightly inebriated, slips on the floor and bumps into the emissary of Yezd, Avshar. He tries to apologize, but is rebuffed and a duel results. Marcus wins, but chooses to spare Avshar rather than kill a helpless man. Avshar then sends an assassin after Marcus, but the assassin fails and the Emperor uses this attack as an excuse to declare war upon Yezd. Avshar leads the enemy army of Yezd nomad warriors against Mavrikios' Videssos soldiers and mercenary forces. When Avshar casts a magic spell at the commander of the left wing, Ortaias Sphrantzes, the entire wing of the army is set into chaos as Ortaias turns his horse and flees at full speed. Only the quick actions of Gaius Philippus, the sub-commander of the legion and the aid of a clever ally Laon Pakhymer kept them from falling to the nomad forces. Mavrikios, seeing his grand army destroyed, led a charge of his personal bodyguards directly at Avshar, hoping that he could at least take the life of this one great enemy. He fails and is struck down. His brother Thorisin, leader of the right wing of the army is forced to flee and Yezd has won the battle. Both Ortaias and Thorisin declare they are emperor of Videssos after the battle, but Ortaias, with the help of his Uncle, controls Videssos the City. Civil war erupts. Eventually, Thorisin emerges victorious as the citizens inside Videssos the City turn on Ortaias and open the gates for Thorisin's troops. It is revealed that the leader of the city guards put in place by Ortaias was none other than Avshar in disguise. Avshar manages to escape the city. In an attempt to bolster his forces, Thorisin sends emissaries of his own to other countries to recruit more mercenaries for his Empire. Unfortunately, before he can organize any such force, a group of his own mercenaries turn on him and declare the western half of the empire their own. Thorisin sends a force, including the Legionaries, to the west to put down the rebelling mercenaries while he dealt with threats to the east. Half the western army turns in favor of the usurping forces and Marcus is forced to take over and do the best that he can to follow Thorisin's orders. He engages in guerrilla tactics that eventually bring down the mercenary usurpers. As he is bringing the leaders of the rebellion back to Thorisin in Videssos the City, he is betrayed by his wife who frees her brother and the rest of the prisoners. He returns to Videssos in shame. While suffering through the betrayal of his wife, Marcus begins a relationship with Alypia, the Emperor Thorisins niece. When discovered, he is hauled to jail to await his fate. Thorisin sentences him to death, but commutes the sentence provided that Marcus, alone, remove from power a heretic to the west. Marcus agrees on the condition that he can openly suit Alypia. Thorisin agrees and sets Marcus on a boat to his destination. After successfully defeating the heretic, Marcus flees the city in front of an advancing barbarian army (his own Legion coming to rescue him.) He signs up with a caravan train and ends up going to Mashiz, capitol of Yezd. There he witnesses the overthrow of the King of Yezd by Avshar. Fleeing Avshar, Marcus manages to escape in the company of an army of Nomads who have come to seek revenge upon the Yezd. Together they flee to the east to find Thorisin and plan a campaign against Avshar and the Yezd. At the final battle, Avshar kills the Videssian Patriarch and seems on the edge of total victory when Marcus and Viridovix touch their blades to one another again and the released magic transports Avshar to another world, apparently Skotos' hell. These acts lead to Marcus being granted title and significant position in the empire and his marriage to Alypia. |
Don't Judge A Girl By Her Cover | Ally Carter | 2,009 | When Cammie "The Chameleon" Morgan visits her roommate Macey in Boston, she thinks she's in for an exciting end to her summer break. After all, she's there to watch Macey's father accept the nomination for Vice President of the United States. But because she goes to the world's "best" school (for spies), 'exciting' and 'deadly' are never far apart. Cammie and Macey soon find themselves trapped in a kidnappers' plot, with only their espionage skills to save them. As her junior year begins, Cammie can't shake the memory of what happened in Boston, and even the Gallagher Academy for Young Women doesn't feel like the safe haven it once did. Deep secrets and old boyfriends seem to lurk all around the mansion, as Cammie and her friends struggle to answer the questions: Who is after Macey? and, How can the Gallagher Girls keep her safe? Soon Cammie is joining Bex and Liz as Macey's private security team on the campaign trail. The girls must use their spy training at every turn as the stakes are raised, and Cammie gets closer and closer to the unexpected truth. |
My Life at First Try | Mark Budman | null | My Life at First Try follows the character of Alex, who was born in 1950s Soviet Union. Alex hopes for a future where two things come to pass: he becomes a writer and meets his American cousin Annie. He also wants to overcome the bleakness of the Soviet Union and become someone a carefree foreigner akin to some tourists he saw as a child. However as he grows the institutionalized nature of his surroundings dims these dreams. When he and his family moves to America in the 80s, Alex finally gets to fulfill his wish of being a foreigner, only to discover that rather than being carefree, his new life feels alien to him and it's up to him to try to find his own self-fulfillment. |
The Victim of Prejudice | Mary Hays | 1,799 | The main character, Mary, is brought up by her guardian Mr. Raymond in a loving environment, separate from the prejudiced and patriarchal society of Britain. This unsullied childhood begins to shift, when at the age of 11, two brothers, William and Edmund Pelham, come to live with and be educated by Mr. Raymond. Mary develops a close friendship with William, and as the two grow older, Mr. Raymond sees that he must separate them in order to maintain his promise to the boys' father; that he should keep them from any acquaintance that might negatively affect their future as men of fashion and wealth. The rest of the novel details the trials that Mary encounters upon the death of her benevolent guardian Mr. Raymond, and her subsequent reliance on the charity of those around her. |
Pokémon: Diamond and Pearl Adventure! | null | null | A young boy, Hareta, and his friends are trying to find Dialga. Hareta was allowed to live in the woods with Pokémon, which helps him bond with newly captured Pokémon. In book one, Hareta meets Mitsumi, Professor Rowan's helper, and a boy named Jun. Professor Rowan gives Hareta his first Pokémon, a Piplup. In this book, Hareta wins the Coal Badge and meets Team Galactic for the first time. He bites one of Team Galactic's Members as well. Hareta catches a Shinx as well. In book two, Hareta enters his first contest. Later, Mitsumi enters and nearly wins. Hareta then meets Team Galactic again in Celestic Town. Hareta picks a fight with Cyrus, and Cyrus tries to get Hareta to join him. After losing to Cyrus, Hareta lays afloat, only to be rescued by Byron. Hareta challenges Byron and loses. Hareta is then instructed to go to Iron Island to train. There, Hareta meets Riley who gives him an egg. Riley and Hareta then have to beat Team Galactic yet again and Hareta's egg hatches in Riolu. Hareta trains for a month then comes out with an Onix, a Geodude, and a Zubat. Book three contains a large fight between Team Galactic and Hareta over the Legendary Azelf. Hareta once again, with help from all the Gym leaders, defeats Team Galactic. He wins by having Azelf power him with willpower. In book four, Hareta meets gym leader Candice. Hareta wins the battle and capture the legendary Pokémon Regigigas. Then Bryon, Hareta, and other gym leaders try to attack Galactic head quarters, but all except Bryon and Hareta went in to jail. Hareta realized that his best friend Mitsumi joined team Galactic. Hareta fights her and the end of the battle continues in book five. in the end Hareta defeats Mitsumi and goes on to face Cryus but at that time Cryus has collected all three legendary Pokémon and is starting to make the red chain the only object to call Dialga and control him. |
Amnesia | Douglas Anthony Cooper | 1,992 | The book is dictated by an unknown narrator and follows Izzy Darlow, a mental hospital employee that volunteers his time in order to make amends for a robbery committed during his youth. It is there that he falls for the mute Katie, a patient at the hospital that had been subjected to extreme sexual abuse. |
Lizzie Zipmouth | Jacqueline Wilson | 2,000 | Lizzie Zipmouth is about a young girl named Lizzie who moves into a new home with her mother after her once-single mother finds a new boyfriend, Sam. Disgruntled and unhappy about the way these proceedings are going, she doesn't try make friends with Sam's two sons, Rory and Jake, and keeps to herself by not saying a word. Soon, Jake nicknames her 'Lizzie Zipmouth' because of her obvious silence to everyone. It is only when she meets her scary step-great-grandmother that she begins to find a connection with her new family, bonding with Great-Gran over their love of dolls. However, Great-Gran has a bad stroke, and the family is unsure of the outcome. Lizzie, using her Great-Gran's phrases and back-chats, manages to snap Great-Gran out of her ill trance. Soon, Great-Gran is making a full recovery and Lizzie is not so zipmouthed anymore. |
Dragon's Honor | null | null | Captain Picard and the crew of the USS Enterprise are sent on a diplomatic mission to complete a treaty for Federation membership with an intriguing world whose government is based on the rule of Imperial China at the height of its ancestral monarchies. |
Lion of Senet | Jennifer Fallon | 2,002 | This is the first book in the Second Sons Trilogy. The novel is set in the fantasy world of Ranadon, where there is no night time. Two suns orbit the earth and bathe it in light constantly. A religious sect known as the Shadowdancers claim this is the work of the Goddess, a both benign and at times merciless deity whom most in the world believe in. The back story is that many years ago the second sun mysteriously vanished and left Ranadon in the Age of Shadows. At the insistence of the self-appointed High Priestess of the Shadow dancers, Belegren, the lion of Senet, a powerful and devout man named Antonov, sacrificed his baby son Gunta, after which the second sun returned and so it has been ever since. Dirk Provin, the second son of the Duke Wallin Provin of Elcast, saves a wounded sailor from a shipwreck, brought about by a volcanic eruption and consequent earthquake. Through the course of the man's recovery it is revealed that he is in fact, Johan Thorn, the exiled King of Dhevyn who was utterly defeated by Antonov during the Age of Shadows, and is now the most wanted man in Ranadon. News of this reaches the Lion of Senet himself, who arrives with Belegren the High Priestess, on Elcast, and the secret web of lies which had been built up around Dirk and everything he ever knew begins to slowly unravel, as the apprentice physician comes to realise that others are slowly drawing their own plans around him. |
Eye of the Labyrinth | Jennifer Fallon | null | This novel picks up two years after the events of the previous one, with Dirk fleeing Avacas a wanted man and seeking sanctuary in the Baenlands. Obsessed with Dirk's capture Antonov arrests Morna Provin at her husband's funeral and announces that he will have her burned at the stake come Landfall. Despite the best efforts of Tia and Reithan Dirk still finds out and demands that they attempt to save her. The other major plot follows the domestic quarrels of Alenor and Kirsh, who is still besotted with the acrobat Marquel. At Dirk's suggestion, Alenor invites Marquel to Kalarada willingly in the hope that keeping Kirsh distracted will give her some measure of control over her kingdom. Arriving on Elcast too late, Dirk has only time to beg Tia to end his mother's suffering. She refuses at first, but forced to listen to Morna's screams, Tia relents and shoots the former duchess through the eye, ending her pain. The two escape with Master Helgrin and row back to the Wanderer, watching as Reithan Seranov's diversion burns Antonov's flagship to the waterline in retribution. Tired of running, Dirk announces that night that he is going to Omaxin in an attempt to break through the labyrinth and discover the truth that sent Neris Veran into madness. The strain of her husband openly flaunting a mistress takes its toll on Alenor and her relationship with Kirsh grows fractious. She eventually begins an affair with the captain of her guard. |
Escape from Genopolis | null | null | Arlo, a ten-year old orphan boy, lives in Genopolis, in a university called the Inn of Court, where he is looked after by his mentor, Doctor Ignatius. One day Arlo makes a horrifying discovery. Instead of being a Citizen, he is actually one of the hated Naturals, who had been abandoned by his Natural parents when he was born and taken into the care of Doctor Ignatius, ostensibly to research emotions and pain for scientific purposes. However, Ignatius is also leader of a secret resistance circle against the Rulers of Genopolis, and plans to destroy Genopolis by bringing back pain to its Citizens. However, Ignatius’s plans – and Arlo – are now in danger because a new Ruler of Genopolis has been appointed who is opposed to any research that could bring back the past. From the moment that Arlo first sets eyes on the new Regis, he feels a powerful connection, and knows that if he falls into the hands of the Regis then his life will be forfeit. Meanwhile, Usha, an eleven-year old slave-girl, lives in drudgery, serving her ninety-nine year-old Citizen mistress who she calls Auntie. Usha is a Gemini, a member of a clone-class who have been bred in the pharms, and whose orders are only to obey her superiors. However, Usha soon becomes aware that Auntie’s intention is to use her to clone her own dying body. Waking up in panic on the operating table, Usha escapes, but with the whole of Genopolis on her tail, with nowhere that she can run to. Wandering through the sewers, the underworld of Genopolis, Usha falls in with a gang of abandoned children, who have been thrown out of society because of becoming disabled through accidents or illness. Their ringleader, Ozzie, inducts Usha into his gang, and for a time they live by pilfering from the warehouses by the port where the food is delivered from the pharms. After a botched robbery, Usha is kidnapped by smugglers and sold to the Circus, a semi-illegal underworld gladiatorial arena, where criminal Citizens, escaped Gemini and the occasional captured Natural fight against themselves, and against genetically-engineered monsters. The laboratories of the pharms have created hybrid animals along the lines of classical monsters using genetic fusion technology; the Minotaur, the Gorgon, the Cockatrice and the Sphinx. |
The Sword Thief | Peter Lerangis | 2,009 | The book starts with Dan and Amy in a Venice airport. There, Ian and Natalie Kabra steal their plane tickets and board a plane with their au pair, Nellie Gomez, who is already on the plane. Amy and Dan are then forced to team up with Alistair Oh, their uncle, and fly with him on his private plane to Tokyo, Japan. Together they learn about Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the greatest warrior in the history of Japan, and the son of the first Tomas. The Holts kidnap Amy, Dan, and Alistair and threatened them into helping them find the next clue. They are pulled into a room by Alistair after nearly being killed by the train. In this room, they find a haiku, which tells them to use geometry to find Hideyoshi's treasure. Later, they find some geometric shapes, but are chased by the Yakuza and are once again nearly killed. They are rescued by Nellie, who has struck a deal, and is accompanied by, the Kabras. When the Kabras give Amy and Dan a small coin of importance to the search, the two Cahills agree to join forces with the Kabras. They decode another message in the shapes. The message tells them to go to Korea. In other parts of the story after they meet the Kabras once again, Amy falling for Ian is introduced in this book. The author's writing also gives a little hint away: Ian may admire Amy, and Dan suspects it as well. In Korea, everyone goes to Alistair's house. There, they look at old books about the Cahill family in Alistair's secret library. By reading one of them, Amy and Dan figure out that the secret of the 39 Clues is the ability to make gold out of lead. They also figure out that they should go to a mountain called Pukhansan. On the mountain, they find an entrance, and open it with the coin they have. Inside, they find all of Hideyoshi's treasure, and the third clue, gold. The Kabras have a plan, but little do they know that Dan also has a plan. He discovers an anagram and says the next location is Lake Tash, Kyrgyzstan. The Kabras then betray them and block them inside the cave. Dan then tells Amy that he tricked the Kabras into thinking that Lake Tash was the next location, and the two figure out that it's actually an anagram for the words, Al Sakhet and Alkahest, the alchemical word for the philosopher's stone. Dan and Amy make it out but Alistair appears to be crushed under falling rocks. They also see Bae Oh talking about this with The Man in Black. Upon returning to Alistair's estate, Dan sees Alistair's gloves (which he was wearing before the cave in), and realizes that he isn't dead. They also figure out that the next clue is in Egypt. The adventure continues in Beyond the Grave. This is where they will find the fourth clue. The book ends with Bae Oh, sitting his office. He pages his secretary but Alistair answers instead. Alistair threatens his uncle, and when Bae looks in his receiving room, no one is there. |
The Asti Spumante Code | null | null | Due to the detailed nature of the overall story within the novel, the plot has been divided into Backstory and Modern Day respectively in order to provide a more coherent timeline for the events depicted in the novel. In the 13th century, there once existed a circle of authors and playwrights known as the Order of Psion (a parody of the Knights Templar), most of whom were females writing under male pseudonyms, who once predicted the coming of "the ultimate book" that would render publishers obsolete. The formula for the making of the ultimate book - known as the Asti Spumante Code - is contained within the Mure de Paume (French: "The Blackberry of the Palm"), otherwise known as "the legendary keystone". Fearing the consequences of the ultimate book, a group of publishers named The English Book Guild was established in Stevenage, England to try to counteract the progresses made by the Order. The book itself focuses on American Prof. James Crack - a professor of "Paraliteral Metasymbolist studies" - and Belgian Emily Raquin, a "bibliotechnical cryptologist", as they discover a set of clues left by the deceased Grand Master of the Order of Psion that will ultimately lead to the discovery of the Asti Spumante Code. However, the two are hindered by the efforts of Uxbridge Road Group, a fanatical off-shoot of the English Book Guild situated in Brussels, whose members encourage Sadomasochism and segregate works of fiction by gender stereotyping (e.g.: men read only adventure fiction, women read only romance novels), who wish to destroy the Asti Spumante Code before it can be put to use by anyone. |
Four Steps to Death | John Wilson | 2,005 | Four Steps to Death is told mainly through Sergei Ilyich Andropov, a seventy-year-old police officer who has been called to investigate the case of two mysterious bodies found in the cellar of a building that is being excavated in the present-day Russian city of Volgograd. This discovery brings about a series of flashbacks to when Sergei was a child in Stalingrad, as Volgograd was then known. Four Steps to Death is the story of five individuals during the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942. Vasily is a 17-year-old patriotic machine gunner whose biggest dream is to become a hero of the Soviet Union by casting away the large Nazi army that has advanced all the way to his homeland. Vasily quickly becomes attached to a famous Russian sniper, a woman named Yelena Pavlova. Although he and his fellow comrades have pledged allegiance to their homeland, Vasily is soon confused at the lack of patriotism expressed by Yelena and many of the other troops. This makes Vasily think of home. At first he feels guilty about defying his government but good and evil become entangled and soon, Vasily cannot tell why they are at war in the first place. Conrad is an 18-year-old patriotic German tank leader commanding his Panzer division through the Russian steppe and into Stalingrad (which he believes will end the war). With the "Ivans" (Russians) defeated, Conrad believes that he and his older brother, Josef, will be able to come back home to Germany as war heroes and be able to celebrate Christmas with the mother. Their father was a WWI veteran and an Iron Cross recipient for bravery in the Battle of Verdun who recently died from his wounds. Although Conrad is proud of his father, he sometimes wishes that his father was still alive. As the story progresses, his dream of spending Christmas with his family in Germany slips further and further away. In the middle of the conflict is eight-year-old Sergei. He lives in Stalingrad in the cellar of his former apartment, scavenging among the ruins of his hometown while the Germans and Russians wage war on one another. Thousands of bodies litter the streets, and yet, Sergei is not bothered by any of this, being hardened by the horrors that he faces every day. He dreams of being a famous sniper one day and ridding his homeland of the "Fascists". |
Inspector Ghote's First Case | H. R. F. Keating | 2,008 | It's the early 1960s and Inspector Ghote is on leave from the Bombay police before taking up a post in crime branch. His wife, Protima, is heavily pregnant with their first child. The former police commissioner, now retired, Sir Rustom Engineer requests that as a favour Ghote investigate the motiveless suicide of Iris Dawkins. Mr Robert Dawkins is an old friend of Sir Rustom's from before Indian independence and has written a letter asking for help. Ghote arrives at the remote town where the tragedy occurred and finds that Iris Dawkins apparently committed suicide by shooting herself in the head with a shotgun without leaving a note. Afterwards the Dawkin's man servant telephoned Mr Dawkins at the nearby golf club and asked to him return home as there had been a "nasty accident". At the local police station Ghote finds a rival from police training college, Inspector Darrani, has already investigated the case and has a closed mind on the subject. Ghote gets the name of an old friend of Mrs Dawkins from an old letter: Pansy, who married a Forrest Officer named Peter Watson. Forrest Officers move from one place to another every few months, however, and Ghote has to use his initiative to find her. Shinto, the young boy who takes care of the Dawkin's garden, tells Ghote that a young man apparently visited Mrs Dawkins on the morning of her suicide. From the same boy Ghote learns that the gun was in the wrong position for a left-handed person to have committed suicide with. From Pansy Watson Ghote learns that Iris Dawkins was the daughter of Sir Ronald and Lady Mountford. Sir Ronald was an ICS Advisor to a Maharaja before independence. Her parents were killed by a rampaging elephant while touring a remote area when Iris was a child. Iris stayed in India with the family of the British Resident until roughly the age of twelve or thirteen, when she was seduced by the son of a Maharaja (who was the same age) and became pregnant. She was then sent to stay with the nuns at St Agnes Convent in Poona until her child was delivered and then the child, a boy, was sent to the Raja's palace. Iris Dawkins was then sent home to England where she was cared for by poor relations of her own family and adopted their name, Petersham. When she came of age Iris Petersham found a job in London and saved up until she could return to India after independence. She then came to stay with the Watsons until she met Robert Dawkins, who was a friend of Peter Watson, and married him. Ghote learns that Iris Dawkins was left-handed and that her left eye had a green fleck from a picture taken by a local photographer. The fact that she was left-handed is relevant to the position of the shotgun she supposedly committed suicide with. The fact that her eyes, described by her husband as "violet", were in fact blue with a fleck of green shows Ghote that her husband, Robert Dawkins, held many cherished illusions about his wife. When Ghote reports his findings to Mr Dawkins Inspector Darrani intervenes and persuades Mr Dawkins to put the matter behind him. Afterwards Ghote resolves to ask Inspector Darrani about the young man who was seen visiting Mrs Dawkins on the morning of her death. Ghote also realises, belatedly, that the phrase "a nasty accident" was specifically used in the telephone message that alerted Mr Dawkins to his wife's death and that such a phrase is more typical of a man like Mr Dawkins than the manservant who would have made the call. Investigating at the golf club, Ghote learns that at the relevant time of day the club is nearly empty and that Mr Dawkins may have been the only person present. His alibi is therefore unsound. Interviewing Shinto the gardener boy at the boy's home he learns that the Dawkins' manservant has threatened the boy to make him keep silent. Ghote decides to return to the Dawkins residence and interview the manservant about the morning of Mrs Dawkins' death. After interviewing the manservant, Ghote realises that the man must be blackmailing his employer, Robert Dawkins, and re-assesses what he knows about Mr Dawkin's character. Carefully considering the case, Ghote comes to the conclusion that the young man who visited Mrs Dawkins was in fact her long lost son who she would have immediately recognised from the green flecks in one eye, a genetic trait inherited from her. Robert Dawkins returned home from the club unexpectedly having forgotten his spectacles and found them embracing. Misunderstanding the situation, Robert Dawkins fetched the shotgun from his gun cabinet and killed Iris Dawkins, her son having already escaped at her urging. The Dawkins' manservant then moved the body out of the room where the crime had taken place into the living room, while Dawkins himself returned to the club. The club being nearly deserted at that hour, no one had noticed his absence and it was there the message, phrased using words he had given to the manservant, was delivered to him. Before Ghote can act on his conclusions, an urgent message comes for him telling him is wife, Protima, is about to give premature birth. Ghote hurries back to his wife only to discover the message is a hoax by his wife, who has been missing him. Ghote forgives his wife and after an hour, returns to the scene of the crime. Ghote conducts another search of the Dawkins home and re-enacts the crime in an effort to prove his theory. He challenges the manservant with the knowledge that Iris Dawkins was killed in the sewing room, not the living room. The manservant confirms this and explains he was looking for a fragment of a letter written by the Maharaja to Mrs Iris Dawkins, which her son had dropped before fleeing the scene. The manservant also confirms that Inspector Darrani had quickly discovered that Iris Dawkins long lost son had visited her. The young man is now the surviving heir to the Maharaja, who has been searching for him. In hope of securing a large reward from the Maharaja, Inspector Darrani has concealed the young man's whereabouts and attempted close the books on Mrs Dawkins death quickly, with the minimum of investigation. Ghote telephones Inspector Darrani and forces him to come to the house to arrest the manservant as an accessory after the fact. Robert Dawkins overhears Inspector Ghote put his case to Inspector Darrani and, after fetching the shotgun, commits suicide in the room where his wife died. |
Chicka, Chicka, 1, 2, 3 | Bill Martin, Jr. | 2,004 | 0 wants to go in the Apple Tree but lots of numbers come before her. After all the numbers except 0 are up the Apple Tree, bumble bees come and say that its their tree. The bees fly around them causing every number (Except 10 who is hiding) to fall down. 0 now knows where she should be in the Apple Tree and 0 joins with 10 to make the number 100 and all of the numbers come back out and cheer for 10 & 0. |
The Iron Tree | Cecilia Dart-Thornton | 2,004 | The story begins in a small desert town of R'shael in the kingdom of Asqualeth. Jarred and his friends set off on an adventure to explore the world of The Four Kingdoms of Tir. On the way they are ambushed by Marauders, mountain folk that are deformed and spend their lives pillaging villages and unwary travelers. Jarred is found out by his friends to be invulnerable however one of their part is injured and they are forced to take refuge in Marsh Town in the kingdom of Slievmordhu. There Jarred falls in love at first sight with a Marsh daughter Lilith. When the party are to depart Jarred decides to stay and start a family with Lilith; it is soon learned however a terrible curse runs in the family of Lilith and Jarred must try to find the cure before it devours Lilith. Little do they know, they will find Jarred's gift and Lilith's curse stem from a past that intertwines them. |
Scat | Carl Hiaasen | 2,009 | Nick Waters, the protagonist, is in Bunny Starch's biology class, and she is the most feared teacher in his school: Truman School. At the beginning, Duane "Smoke" Scrod Jr. chomps on Mrs. Starch's pencil, which she finds amusing. She gives him an assignment of 500 humorous words on pimples.She later reports the incident with a poor view on the boy's behavior. Word gets out about Smoke's previous arsons.Therefore, most students believe it was Smoke who started the forest fire on a field trip to the Black Vine Swamp. (Later in the book, it turns out that the Red Diamond Energy Corporation set a controlled fire to prevent the students and teachers from discovering an illegal pirate well on the State of Florida's land.) Mrs. Starch goes back into the swamp to retrieve an asthma inhaler for Libby, a student of Mrs.Starch, while the bus returns the rest of the kids to school. Everyone expects that Mrs. Starch will return in her car, but she doesn't come back. While Mrs. Starch is missing, her class gets a strange substitute teacher named Wendell Waxmo, who teaches specific pages on specific days. Dr. Dressler, the school's headmaster, hired him in the hope that when Mrs. Starch hears about who is teaching her classes, she will come back. Dr. Dressler decides to go to Mrs. Starch's house to see if she is there; she is not. In Mrs. Starch's mailbox, Dr. Dressler finds a letter saying that she has been called to a "family emergency." Dr. Dressler checks Mrs. Starch's file and finds no reference to any known family members that are alive. Nick and Marta just don't buy this "family emergency" excuse, so they decide to go to Mrs. Starch's house—located well off the beaten path—to investigate. They find the house filled with taxidermied endangered animals. Soon they are discovered by a mysterious man in his early thirties named Twilly Spree. He takes them away from the house and leaves them to meet Marta's mom. Meanwhile, Duane Scrod Jr., known by his nickname "Smoke", is also missing from class. The oil company, having found out that arson investigators believed Duane to be responsible for the fire, have stolen Duane's backpack and placed a lighter in it. When Duane returns, he is mistakenly accused of setting the fire in Black Vine Swamp. This is stressful to the headmaster of Truman school, Dr. Dressler, who has to face the board of directors and worry about the school's public image. When Detective Marshall comes to arrest the supposed arsonist, Duane dodges out of the office and ran away, causing even more worries for Dr. Dressler. While Detective Marshall is waiting outside Duane's house for him to return, the detective grows bored and decides to do some research about the torch. He finds that only two stores sell that model, and since one of them is too far away, only one store is left to investigate. Detective Marshall goes to the store and takes the video recording of the torch purchase to the arson investigator, who immediately realizes that Duane was framed by the Oil Company. All charges against Duane are dropped, except for that of evading arrest. Nick and Marta can't stop worrying about their biology teacher and Smoke's trouble. They think that Twilly may know something about it. They find the car Twilly was driving and jump into the back seat waiting for the man to return. Twilly takes them to see Mrs. Starch. They discover that she has been caring for a baby panther whose mother was scared off by the oil company with a gunshot. Duane was also in on the secret and Twilly was tracking the mother panther. He knew she was close because fresh scat was always on the ground. In the end, they are roused by Duane to come help find the mother because Twilly found fresh panther poop. They find the panther but the oil company tries to shoot the panther and hits Mrs.Starch. Nick climbs up a tree to give back the lost panther cub and Nick falls twenty feet to the ground. So in the end, the mother panther and baby panther are reunited and Mrs. Starch comes back to teaching(injured) with a great respect for Duane, who spends two weeks in jail for running away from the Detective (who also thinks two weeks is too harsh.) They all find out that Bunny Starch was just rescuing a baby panther and that she is a good person after all. After Nick helps the panther get back to its mother,the story gets out.Everyone sees Nick,Marta,Smoke,and even "mean old" Mrs.Starch in a whole new light. Carl Hiaasen is the author of other notable children's fiction novels including Flush, in over 2,500 libraries, and Hoot, in over 3,200 libraries. it is amazing |
Alhazred | null | null | The book is written as an autobiographical account of the life of Abdul Alhazred, the author of the legendary grimoire known as the Necronomicon. The book does not draw on any previous accounts of Alhazred's life, but portrays him instead as a tragic antihero. The book begins with a short narrative describing how Alhazred was tortured as a young man by the ruthless king of his home city, which is explained in gruesome detail. The tortures endured by Alhazred (and his subsequent banishment from his home) contribute to his violent attitude as an adult, which leads him to commit, among other acts, cannibalism, the murder of innocent children, and assisting a cult of ghouls in their war against a rival clan. Throughout his travels, Alhazred learns to use his abilities (lack of empathy, uncanny agility, and the ability to communicate with the dead) to survive, often in gratuitously self-serving ways. He accumulates an array of grim survival tools, such as an obsidian blade and mysterious spiders which, when eaten, grant him the ability to see in the dark and amplified hearing. He also encounters many beings and characters from the Cthulhu Mythos in which his adventures take place. |
The Walls Came Tumbling Down: The Collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe | Gale Stokes | null | Beginning with the 1968 Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia and culminating in the 1989-1991 revolutions, The Walls Came Tumbling Down is a narrative of the gradual collapse of Eastern European communism. Focusing on the decades of unrest that precipitated 1989's tulmultuous events, Stokes provides a history of the various communist regimes and the opposition movements that brought them down, including the "March Days" and Solidarity, the 1975 Helsinki Accords, Czechoslovakia's Charter 77 opposition movement, and the autocratic policies of Romania's Nicolae Ceauşescu that precipitated the 1989 Revolution. Stokes examines the first tottering steps in 1990-1991 toward pluralist government, from the resignation of Mikhail Gorbachev to the bloody partioning of war-torn Yugoslavia. |
The Boxer and the Spy | null | null | In a quiet New England town, the body of shy teenager Jason Green washes up on the shore, and the police soon claim that the death was a suicide induced by steroid addiction. However, Terry Novak, a fifteen-year-old aspiring boxer, is not so sure, especially considering that Jason was an artistic person who had no interest in sports, and thus was not the type to be taking such drugs. Assisted by his friend Abby, he begins an investigation of his own, and soon learns that asking too many questions can lead him into serious danger. |
The Life Before Us | Romain Gary | null | Momo, a Muslim orphan boy, lives under the care of an old Jewish women named Madame Rosa. The young boy tells the story of his life in the orphanage and of his relationship with Madame Rosa as she becomes increasingly sick. |
Do Good Design | David Berman | 2,009 | The book is divided into three sections, ending with a call for all professionals to sign the online Do Good Pledge, which has been signed by notable designers, including Ken Garland. |
Mummy Laid an Egg | Babette Cole | 1,994 | The book is a sex education book for young children, and Publishers Weeklys reviewer said that Cole "unleashes her endearingly loony sense of humor on the subject of the birds and the bees, and the result is, as expected, hilarious." In the book a couple of parents attempt to explain the facts of life to their two children, who respond to their apparently ignorant parents by explaining matters to them, with stick-figure illustrations. |
Elephant Run | Roland Smith | 2,007 | Nicholas Gillis Freestone is sent to Burma after his mother's apartment is destroyed in the Battle of Britain. He meets Nang the foreman, his daughter Mya, and his son Indaw, a mahout. At the time of Nick's arrival, there is much talk about the recent Japanese bombing of Rangoon, predicting the British defenses in Burma will soon fall. The next day Nick is at the village and Hannibal, a koongyi (timber elephant) with a grudge against tigers, attacks Nick and his ribs are cracked. Out of embarrassment, Nick keeps the incident to himself until his father hears of the accident from Hilltop (Taung Baw in Burmese), a monk who was one of the two original mahouts to come with the Sergeant Major, who founded Hawk's Nest. Hilltop is Mya & Indaw's great-grandfather, who some people rumor is over 100 years old. Hilltop is said to know the secret language of the elephants. Rumor says he lives in the forest, and disappeared for sixty years before returning to the Freestone Plantation. On Christmas, Nick, his father, Nang, and his family are travelling to the nearby Freestone Island when the Japanese invade. Japanese soldiers soon overrun and capture the Freestones' camp, taking into custody all its inhabitants while Nick and the elephants go into hiding. Not long after, though, Nick is captured by an amiable soldier, Sergeant Sonji, whom Nick initially takes to be crazy. Nick is returned to the elephant village by the sergeant, at which point the brutal extent to which the Japanese are taking in their conquest becomes clear. Under the newly erected Japanese flag lie the corpses of Nang, who has been beaten to death, and Captain Josephs, a British officer who has been decapitated. His father and Indaw have been taken as POWs (prisoners of war), and Nick is taken hostage at Hawk's Nest. He remains there for ten months as a servant of sorts to Colonel Nagayoshi, the Japanese commander of Hawk's Nest. While there, Nick is routinely beaten by a crippled elderly Japanese sympathizer named Bukong, but is otherwise left unscathed by the Japanese. Later, Nick gets a letter from his father saying he was transported from a camp for British and Australian prisoners in Singapore to one in Burma. One night Hilltop shows a secret passage that was in the house to Nick and Mya. Everyone later believes that they escaped when they were actually in the tunnel. From then on Hilltop shows the passages that link to Hawk's Nest. On their escape day, Nick and Mya disguise themselves as novice monks and escape the Hawk's nest with Hilltop and Hannibal. In a nearby village, they are trapped by Captain Moto who wants to find and catch the infamous thief Kya Lei (Tiger's Breath), a Burmese Robin Hood. The next day Hilltop writes a letter saying that he was at the prison camp and would be back. Kya Lei helps Nick and Mya to get to the first camp. Each day, they progress closer to Jackson and Indaw. When Hilltop returns he tells Nick and Mya that he talked to Indaw while he was at the prison camp and planned an escape. The day of his escape was on festival day, a day where the Japanese soldiers buy goods for themselves. Because the guards were distracted by the festival, Indaw was able to escape. A couple days later, Jackson faked his death and was able to escape. |
Egg on Mao: The Story of an Ordinary Man Who Defaced an Icon and Unmasked a Dictatorship | null | null | The story opens with three men – Lu Decheng, Yu Dongyue, and Yu Zhijian – who have just defaced Mao Zedong’s portrait in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Decheng, Dongyue, and Zhijian are three friends from Southern China who have traveled to Beijing to express their sentiment towards the Chinese Communist Party. The leading character, Decheng, is the activist on which this book is inspired upon. As the story unfolds, discontent and frustration are shown through Decheng’s life and the people surrounding him – from the education reforms of the Cultural Revolution to the Protest of 1989. Decheng’s friend, Zhijan, a fellow activist who took part in defacing the portrait, express the reasons why the three vandalized the portrait: “to motivate the student leadership to question the legitimacy of the Communist regime itself, and therefore its very authority to impose a state of martial law.” Throughout the book, Chong reveals events in Decheng’s life that lead up his decision – from his refusal to cry on cue with his classmates after Mao’s death to hearing about the brutality of the Chinese Communist Party from his grandmother. After the activists’ act of vandalism, the three are sentenced to prison. During his imprisonment, Decheng’s wife divorces him. Years later, upon his return to Liuyang, Hunan, he remarries. The story has alternating chapters, shifting through periods of Decheng’s life, from his time in prison to memories earlier in his adolescent years. The book ends with the moments leading up to the defacing of Mao’s portrait. |
Superstitious | R. L. Stine | 1,995 | Sara Morgan, a graduate student who has left an abusive relationship with Chip, starts a new relationship with a handsome professor named Liam O'Connor. Liam is extremely superstitious and lives with his sister Margaret, to whom he is very close. Sara does not mind these quirks and marries Liam. Shortly, people start dying in grisly ways, and it turns out the professor knew all of them. Sara begins to wonder if her husband might be the killer, while Liam's superstitious behavior increases. One day, after Sara discovers Margaret and Liam in bed together naked, she smashes the mirror out of protest and runs out of the house. She returns later to retrieve her keys only to find Margaret dead; she leaves afterwards in search of her boss' house. There, she spots her boss dead and Liam glaring at her. He explains to her that Margaret was his wife and that he needs Sara to bear their child so that the demons of superstition living inside of him can pass to the child. He went on to explain that when the demons slip away, they kill someone he knows; when Sara broke the mirror, the demons slipped out, murdering Margaret. Sara, in an attempt to show Liam that there are no demons, shatters one of the mirrors in the house. The demons slip outside of him and kill him; knocking Sara out afterwards. Sara awakens in the hospital to find out she is going to have a baby. |
Historical Atlas of World Mythology | Joseph Campbell | null | This series was to build on Campbell’s idea, first presented in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, that myth evolves over time through four stages: *The Way of the Animal Powers -- the myths of Paleolithic hunter-gatherers which focus on shamanism and animal totems. This volume was covered in two parts: Mythologies of the Primitive Hunter-Gathers and Mythologies of the Great Hunt. *The Way of the Seeded Earth -- the myths of Neolithic, agrarian cultures which focus upon a mother goddess and associated fertility rites. This volume was to be covered in five parts, of which three were completed: The Sacrifice, Mythologies of the Primitive Planters: The Northern Americas, and Mythologies of the Primitive Planters: The Middle and Southern Americas. Two additional parts were planned: Mythologies of the Primitive Planters: Africa and South-western Asia and Mythologies of the Primitive Planters: Southern Asia. *The Way of the Celestial Lights -- the myths of Bronze Age city-states with pantheons of gods ruling from the heavens, led by a masculine god-king. *The Way of Man -- religion and philosophy as it developed after the Axial Age (c. 6th century BC), in which the mythic imagery of previous eras was made consciously metaphorical, reinterpreted as referring to psycho-spiritual, not literal-historical, matters. This transition is evidenced in the East by Buddhism, Vedanta, and philosophical Taoism; and in the West by the Mystery Cults, Platonism, Christianity and Gnosticism. |
Torch of Freedom | Eric Flint | 2,009 | While Anton Zilwicki and Victor Cachat were working undercover on Mesa, Mesa launches an attack at Torch. Anton Zilwicki and Victor Cachat escape Mesa amidst general mayhem together with a defected leading scientist. The attack against Torch is thwarted by Rear Admiral Luiz Rozsak of the Solarian League Navy, who had amassed a fleet in the interest of the Maya Sector. Queen Berry becomes romantically involved with Hugh Arai, who after being freed from slavery by Jeremy X from the Audubon Ballroom worked as a commando for the Beowulf Biological Survey Corps (BSC), and was assigned by Jeremy X as Berry's bodyguard. |
Mission of Honor | David Weber | 2,010 | The book begins in January 1922 P.D. The Star Empire of Manticore remains at war with the Republic of Haven, despite their mutual losses during the Battle of Manticore. Now, the Star Empire is in danger of entering an entirely new conflict with the Solarian League, a galactic superstate with a population numbering several trillion. Though Manticore possesses a decisive tactical and technological edge over the Solarians with their anti-ship missiles and missile defense systems, the Solarians boast a fleet of over ten thousand capital ships. The planet Mesa and its shadow government continue to fan the flames of the increasingly hostile Manticoran-Solarian relationship for its own nefarious ends. At the same time, Mesa has launched a potentially devastating strike against the Manticore Home System itself, which has gone completely undetected by Manticore. Meanwhile, Admiral Duchess Honor Alexander-Harrington of Manticore is dispatched on a diplomatic mission to the Republic of Haven, having convinced Queen Elizabeth III of Manticore that the Haven issue cannot be left unresolved in the wake of an increasingly likely confrontation with the Solarian League. Traveling to the Haven System itself in her civilian yacht, but escorted by her own 8th Fleet, she offers the Republic a chance to conclude their war diplomatically rather than face sure annihilation due to Manticore's unmatchable tactical advantage. Despite getting off to a good start, the negotiations become stalled when Havenite politicians obstruct the talks for personal political gain. Alexander-Harrington initially tolerates this effort in the interest of good diplomacy, but eventually publicly calls out the leader of the opposition politicians, forcing him to back down. However, the talks are suspended when word reaches Haven that a sneak attack, by seemingly unknown forces, has wrought havoc on the Manticore Home System's infrastructure. While Alexander-Harrington is trying for a negotiated peace settlement with Haven, the Royal Manticoran Navy's 10th fleet led by Vice Admiral Michelle Henke is attacked by a Solarian task force at the Spindle System in the newly incorporated Talbott Quadrant. Admiral Sandra Crandall, commander of the Solarian Force, acting on her own desire for vengeance and Mesan manipulations and bribes demands the surrender of 10th Fleet and arrest of Henke. Baroness Medusa, Governor-General of the Talbott Quadrant, refuses to honor Crandall's demands. The Solarian forces begin their attack run, but are ambushed by 10th Fleet in a lopsided victory, despite the fact that Henke has only a few dozen cruiser-sized ships to defend against 73 ships of wall and screening elements. After the destruction of the Solarian flagship and a third of the task force, Crandall's third in command assumes control and surrenders the survivors. Shortly afterward, Mesa's secret Operation Oyster Bay is launched. Covert operations ships using a radically new drive technology have been operating in the Manticore System undetected and placed several stealthed missile pods aimed at the three inhabited planets in the Manticore System. In a coordinated attack, the pods fire several volleys of new missile systems which proceed to destroy all of the important orbital infrastructure around Manticore, Sphinx, and Gryphon. Several million Manticoran civilians and naval personnel are killed. The Star Empire completely loses the space stations Hephaestus, Vulcan, and Weyland. With their loss, the ability to construct new shipping and missiles. Grayson, Manticore's loyal ally, was similarly attacked. This is all happening at the same time that Manticore is facing a full-scale conflict with the Solarian League. Alexander-Harrington is recalled from the peace negotiations with Haven in the wake of the assault. She returns to discover that after station debris reentered the atmosphere of and impacted her homeworld of Sphinx, many of her closest relatives have died. The Solarian League's leadership learns of both events in quick succession. The incompetent League military leadership, finally realizing the true scale of disparity between their ships and weapon systems and Manticore's, decides to go forward with a plan to invade the Manticore System itself with a force of 400 super-dreadnoughts, believing that the aftermath of the (Mesan) strike will leave Manticore possibly unprotected and unwilling to fight a protracted war, even if they successfully defend against this initial invasion. This idea that Manticore's system defenses have also been wrecked has been secretly purported by Mesa, which desires a situation in which the League is severely bloodied by just such a hapless invasion attempt. Meanwhile Manticore is informed of the impending Solarian offensive through a covert channel on Beowulf. Manticoran leadership is confident of their ability to repel any Solarian attempts to invade the Home System, but at the cost of expending great amounts of ammunition, which is now a precious commodity. The situation appears in crisis until Captain Anton Zilwicki of Manticore, who had been thought dead, and Special Officer Victor Cachat of Haven finally arrive in the Haven System with a Mesan defector. They inform President Eloise Pritchart of the truth behind the nuclear attacks on Mesa, and also of Mesa's long term goals as an organization called the Mesan Alignment. The defector also gives background information on the new technology which was used to attack Manticore. Pritchart decides that the information is too important to ignore and personally embarks with several important members of her administration for Trevor's Star, along with Zilwicki's party. She eventually meets with Queen Elizabeth and Admiral Alexander-Harrington, and the true threat posed by Mesa becomes clear to all. Both sides realize that they have been manipulated over the past several decades by Mesa to fight each other, so that they should not pose a threat to Mesa's masterplan for galactic domination. Despite ongoing diplomatic problems between them, and the certainty that many political factions in both Haven and Manticore will strongly disapprove of cooperation in the wake of such a long and bloody conflict, Elizabeth and Pritchart agree to both end the war for good and tentatively form a military alliance against Mesa and their Solarian pawns as the Star Empire and its armed forces await the arrival of the Solarian attack. |
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