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The Saxon Shore | Jack Whyte | 1,998 | The Preface explains this style as Merlyn writing his memoir of how he met Arthur and came to raise him. ;Cornwall: Saxon Shore begins with Merlyn and the infant Arthur stranded in a small boat on the southern most extreme of the Irish Sea. An Irish pirate ship captained by Connor, a prince of Eire, captures the boat. The Celts then throw the child overboard. Disregarding his life, Merlyn kills one of the pirates and jumps in after Arthur. The pirates recapture Merlyn and the floating child and return them to the ship. The captain greets Merlyn and the child, revealing the origin of the crew, Eire, and tries to understand the reasons why Merlyn would sacrifice his life for the child. In the conversation, the captain comes to realize that his brother, Donuil is Merlyn's captive at Camulod, so he releases Merlyn in the agreement that the child will be returned if his brother returns to Eire. Merlyn then proceeds home, where he quickly becomes embroiled in factions politics that have arisen in the Camulodian council. By using his military authority and appealing to the older council, Merlyn disbands the parties. Ironhair, one of the faction leaders, becomes enraged by this and makes an assassination attempt on Merlyn's life. Meanwhile Donuil returns to Camolud with Merlyn's nearly identical half-brother Ambrose. Once Donuil returns, Merlyn creates a party which is to escort Donuil back to Eire. On the trip to Eire the party has encounters with a leper colony, where Lucanus, a physician and Merlyn's longtime friend, leaves the party to deliver a wagon-load of supplies to the impoverished lepers. A crew of marauders was harvesting marble from a Roman temple in Glevum when the party arrives there. Merlyn decides that they will be unable to gain passage on any ships there, after a brief skirmish with the locals. ;Eire: After the encounter with the scavengers, a group of Scots sent by Donuil's father to ensure his safe return find the party. Soon the two galleys of the Scots are hauling a barge to Eire where the barge capsizes south of Athol's kingdom. The Comuludian knights travel through the Irish wilderness under threat of barbaric peoples, but only encounter a boar larger than any other ever hunted by the Scots. Within several weeks of leaving Comulud the party arrives in the capital of Athol's kingdom. The party stays at the stronghold and Merlyn, in conversation with Athol, reveals that he was married to one of Athol's daughters, Deirdre. Athol accepts Merlyn into his family. During the same conversation Merlyn also reveals the identity of the child, Arthur, and Athol pledges himself as an ally to Merlyn and his Grandson. While staying in the stronghold of the Scots, Merlyn and his men demonstrate the use of cavalry to the Scots who had previously never seen its use in battle. During the exhibition a bear enters the clearing and attacks. Merlyn uses his memory of Alexander the Great's bodyguard using Sarissa, heavy lances, to charge troops, acquiring a spear from infantry that were to be part of the demonstration and charging the bear. One Evening, a member of the community disappears and, while searching for said man, Donuil feels that someone was watching in the woods. Merlyn's retinue and Athol's warriors are put on alert, and in the morning an army attacks the walls. The strength of the cavalry successfully routes the attacking army in two charges. The attack of the wild men of the south is an unruly advance force of the eminent attack by the MacNyalls, Sons of Condran, and Sons of Garn. Athol decides that Merlyn, Arthur, Donuil and their company must return to Briton to avoid this attack and ensure Arthur's safety. ;The Saxon Shore: The party of Merlyn returns to Camulod without Donuil, who returns to Eire in order to stave off the events of one of Merlyn's dreams. While traveling back to Camolud the party encounters a group of marauding Berbers. Upon returning to Camolud, Merlyn discovers his half brother Ambrose has integrated the infantry and cavalry in order to reduce enmity between the two military branches. A group of Cambrian raid an outlying farm of the colony, however before the military can follow a heavy winter sets in that kills the oldest members of the community. In the spring a large contingent of the military, 500 foot soldiers and 500 cavalry, leave Camolud to take revenge for the raid which killed 50 of their comrades. Led by Merlyn, the force travels near the leper colony that was visited with Lucanus and the whole colony is found dead. The military force also clears the Berbers from their pirate outpost in Glevum. The army enters Cambria and soon find the men who had stolen the horses dead, they then encounter a force of Dergyll's archers, however Merlyn tactfully avoids any confrontation. The two leaders agree to an alliance and in proof of their loyalty to the alliance, they exchange a small contingent of auxiliary forces. While discussing this Merlyn discovers that Ironhair, who had led one of the political parties in Camolud, was now supporting a contender for the Pendragon throne. Merlyn and the forces return to Camolud and years of peace ensue. Merlyn and Ambrose make a trip to Northumberland and discover that the alliance between Briton-Romans and the Norse that had maintained the strength of the kingdom is failing. They return to Britain and begin the education of Arthur, along with the other family and friends of Merlyn. An attempt is made on Arthur's life by a group of men loyal to Ironhair, and the council of friends which had come to surround Merlyn decided that in order to protect this future king he must live outside of the community which knows of his existence. Merlyn decides to settle Arthur in Ravenglass south of Hadrian's Wall. ;Epilogue: Arthur and Merlyn travel to Ravenglass aboard Connor's galley and are welcomed by the Ravenglass King Derek. |
Blanca Olmedo | Lucila Gamero de Medina | 1,908 | In this love story, Blanca Olmedo, a young women of a good family, has lost all her property thanks to the evil actions of a corrupt lawyer (Elodie Purslane/Elodio Verdolaga). This circumstance requires her to work as a governess in the house of the Moreno family, which is where she meets the love of her life, Gustavo Moreno. Three people are opposed to their love, including the evil lawyer who punishes her further from seeing Gustavo. A further barrier is created when Gustavo goes away to fight in the war. Blanca, meanwhile falls ill with being separated from Gustavo and dies dreaming of Gustavo. When he returns to find her dead, and learns of the evil conspiracy against their relationship. He commits suicide, without either of them consummating their love. Then in guilt of what they have done, one of the conspirators Doña Micaela established an orphan asylum after his death for victims of those who feel sadness and desperation and have lost the will to live. |
Young Samurai: The Way of the Sword | Chris Bradford | 2,009 | After a vicious ninja attack left him orphaned and stranded in Japan, Jack Fletcher managed to complete his first year of samurai school. Still, his troubles are far from over. The prejudice of his Japanese classmates has gained him dangerous enemies within his school, and Dragon Eye -- the ninja who killed his father -- is still after him. Jack's only hope of defeating them lies in surviving the Circle of Three: an ancient ritual that tests a samurai's courage, skill, and spirit to the limit. For most, gaining entry into the Circle means honor and glory, but for Jack it's a matter of life or death. The winner will be trained in the Two Heavens -- the formidable sword technique of the great samurai, Masamoto. Learning this secret is the only hope Jack has of protecting his father's rutter -- the invaluable navigation guide of the world's uncharted oceans -- from Dragon Eye. Forced into a deadly battle, Jack's going to have to master the Way of the Sword. And his time is running out. |
Nightmare Academy: Monster Revenge | Dean Lorey | null | The beginning of the novel takes place with Charlie and friends getting ready for their final exams in the hope of grading and becoming Addys. They are sent by Rex, Tabitha and Pinch to Bungalow C, a place in a rather droopy area owned by Dora [eight years old] and her father Barry. Dora is not old enough to train at the Nightmare Academy yet, and so has not been informed of her ability to portal in Nethercreatures through her Nightmares. Using a Gremlin Attracter, the three friends find and begin to Banish three Gremlins, but not before a Class 2 Darkling from under Dora's bed reaches out and eats them. Still not satisfied, it reaches out to take Theodore, but is only just stopped, saving the skinny boys life. Violet begins closing the portal to the first ring of the Nether she was going to Banish the gremlins with when a Class 4 Netherleaper, Rex calls them 'Dangeroos' captures Violet. Charlie and Rex save Violet, and begin wondering why a class 4 was found on the first ring of the Nether, when Violet informs them the Netherleaper was taking her to 'the Guardian'. Hearing this, Rex, Tabitha, Pinch, Charlie, Theodore and Violet portal to the Nightmare Division and tell the Headmaster. She explains that remaining two Named, Slagguron and Tyrannus, was trying to poison the Guardian, the strange creature whose aura protects the Nightmare Academy. The touch of a child is enough to kill it. Suddenly, they are called to the Nightmare Division by the Director, Drake. He informs the Headmaster, Rex, Tabitha,Pinch and Charlie and his friends that he remembers what they did to him in the first book. He had regained his memories. They take him back to the Hags of the Void,where they form a truce not to steal his memories in return for him being civilised towards Charlie and friends. Outside a window, they hear the screeching voice of Tyrannus saying they have killed the Guardian.The Guardian guards a place called the Anomaly, a weak spot between the Nether and Earth which Slagguron and Tyrannus wish to escape through. Brook takes Charlie and friends into the Anomaly to check on the Guardian and the Headmaster who had already left. They realize the Guardian has been poisoned, and that the only cure is the milk from a female Hydra. The only problem is that there is only one in existence. The Headmaster also informs that they are qualified Addys and are allowed to upgrade their weapons. Charlie chooses another rapier and Violet chooses a double sided axe. Charlie retrieves the Hydra's milk and takes it back to the Nightmare Academy. In a fit of greed, Pinch without warning drinks some of the content of the milk. He turns back into a teenager and receives all his powers back. Pinch portals them to the 5th Ring, as close as they can get to the Anomaly, and find it is swarming with monsters. The group, finding a frightened boy, rescue him and take him back to the Academy without delay. They were tricked. The boy was Slagguron. Slagguron is a Changling. Changling can change forms for a short time. Charlie revives the Guardian but fails in stopping Tyrannus from coming through to Earth. They decide on a new plan. Charlie takes the Guardian to the Named's new base, disabling all the Nethercreatures who stand in their way. But in an act of cruelty, Director Drake kills the Guardian. Meanwhile, Pinch killed Verminion, but is shunned away as they blame him for the Guardians death. In a fit of rage and sorrow, Pinch takes Verminion's place and helps the other Named summon the Fifth. The Fifth is a giant female Nethercreature. She kills all of the Named, but leaves Pinch alive. He joins the enemy. Charlie and friends narrowly escape with their lives, but they have failed. The Fifth is free. The War of the Nether has truly begun. This book was before the book 3 in the Nightmare Academy series, Monster Revenge. Monster Revenge is also known in the U.S.A as Monster War. |
Yōgisha X no Kenshin | Keigo Higashino | 2,006 | The story begins with Tetsuya Ishigami and Yasuko Hanaoka doing their daily routine. |
The Story of the Daughters of Quchan | null | null | This story is an example of one of the many unjust acts by both the provincial governments and the national Qajar Regime which led to the Constitutional Revolution. In the province of Quchan, the provincial governor, Asaf al-Dawlah, set a flat tax for all of the people, regardless of their income. The poor could not afford to pay this tax, due to a bad harvest, and the only way they could raise the money was to sell their daughters to the elite Turkmen or to nomads. Turkmen also began raiding the village and capturing the women. When the citizens begged for payment postponement, they were shot and killed by provincial government officials. About two hundred and fifty girls had been sold and they became known as “The Daughters of Quchan”. This incident portrays Iranian women as being “objects of traffic” and clearly speaks to the issue of poverty and the social injustice people faced under this government. The people of Quchan went to the central government to protest and ask for help. Finally an investigator was sent to Quchan, who was bribed by the provincial governor, and did not report the inequality to the central government. The citizens went back to the central government again to protest and eventually the issue was resolved. This story was published in newspapers all over Iran and caused a public outcry for social justice and a parliamentary government. Muhammad Husayn Tabataba’i, one of the most prominent philosophers of the time, was particularly irate and argued that the government was not addressing the needs of the people: "Have you not heard the tale of Quchan where they had a bad harvest last year? Each Quchani Muslim had to pay three dozen kilos of wheat in lieu of taxes. They did not have it and nobody helped them out. Instead of wheat, the local ruler took three hundred Muslim daughters, counted each daughter for three dozen kilos of wheat, and sold them to the Turkmens. Some of the daughters were separated from their mothers while they were asleep, because the poor souls would not consent to be separated. Now tell me in all fairness! Can you imagine a worse oppression? Every place is in ruins."(88) It also showed how effective newspapers were at relaying information across the country as many Iranians sympathized for those in Quchan and would join the cause in protesting for a constitutional government. Asaf al-Dawlah and many of his high-ranking officials were put on trial under the new regime in 1906 and there were multiple efforts made to get the girls back from the Turkmens. While some girls were rescued and brought back to their paternal families, the majority of girls were not found. “The Daughters of Quchan” is one of many events which were instrumental to promoting the Constitutional Revolution as the Iranian citizens began to realize that they were tired of living under an oppressive government. |
Rose | Martin Cruz Smith | null | Jonathan Blair, a mining engineer, returns from Africa's Gold Coast and, on finding his native England utterly depressing, falls into melancholy and alcoholism. Blair wishes desperately to return to Africa, so, in exchange, he agrees to investigate the disappearance of a local curate engaged to marry the daughter of Blair's patron. With the unexpected assistance of Rose, a Wigan 'pit brow girl', Blair solves the mystery and, in the process, finds himself as well. |
Sold | null | null | Set in the Melbourne property industry, SOLD provides an insight into the inner machinations of one real estate agency. It is based around three real estate agents and their dealings as they scheme and deceive to outdo one another and struggle to ultimately come out on top. Will Pittman, a former (and failed) AFL Sydney Swan footballer, is new to the business and struggling to keep his head above the water. He is mentored by Harry "The Fox" Osborne, an ex-car dealer from New Zealand in real estate to pay his kids school fees. New to the agency too, is Dally Love, the conquering hero who wants and has it all. Morally bankrupt, this world of intricacy pulls these characters into its web of chaos. Also there is Gerard, mentally disabled, easily influenced and somewhat destructive - friend of Will and squatting in the convent marked by Dally for development. |
Hussein, An Entertainment | Patrick O'Brian | 1,938 | Hussein's mother dies in childbirth, and he is reared in the mahout trade by his father and grandfather. He learns the hathi-tongue, which is the private language mahouts use to bid their elephants, and grows up among a group of mahouts employed by the Indian Government's Public Works Department. A cholera epidemic strikes down his father and grandfather, and Hussein goes to live with his uncle Mustapha, his wife and three sons. Also in the mahout trade, Hussein's uncle is devoted to Islamic scriptures. He teaches Hussein to read, which places him in a select few among his class. Having traveled with his uncle and family to Rajkot, Hussein is recommended as a mahout to carry Gill, the "Stant Sahib," on the back of his uncle's elephant for a hunting expedition. The three are attacked and chased by a ferocious pack of wild dogs in what the Times Literary Supplement called the best adventure in the book. In finally escaping, they burst into a thieves' village. Gill, who is the chief of police, captures and returns to justice a notorious band of thieves with Hussein's help. That evening Gill overhears Hussein bragging of the feat to his family and friends, changing details to bring himself credit, and kindly allows the youth his moments of glory. Hussein's aunt and uncle die young, and Hussein must survive on his own. About 16 years old and still in the mahout trade, he inherits his uncle's responsibility for the elephant named Jehangir Bahadur in the town of Haiderabad. At this time in his life Hussein falls in love with a well-off young woman named Sashiya, which embroils him with a rival, Kadir Baksh. Hussein pays a fakir to place a curse upon Kadir Baksh, which causes the young man to die; and his family swears vengeance upon Hussein. This danger forces the young man to flee. After promising the elephant Jehangir he will return, Hussein sets out to live by his wits. Eased in this direction by the fakir he becomes an assistant to Feroze Khan, a man who practices the arts of snake charming and storytelling. Feroze Khan earns a living by following regiments and entertaining them. His tour de force involves display of a white cobra. Unknown to Hussein, he also gathers secret intelligence. Eventually the young man becomes suspicious of his movements when it becomes apparent that Feroze Khan has friends wherever they travel. Spying leads to Feroze Khan's murder in Peshawar, and Hussein resolves to put into practice the lessons he has learned about storytelling and snake charming. Succeeding in both pursuits, Hussein enhances his snake charming by buying additional snakes and a mongoose from an acquaintance of Feroze Khan's whom he accidentally meets. He learns to perform a scam for seeming to rid a house of dangerous snakes by bribing the houseservants and employing his mongoose. When he follows another regiment in the rainy season, the leaders must send for elephants to pull their cannons from the mud. One of the elephants which arrives is his beloved Jehangir. Hussein has alienated the chief mahout and is forbidden to rejoin the service. His attempts to regain his relationship with Jehangir lead to a severe beating for Hussein. Jehangir lifts the sleeping youth onto his back, bursts his shackles, and deserts the service. Failing to dissuade Jehangir from this course, Hussein accepts the desertion and determines to hide. When it is safe to do so, he plans to wander as a private mahout with an elephant and perform odd jobs which come their way. After adventures, Hussein and Jehangir reach the village of Laghat. Here Hussein buys fields with a tumbledown house. His dream is to prosper as a farmer, then send for Sashiya. He works hard in his fields, coming into contact with wild boars and a man-eating tiger. When the crops fail because of drought, he is forced to borrow money from the local bunnia. This man, Purun Dass, resents Hussein because of his ability to read. Realizing the young man's ability does not extend to Latin, the bunnia sets the loan to accrue "per mensa" (per month) instead of "per annum" (per year). Thus, the loans are crippling when Purun Dass applies for repayment. Hussein becomes drunk and attacks the bunnia in his temple, leaving the priest, he believes, beaten to death. Again Hussein flees on the back of Jehangir. When buying food in a village he encounters a man named Narain Ram, whom he had seen formerly when he worked for Feroze Khan. Hussein denies to Ram Narain that they have met. He sees Ram Narain again in another village, and the latter insists they dine. Here the Ram Narain presses Hussein for information about Feroze Khan and threatens to expose him to Kadir Baksh's family if he fails to comply. In the end Hussein accepts money from Narain Ram and agrees to become his ally, accepting an arranged position in Kappilavatthu working for the Rajah. Traveling to that locale, he leaves Jehangir with the Rajah's mahouts and becomes a leopard keeper. His responsibility is tending a young cheetah named Shaitan. Although ignorant of his task, he learns the practice from an older leopard keeper. This man, Yussuf, is the only other Mohammedan among the animal tenders, religious divisions being significant in the culture. Hussein distinguishes himself in the first hunt of the season, though he is injured. In gratitude, the Rajah gives him a ruby ring and orders his treasurer to fill Hussein's mouth with gold. Hussein lies on his back with his mouth open, but the resentful treasurer fills his mouth with mostly copper coins. While Hussein is recuperating from wounds suffered on the first hunt, Ram Narain arranges for his responsibilities to be transferred to the position of mahout for Jehangir. Amid episodes of intrigue, the Rajah's tiger hunt commences. Hussein carries the Rajah in a howdah on Jehangir's back. In the evening, Ram Narain confesses to Hussein that he works for a prince who is wholly for the Sirkar. This tiger hunt is the opportunity he and his allies have been waiting for, and Ram Narain and Hussein are able to observe the Rajah entering into a compact with another native party. The treaty is signed in exchange for a fortune in gold. Hussein, who has overheard the Rajah plot with his master of horse to kill the youth, aids Ram Narain in the frustration of the Rajah's party and capture of the newly signed treaty. All of the gold is contained in a pad bag which Hussein and Ram Narain place over Jehangir's back. Both Hussein and Ram Narain covet the gold, but their priority is escape. They travel through the night and with drama, ford a river seeking to reach British territory. Safety is not yet assured, and they must obtain food in villages along their route, disguised as storytellers. Hussein demonstrates his bona fides in this line, especially with a tale of a prince in Kathiawar. His performance convinces a suspicious a pair of men who are tracking the Rahjah of Kappilavatthu's enemies in the recent episode, and they leave the pair in peace. Hussein and Ram Narain reach Puniat safely with Jehangir. Before telegraphing his superiors, Ram Narain shares his wish to leave out any reference to the gold. He also informs Hussein that Purun Dass did not die of his beating. Ram Narain's superiors are very pleased with the result of the intrigue in Kapplilavatthu. After they have departed, Hussein and Ram Narain split the gold. Hussein hires a lawyer to deal with the affair of Purun Dass's grievance, and the fine is paid by an unknown party, in other words, by Ram Narain's grateful superiors. Influenced by his success with tales, Hussein conceives his own tale, which involves a happy ending with Sashiya. After extensive bargaining, he buys a costly necklace of rubies for her and sets into train the construction of a rich house on his farm in Laghat. With Jehangir dressed in grandeur he returns to Haiderabad and occupies the best accommodations. Then, disguised in poverty, he calls on Sashiya. The circumstance of poverty is no impediment to her love, and Hussein drapes the rubies about her neck. Revealing his true status of wealth, he carries her away—just as the Prince of Kathiawar carries away his beloved in Hussein's tale, her name being, by no coincidence, Sashiya. |
Pretty Like Us | null | null | Beauty McElwrath dreads going back to school this year. She has no friends to speak of and her teacher is also her mother’s boyfriend. She dreads it even more when she meets Alane Shriver, who suffers from an aging disease. Beauty ends up making fun of her, just like people have made fun of Beauty in the past, in order to try to gain friends. She runs away from school twice to forget some of the mean things that she is willing to do in hopes of gaining friendship. Her mother, grandmother and teacher all encourage her to make friends with Alane, but Beauty fears the disapproval of her classmates. She must realize that she wants to be friends with Alane on her own. She eventually makes friends with Alane through an illegal midnight drive to the beach and an incident with a wild pig running into Beauty’s mother’s prized car. However, Beauty is embarrassed by being friends with Alane when they are at school and says she is sorry about her actions in front of the entire classroom in order to regain Alane's friendship. Beauty’s mother starts a restaurant, her dream for quite some time. Beauty works as a waitress to help out and gain some pocket money. Meanwhile, Alane gets sick and Beauty finds out that not only does Alane look very old, her body itself is very old and she is slowly dying. Beauty both finds and learns how to deal with losing her best friend; and Alane finally found a friend and fulfills her own dream by the end of the both, with a little help. |
Amityville - The Nightmare Continues | null | 1,991 | Amityville, New York. Once the Dutch Colonial house on Ocean Avenue had been the scene of a gruesome possession that sent its owners fleeing for their sanity and their lives. For years, it had remained abandoned, without any sign of disturbance. Then 11-year-old Kooch Webster dared his buddy Lester to sneak into the house. They only wanted to steal some junk to make a little pocket money. But something terrible still lurked within the crumbling walls—a monstrous evil that threatened to destroy not only the boys, but anyone who came in contact with them. Insidiously, the evil within the house spread into the community; a pawnbroker who bought the boys' stolen goods was found brutally slain, a priest disappeared mysteriously after visiting the house, and soon Kooch, Lester and their families were caught in an unrelenting web of terror for which there was no rational explanation, and no possible escape. |
River God | Wilbur A. Smith | 1,994 | River God follows the fate of the Egyptian Kingdom through the eyes of Taita, a multi-talented and highly skilled eunuch slave. Taita is owned by Lord Intef and primarily looks after his daughter, Lostris, but also plays a large role in the day to day running of Lord Intef's estate. The Pharaoh of Egypt is without a male heir, and Taita inadvertently causes Pharaoh to take an interest in Lostris. Lostris meanwhile is in love with the soldier Tanus, who unbeknownst to her is hated by her father. Eventually Pharaoh marries Lostris and her father, Lord Intef, reluctantly gives Taita to her as a wedding gift. Meanwhile, Tanus has angered Pharaoh by speaking bluntly about the troubles Egypt is in — most prominently the growing bandit threat which terrorizes all who travel outside of the major cities. Pharaoh condemns him to death for his actions, but is convinced to allow Tanus to redeem himself by attempting to eliminate all the bandits from Egypt within two years. Since his sentence is revealed on the last day of the festival of Osiris, he is to return on that day of the next festival with his task complete or face death by strangulation. Tanus, with the help of Taita, hunts down and captures the leaders of the Shrike bandits. On presenting them to Pharaoh, it is revealed that their leader is Lord Intef. Tanus has his death sentence lifted, but Intef manages to escape before he can be punished for his crimes. After the sentence is announced a storm sweeps through allowing Lostris and Tanus time to be secretly alone together. During this time Lostris conceives Tanus' first born, and before the secret can be discovered Taita arranges for her to resume her wifely duties to Pharaoh. When the child is born he is named Memnon and claimed by the Pharaoh as his own, and his true paternity is known only to Lostris, Taita, and Tanus. A new threat to the kingdom emerges — the warlike Hyksos. Equipped with the horse and chariot, as well as a superior recurved bow, their technological superiority is far greater than the Egyptian army's. The Pharaoh is killed, forcing a majority of the Egyptian nobility (including Lostris, Tanus, and Taita) to flee Egypt by heading up the Nile with the remaining army. During their exile Lostris gives birth to two more of Tanus' children, both daughters, but as their relationship has been a secret Taita creates a cover story where the ghost of Pharaoh sires the child. During their period in exile, they regain their technical superiority — Taita replicates and improves both the chariots and bows he has seen used to such great effect on the battlefield. While searching for a suitable burying place for Pharaoh's body, Taita is taken captive by one of the Ethiopian chieftains of the area — the brutal Arkoun. While in captivity, Taita becomes close friends with Masara, a fellow captive and the daughter of one of the rival chieftains. Taita eventually escapes captivity due to a freak flooding, finds the father of Masara, and strikes a deal with him to rescue Masara. With the help of Tanus, Memnon, and the Egyptian army, Arkoun is defeated. Tanus is mortally wounded during the battle and dies. Masara and Memnon fall in love and become married, with a wedding gift of several thousand horses which further boost the Egyptian army. Led by their new Pharaoh Tamose (formerly Prince Memnon), they return to Egypt. With their new-found weaponry and tactics, they defeat the Hyksos invaders and regain the upper kingdom of Egypt from Elephantine to Thebes. |
An Excellent Mystery | Edith Pargeter | 1,985 | August 1141 is sunny, hot, without rain in Shropshire. Half of southern England is cut off from the Abbey of St Peter and St Paul by the civil war between the imprisoned King Stephen and the besieged Empress Maud. Empress Maud is hoping to regain the support of Henry of Blois, but most doubt the canny bishop will side with her again after the failure of his legatine council. Rather he is building up his own stores at Wolvesey Castle in Winchester in case he is besieged, and rebuilding his alliance with his brother's wife Queen Matilda, now leading King Stephen's armies. Handing Brother Oswin to his term at the leper house at Saint Giles, Cadfael hears the first hints of the troubles at Winchester, meeting it in person on his way back to the Abbey. The Abbey of Hyde-Mead in Winchester has been laid waste by the fighting, scattering the surviving monks across the country. Brother Humilis and the mute, young Brother Fidelis are welcomed by the Abbey of Shrewsbury as refugees. Humilis tells the Abbot that he was born near Shrewsbury and wishes to see the old estates of his father. Cadfael recalls a nobleman called Godfrid Marescot, who joined the crusades sixteen years ago, taking men from his manor, and gained a reputation for great valour. He realizes that Humilis is Godfrid returned. Hugh Beringar notes that the man is clearly ill and likely not long for this world. Fidelis seems impressed with Humilis, dedicated to his care. One day Cadfael finds Humilis unable to move from pain. While treating Humilis, Cadfael discovers the severity of the wound from the Crusades, which has rendered him incapable of fathering children and likely to die soon. Cadfael learns that Fidelis joined the monastery when Humilis had just graduated from being a novice. Fidelis brought with him a written explanation of his desire to serve God and a small amount of money. Brother Urien, who recently joined the monastery after a failed marriage, makes a sexual advance towards the young novice Rhun, but is rejected. Rhun is thus aware of the troubled Brother Urien. Two days later, Rhun takes his vows as a novice monk, with a tonsure. Nicholas Harnage arrives on leave from the Queen's army (King Stephen's Queen, under FitzRobert) at Andover, where they have burnt the town, and the siege is at stalemate for the moment. He asks Brother Humilis for permission to propose marriage to Humphrey Cruce's daughter. Julian Cruce was betrothed to Humilis/Godfrid by arranged marriage when Godfrid left for the Crusades; she was but 5 years old, the last time he saw her. Nicholas was dispatched to tell her family that she was released from the engagement upon Godfrid's return from the Crusades, the only time Nicholas has met her. Humilis gladly gives his consent to Nicholas who leaves for the Cruce manor in the north of the shire to make his proposal of marriage three years after once meeting her. Julian's older brother, Reginald, tells Nicholas that Julian left to become a nun about a month after her engagement to Humilis was broken, and one month before her father died. She went to the convent at Wherwell, but Reginald has had no communication with her since she left. Disappointed, Nicholas returns to Shrewsbury Abbey with his news. In early September, a wool merchant brings word to Hugh Beringar that the Empress's forces made an attempt to open a supply line to Winchester but were put down by William of Ypres's forces. The Empress's men took refuge in Wherwell Abbey, which was fired in the fighting, soldiers and nuns both inside. Hugh informs Cadfael early the next morning; he rushes the news to Nicholas, who leaves quickly to learn if Julian is safe. Soon after this Brother Urien makes an advance towards Brother Fidelis. Fidelis rejects him. Nicholas fails to find Julian at Wherwell. He continues his search to Romsey Abbey, where the Prioress of Wherwell escaped. She informs him that Julian Cruce has never asked to enter the nunnery at Wherwell. Reeling from this news, Nicholas returns to Winchester, where he finds a battle underway. The Empress and her forces have broken out of the siege, marching out at dawn along the Stockbridge road, now pursued by the Queen's army. Three days later Nicholas reached Shrewsbury Abbey. He recounts his findings to Brother Humilis, and shares what he saw at Winchester, including news of the taking of Robert of Gloucester. The disappearance of Julian is the more mysterious since she was escorted to Wherwell by four trustworthy and well-armed servants who returned home safely afterwards. Nicholas again visits the manor at Lai to meet three of the men who escorted Julian to Wherwell. The three men reveal that on the last leg of the journey only one man, the forester Adam Heriet, since sent on military service, accompanied Julian. Reginald vows there will be restitution for whatever ill has befallen Julian, as his honor is now touched. A list of the valuables Julian took with her into the cloister is given to Nicholas to aid in his search. At the Abbey Nicholas and Reginald find Hugh and Cadfael discussing the war news brought by Nicholas. Fortunes turned at the rout of Winchester with the taking of the Empress's strongest ally by the Queen's army. The imprisoned King Stephen may yet be exchanged for Robert of Gloucester taken by the King's allies at Stockbridge, held in Rochester. In the rout, the Empress escaped with her life and her forces were scattered. Nicholas and Reginald ask Hugh to assist them as Sheriff. Hugh agrees to pursue Heriet, the last man to have seen Julian. Nicholas leaves to seek trace of the valuables, while Reginald heads home. Hugh finds Heriet at his brother in law's home and questions him. Heriet claims to have travelled with Julian to within a mile of the convent, but let her travel the last mile on her own at her own request. He has no knowledge of her in the three years since. Hugh returns to Shrewsbury with Heriet, who asks repeatedly for news of Julian. Heriet does recall Julian's happy expectation of her marriage to Godfrid, in her youth. Brother Humilis is very ill and has been taken to the infirmary where Brother Cadfael tends him. Hugh tells Humilis what he has learned and Heriet recounts his story. Heriet's story clashes with that of the other three men on the point of time: Heriet returned to them at sunset. Heriet claims to have used the extra hours to explore the city of Winchester. Heriet denies robbing and killing Julian, allowing himself to be taken into the sheriff's custody. Alone with Cadfael and Hugh, Brother Humilis asks about the valuables that disappeared with Julian. Hugh describes them in detail, with his word perfect memory. Brother Urien overhears part of their conversation and thinks that one of the items Hugh described, the cross sized for a neck chain, may be in the possession of Brother Fidelis who wears something on a chain around his neck. Brother Fidelis sturdily rejects Brother Urien's advances. Angered, Urien then pulls the chain to see what hangs on it. Urien gives Fidelis three days to reconsider, threatening to tell all if Fidelis does not do so, and leaves. Rhun is witness to Fidelis in distress. Rhun then suggests to Brother Edmund that Fidelis be allowed to have a cot in Brother Humilis's room. That night, Humilis wakes to discover his friend on the cot. Using a lamp to study his friend's face, he sees more than he expected. Visible on the pillow was an old ring on the chain around his neck. Thus did Brother Humilis learn the truth about his faithful companion. Humilis and Cadfael talk alone. Humilis asks Cadfael to protect Brother Fidelis after Humilis dies, to which Cadfael agrees. Cadfael says he guesses at what might Humilis must know, but will do his best. Humilis then asks that he and Fidelis visit the nearby manor where he, Humilis, was born. It is a risky journey by land, so Cadfael suggests the river, guided by a local expert. Cadfael gains the Abbott's approval for this scheme. Charged to arrange the journey, Cadfael visits at Beringar's town home, enlisting the assistance of Aline for his future plans, playing with his godson. When Hugh returns, Cadfael tells of the plan for Humilis. Then Cadfael recruits Madog and his skiff for the journey next day to Godfrid's manor, now held by his cousin, tenanted by longtime neighbors. Nicholas visits the Bishop of Winchester to seek some trace of the valuables that disappeared with the lady Julian. The Bishop lends his authority to help Nicholas question the churches, abbeys and merchantmen of the city. A merchant and his wife remember Adam Heriet well and describe him clearly as having sold them Julian's jewellery. Heriet claimed at the time that he was acting as a servant under orders and that the lady who owned the jewellery was dead. The jeweller's wife saw Heriet meet someone after the transaction, she thought a young, slim man. The wife of the jeweller received Julian's distinctive ring as a birthday gift and loans it to Nicholas to use to confront Adam Heriet. Humilis and Fidelis meet Madog for the journey to the manor where Humilis grew up. At the manor, Humilis speaks warmly to Fidelis of his gratitude and love for all the care in his last years. A storm threatens, and Humilis makes the choice to return rather than wait out the storm. The storm is furious and intense, ripping up a huge willow, setting it afire from lightning, falling to knock their skiff to pieces. Fidelis comes up for air, sees Humilis, holds him up. Madog takes Humilis to shore, tries to revive him, as Fidelis washes up alive at the same place. Realising there will be no reviving, Fidelis keens in deep pain. Nicholas reaches Shrewsbury as the storm breaks. He seeks out Hugh Beringar first at his home, then in the still heavy rain to the castle, and tells his news from Winchester. Madog arrives in Shrewsbury. He finds Cadfael alone at the mill. Relating how Humilis died in the river, he asks Cadfael how to deal with the fact uncovered in the disaster, surprising to Madog but not to Cadfael. Cadfael tells him that if anything has to be said, it should be that Fidelis died in the river with Humilis. Cadfael proceeds to Aline, who lets him know that Nicholas is returned. They proceed along the river with horses, Cadfael the more pressed wondering what news Nicholas has spread. Hugh and Nicholas question Adam Heriet with the evidence of the ring. They formally accuse Heriet of the lady Julian's murder. Heriet denies everything, when the news of river deaths interrupts the interrogation. Hugh and Nicholas leave to verify the news and offer what assistance they can. In the streets of Shrewsbury they see Brother Humilis's body being carried to the Abbey. At the Abbey Madog recounts the accident to Abbott Radulfus, who sorrowfully accepts all he says, including a promise to search for the other monk. Hugh Beringar notes Cadfael is absent from the scene. Returning home, Hugh is approached by his wife Aline with a story for him alone. Cadfael is finishing up the important business, and Hugh ought to relieve Heriet of the mistaken news said in front of him. Brother Humilis's funeral in Shrewsbury Abbey drew many, fitting for a man to be laid to rest in the Abbey transept. Reginald Cruce recalls another ring that meant more to his sister, the gift of Godfrid at the time of the engagement, a very old ring from his family. She wore it on a chain around her neck. None knew that this ring is what Godfrid saw just before his death, that told him the secret of Fidelis, who had not accepted his rejection three years earlier. Just after the ceremony, Sister Magdalene of Godric's Ford Benedictine cell arrives with a letter addressed to the Lord Sheriff, Hugh Beringar. Hugh reads the letter publicly, which is from the Lady Julian who says she is now at the nunnery at Polesworth. The letter says she had lived at Sopwell Priory by Saint Albans without taking vows, regrets the pain of the fears she was 'done to death for gain,' and asks that escort be sent to fetch her to Shrewsbury. Reginald is joyous at the news that his sister is alive and repentant of having wronged Adam Heriet, an honest man. Nicholas is stunned and pleased. Grieving his friend Fidelis, Brother Rhun visits the river side and finds Brother Urien in the same sorrow yet in despair. Urien speaks of making confession and facing retribution for what he did, but Rhun persuades him to keep Fidelis's secret between the two of them for the sake of Fidelis. Rhun has realised that Fidelis was in fact Julian Cruce, in many ways back from the dead. Two days later, lady Julian arrives for the Mass to be said in honor of the lost brothers, walking past the men she had lived among for weeks, unrecognized by them. Nicholas and Julian meet; in one glance, Nicholas recognises her as Fidelis, as do Rhun and Urien, though they tell no one else. Understanding the depth of her commitment to Brother Humilis, Nicholas decides to postpone his romantic pursuit of her until she has had time to mourn. Julian asks him to visit her at her brother's manor, it would be a kindness. She wore that very old ring on her finger, and was dressed just right by Aline and Sister Magdalene to hide the tonsure. Cadfael reflects on how scandalous it would have been to the order had the truth come out, and the damage spared Julian. Hugh reflects on Heriet's motives, devotion and actions, and Cadfael recalls his journey to Sister Magdalene's priory with Fidelis/Julian. Sister Magdalene notes that the letter she wrote was had no lies, if a few deceptions, and praises the wisdom of Julian's decision to pretend muteness, as one who cannot speak, cannot lie. The novel concludes by quoting from the solemnization of matrimony, taken from the Book of Common Prayer. |
The Suicide Collectors | null | 2,008 | The Suicide Collectors is set in a near future version of North America. A mysterious plague called the Despair has ravaged the earth, causing roughly 90% of its population to commit suicide. The Collectors appear after each suicide to collect the bodies. The story centers on Norman who leaves Florida on a journey to Seattle where a doctor may have a cure for the Despair. |
Prodigal Summer: A Novel | Barbara Kingsolver | 2,000 | Prodigal Summer tells the story of a small town in Appalachia during a single, humid summer, when three interweaving stories of love, loss and family unfold against the backdrop of the lush wildness of Kentucky mountains. The narrative follows Deanna, a solitary woman working as a park ranger, Lusa, a widowed farmwife at odds with her late husband's tight-knit family, and Garnett, an old man who dreams of restoring the lineage of the extinct American Chestnut tree. Kingsolver's extensive education in biology is on display in this book, laden with ecological concepts and biological facts. Her writing also exhibits her knowledge of rural Virginia, where she grew up. In the acknowledgments Kingsolver thanks her Virginia friends and neighbors, as well as Fred Herbard of the American Chestnut Foundation. |
Jewels | Danielle Steel | 1,992 | Born in 1916 in a well-to-do family in America, Sarah Thompson married Freddie, a man who had time for everything except her. He drank all night and mingled with prostitutes. Sarah became pregnant, but miscarried. She got a divorce and moped around all day. Her concerned parents dragged her to Europe where well-meaning friends and family forced their nephews, sons and grandsons on her. She met William Whitfield, the Duke of Whitfield, 13th in line for succession to the British throne. Captivated by him, she finally became his companion in London. He cast aside her fears of a public scandal and finally convinced Sarah to marry him. On their honeymoon France, Sarah and William happened upon Chateau de la Meuze. According to Sarah's wishes, William bought the Chateau as a Christmas present. They worked hard to restore the estate, but it was mainly Sarah's work that did the job. The world was in for a bad time. World War II had begun. Reluctantly, after the birth of their first child Phillip, William left to join the RAF when England declared war on Germany. The Germans took possession of France, and German troops, led by the courtly commandant Joachim von Mannheim, seized the chateau to establish a care center for the wounded and dying soldiers, removing Sarah and Phillip to the caretaker's cottage. Joachim fell in love with Sarah, but Sarah was still faithful to William. She discovered she was pregnant, and gave birth to a daughter Elizabeth, who died soon of a fever, due to few medical supplies. Soon, Joachim had to leave, and William returned from the war, but he had lost the use of his legs. In later years, Sarah went on to have more kids - Julian, Isabelle, Xavier. William died on the night of Xavier's first birthday. After William's funeral, Joachim returned, only to find that Sarah had no place in her heart for another man. The book then goes on to tell us of how Sarah spends the rest of her days till her 75th birthday, busy with her kids and her jewelry store - Whitfield Jewelers - jewelers to the Crown. Steel paints a portrait of a family, imperfect as they may be, and the powerful matriarch who reminds them of the bond that transcends titles, money, and borders. |
The AdSense Code | Joel Comm | 2,006 | In the book Comm details the techniques that he used to raise the earnings generated by the AdSense units on his websites from $3 per day to more than $600 per day. Comm's system is based on the principle that ads blended into a Web page to look like content generate more clicks and hence more revenue than those that stand out. Comm stresses that good content is still vital to success but that good optimization – a combination of clever placement, keyword targeting and careful blending – can produce high income from advertisers. He also explains how to follow stats and test strategies to discover the best approach for each website. |
Unwind | Neal Shusterman | 2,007 | The story centers around three youths who have been scheduled to be unwound, Connor, a sixteen year old whose family believes he'd gotten into too many fights, Risa, a ward of the state who doesn't make it in the continuing program because of budget cuts, and Lev, a tithe whose rich parents had him specifically to be unwound, as he is the tenth child and 10% of everything they have should be given to God. Connor discovers his unwind orders and decides to "kick AWOL" or run away, and tries to convince his friend Ariana to go with him. She agrees but later backs out, and he runs off alone with the help of a trucker. However, his cell phone tracker gets him caught. Connor resists arrest and flees the police, running into traffic and snatching a tithe (Lev) from a car to use as a hostage and human shield. This causes a bus full of State Home wards (StaHo kids) on their way to the harvest camp to overturn, and provides Risa with the perfect opportunity to escape. Risa, Connor, and Lev flee into the woods, and are pursued briefly by a JuveyCop, who Connor shoots with the cop's own tranquilizer after Risa baits him. The next morning, while gathering supplies, the three come across a storked baby waiting on a doorstep. Because of an experience in his past, Connor can't just pass by, and puts them all at risk by picking up the baby in plain view of a cop car cruising nearby. The three get on a school bus to blend in and hide out in the school bathroom with the baby. Lev takes his chance to escape, because as a tithe, he believes that it is an honor to be unwound, and he goes to the school office to turn in the others. He calls his pastor after he's done so, who tells him he helped keep their faces out of the paper so Lev could be free. Astonished by this sudden change, Lev pulls the fire alarm to help Connor and Risa escape from the incoming cops. Connor, Risa and the baby attempt to hide, but are discovered by a teacher, Hannah, who helps them to escape the school and tells them to go to an antique store and ask for Sonia, who will help them. The store is a safe house, where they stay for a few days before the Ice Cream man comes to pick them up and shuttle them to another house in the chain. Before they leave, Sonia has them and the other kids, one of whom is a bully named Roland, write letters to their loved ones about how they felt about being ordered to be unwound and said she would mail them if they didn't come to collect it a year after their eighteenth birthdays, when they would be safe from unwinding. Hannah comes to say goodbye, and to take the baby, who she and her husband have decided to adopt and claim as a storked baby. The ecaped children are eventually taken to a holding area, a big warehouse by an airport. Lev, in the meantime, has also managed to escape and has met up with a kid named CyFi who claims not to be a runaway, but is headed to Joplin because 1/8 of his mind, which he got from a single unwound youth instead of bits and parts like was usually done, would take over his mind at times and he needed peace. CyFi teaches Lev some street smarts along the way, and Lev helps him and the unwound kid inside him get closure. At the warehouse, Risa begins to understand the power games Roland is playing in breaking up any groups of kids that might be a threat to him. She tries to make Connor understand and stay calm, as a fight between the two of them is looming as Connor appears to be the next biggest threat to Roland. Connor takes her words to heart and isn't baited by Roland when he attempts to rape Risa in the bathroom. Shortly after, they are all taken to the Graveyard, an aircraft graveyard, their final destination and where they will remain until they reach the age of eighteen and are safe. A former admiral is in charge of the airplane graveyard and assigns the children to work detail where they can best be used. Connor becomes a mechanic and Risa becomes a medic, while Roland learns to fly a helicopter from Cleaver, the only other adult who knows about the kids. Roland starts up his trouble anew, spreading stories about the Admiral to sow dissent and to make himself the new leader. Connor ends up on the Admiral's side as a spy, and when a number of the higher up kids are killed, he investigates, believing Roland to be responsible. A short time in, Lev arrives, tougher than before, and joins a secret group that wants to damage Unwind facilities rather than just live out to age eighteen and then leave the camp. The Admiral has a heart attack during a riot caused by doubts sown by Roland, even though he is not there to direct it and take over. Connor brings things under control, but gets Roland and Risa to come with him to fly the Admiral to a hospital, even knowing they will likely be caught. They are taken away to a harvest camp, where Risa unwillingly joins the band which plays at the unwinding and death of each child. Lev is at the camp as well, having turned himself in after becoming a clapper, a suicide bomber who has been injected with a liquid explosive triggered by clapping hard enough. Roland is unwound due to his blood type being high on demand. Just as Connor is about to be unwound, the other two clappers who are at the camp with Lev detonate their explosives at his request. He intends to join them, but at the last minute changes his mind, determined to pull out unwound youth from the wreckage and save Connor. He does so, and confesses himself to the police. Back at the hospital, Connor and Risa unite again, having begun a relationship while at the harvest camp. Connor's injuries made him the unwilling recipient of a new eye and arm, which formerly belonged to Roland, which he can tell from the shark tattoo on the arm. The nurse gives him a fake ID from a guard killed in the explosion to save him from unwinding. Risa refuses treatment despite being paralyzed from the waist down, and saves herself that way as well, as cripples cannot be unwound. Lev is saved by the explosive fluid in him, which is slowly being removed from his bloodstream. Risa and Connor return to the Graveyard to run it because the Admiral is too weak, having refused to take a new heart from an Unwind. They promise to begin fighting against harvesting. The story ends with a party at the Admiral's house, celebrating the birthday of his son, who he and his wife unwittingly had unwound. All the people who received parts from his son attend, bringing him entirely there. Risa and Connor go back to the Graveyard. |
The Green Child | Herbert Read | 1,935 | The first and last parts of the story are told as a third-person narrative, but the middle part is written in the first person. The story begins in 1861 with the faked death of President Olivero, dictator of the South American Republic of Roncador, who has staged his own assassination. He returns to his native England, to the village where he was born and raised. On the evening of his arrival Olivero notices that the stream running through the village appears to be flowing backwards, and he decides to follow the water upstream to discover the cause. The stream's course leads Olivero to a mill, where through a lighted window he sees a woman tied to a chair, forced by the miller to drink the blood of a freshly slaughtered lamb. Instinctively, Olivero hurls himself through the open window, his "leap into the world of fantasy". The miller initially offers no resistance and allows Olivero to release the woman, whom he recognises by the colour of her skin to be Sally, one of the two green children who had mysteriously arrived in the village on the day he left, 30 years earlier; Olivero also recognises the miller as Kneeshaw, an ex-pupil at the village school where he had once taught. During a struggle between the two men Kneeshaw is accidentally drowned in the mill pond. The next morning Olivero and Sally continue on Olivero's quest to find the stream's destination, a pool in the moors high above the village. Paddling in its water, Sally begins to sink into the silvery sand covering its bed. Olivero rushes to her, and hand in hand they sink beneath the water of the pool. The book's second part recounts the events between Oliver leaving the village as its young schoolmaster and his return as ex-President Olivero. He travels to London initially, hoping to find employment as a writer, but after three years spent working as a bookkeeper in a tailor's shop he takes passage on a ship which lands him in Cádiz, Spain. Unable to speak the language, and in possession of a book by Voltaire, he is arrested as a suspected revolutionary. Held captive for two years, he learns Spanish from his fellow prisoners and determines to travel to one of the liberated American colonies he has learned of, where the possibility exists to establish a new world "free from the oppression and injustice of the old world". Freed in an amnesty following the death of King Ferdinand of Spain, Oliver makes his way to Buenos Aires. There he is mistaken for a revolutionary agent and taken to meet General Santos of the Roncador Army. Together they hatch a plot to seize the country's capital city and assassinate its dictator. The plot is successful and "Don Olivero" finds himself leader of the Assembly, making him the country's new dictator, a position he holds for 25 years. Eventually he realises that his style of government is leading the country into stagnation and "moral flaccidity"; he begins to feel nostalgia for the English village where he was brought up, and resolves to escape. Wishing to avoid any suspicion that he is deserting Roncador, Olivero fakes his own assassination. The final part of the book continues the story from when Olivero and Sally disappear under the water. A large bubble forms around them, transporting them to the centre of the pool and ascending into a large grotto, from where they proceed on foot through a series of adjoining caverns. Sally tells Olivero that this is the country she and her brother left 30 years ago. Soon they encounter her people, to whom Sally, or Siloēn as she is properly known, explains that many years ago she wandered off and became lost, but that she has now returned with one who "was lost too, and now wishes to dwell among us". Olivero and Siloēn are welcomed into the community, where life is ordered around a progression from lower to upper ledges: the first ledge teaches the pleasures of youth; on the second ledge the pleasure of manual work is learned; on the third of opinion and argument; and finally, on the upper ledge, the "highest pleasure", of solitary thought. Olivero soon tires of the first ledge, and leaving Siloēn behind he moves to the second, where he learns to cut and polish crystals, the most sacred of objects in this subterranean world. Eventually he is allowed to move to the highest ledge of all, "the final stage of life". There he is taught the "basic principles of the universe", that there is only Order and Disorder. "Order ... [is] the space-filling Mass about them ... Disorder is empty space". Olivero selects a grotto in which to spend what remains of his life alone, contemplating the "natural and absolute beauty" of the crystals he accepts from the crystal-cutters. Food and water is brought regularly, and he settles to the task of preparing his body for "the perfection of death", which when it comes he meets with a "peculiar joy". Removing Olivero's body from the grotto the attendants encounter another group carrying Siloēn, who died at the same time as Olivero. The pair are laid together in a petrifying trough, to "become part of the same crystal harmony", as is customary when any of the Green people die. |
Pencil of Doom! | Andy Griffiths | 2,008 | Henry has a green pencil with a skull eraser. He discovers that everything he writes or draws with it becomes true! But if he draws good things, a bad thing will unexpectedly happen. He tries to destroy the pencil in many ways, and gives his friend Jack Japes amnesia in the process by tripping him down a hill . He throws it into a rubbish bin, hoping it will never be seen again, but it turns up again in Lost Property. He wedges it under the sports teacher's Hummer's wheel, but instead it sticks into it, and the Hummer collides with Mrs Cross' small green hatchback. He also attempts to crush it in Mr Spade's compactor, but not knowing how to use it, it blows up and the pencil is left intact. He attempts to draw a picture of the pencil itself disappearing, but because of how wishes don't always come true in the way people expect, it gets stolen by Clive, who use it to draw a picture of Henry and his friends being crushed under an avalanche. Luckily (or unluckily), they get crushed by an avalanche... of books. The combined weight of the books also crushes the pencil. The characters are saved by the librarian, Mr Shush, who digs them out. The story ends here with the usual paragraph. |
Mascot Madness! | Andy Griffiths | 2,008 | Mr Brainfright dresses in a banana mascot suit to support Northwest Southeast Central School, also getting extremely obsessed with bananas and boring the class - unusual for him! Mr Brainfright also teaches the class to visualise all the events in the Northwest Interschool Sports Event, while Mr Grunt, their sports teacher, tortures them cruelly and gives 50 laps around the oval as punishment to those who fail. Finally the event DOES come, and it is neck and neck between the two schools until Henry McThrottle has to replace Mr Brainfright in his banana suit, being scared of it because he used to mascot for the Banana Emporium, and caused a car crash into the Emporium. Fiona tells him it wasn't his fault - he wasn't in the official police report. However, Northwest West Academy's mascot, a real pit bull terrier, attacks Henry and he starts running in the decathlon in desperation, also being caught up by Chomp occasionally. They beat the speed record for all the events in the decathlon! One judge ruled that Chomp added weight to Henry during the pole vaulting sport, therefore, Northwest Southeast win by one point! This ruined West's winning streak. Mr Brainfright no longer has mascot madness, due to the absence of his banana-suit. Mr Grunt becomes the sports teacher for Northwest West Academy, ensuring that Northwest West Academy do not win next year with Mr Brainfright replacing his job. Fred and Clive, who told Mr Constrictor (NWW Academy's principal) about the banana-suit, do NOT get expelled. The story ends with the chapter, with Mr Brainfright's Guide to Banana Mascotting. |
The Master: An Adventure Story | T. H. White | 1,957 | It involves two children, Judy and Nicky, and their dog Jokey, who are stranded on Rockall, an extremely small, uninhabited, remote rocky islet in the North Atlantic Ocean. They find that it is hollow and inhabited by a mysterious person who aims to take over the world. Rockall actually exists, though the persons depicted in the book are entirely fictional. |
The Grifters | null | null | Roy Dillon is a 25-year-old con artist living in Los Angeles. At the start of the novel, he gets hit in the stomach with a baseball bat when a simple con goes wrong. He seems to be well but when Lilly - his mother - visits him for the first time in almost eight years, he starts to deteriorate. She calls for a doctor, who informs her that he is internally hemorrhaging. Roy is taken to hospital, where he begins to recover after several days. While at the hospital, his mother meets Moira Langtry, the woman that Roy is currently involved with. They take an instant dislike to each other. Lilly hires a nurse, Carol Roberg, in the hope that Roy will give up Moira for Carol. Roy then leaves the hospital and stays at Lilly's apartment where Carol looks after him. When they are about to have an affair, Roy discovers that Carol was in a concentration camp when she was younger. In the meantime Lilly is at the race track working for an organization headed by gangster Bobo Justus. He comes to meet her and he takes her back to his apartment. He proceeds to beat her for a serious mistake she made several months back. In the process, the back of her hand is burned badly. She goes back to her apartment where she has a fight with Roy, and tells him to give up grifting. Roy goes back to work for the day and meets his new boss Perk Kraggs who takes a liking to him. He offers him a job as a sales manager. Roy is unsure if he should take it or not. He goes away with Moira to La Jolla for the weekend. She realizes that he is a con man when she sees him conning a group of people on the train. She tells him that they should work together but he refuses. She gets into a fury and he slaps her. He leaves, thinking that it is the end of the relationship. He later decides to take the sales job and to quit grifting. He is then contacted by the police and he is informed that his mother has committed suicide. He presumes that Moira killed her. However, when he goes out to see the body, he notices that the burn on her hand is not there. He realizes that the body is Moira's and that his mother is still alive. In the meantime, his mother has broken into his apartment and is stealing all his money. He comes back and catches her in the act, and tells her that he won't let her take it for her own good; he wants her to quit grifting as well. In desperation, Lilly attempts to seduce Roy, who recoils in disgust. When he is taking a drink, she hits him with her purse. Unintentionally, she breaks the glass which cuts his neck, causing him to bleed to death. She briefly breaks down after realizing she has killed her own son, but regains her composure and takes the money. |
Trying to Grow | null | null | Trying to Grow features a young boy, born in Bombay, with brittle bones, who would never grow taller than four feet. His mother, an Anglophile enamoured with everything English (stockpiling Quality Street to Marmite), names her little boy Brit, after his brittle bones and because it was short for her favourite Britain. Brit turns out to be a spiky, opinionated and naughty - he knows his small size allows people to assume his is a safe and innocent haven for their secrets. He prefers sex to Shakespeare, although he gets to be good at both as he grows older. He's schooled at home, so he knows more about Charles I than the boys next door - until, that is, puberty arrives, with a sexy new boy next door. A relationship with a woman also follows. All through is the tenderness and heartbreak of a young man experiencing love and desire - having his heart broken and mended, which is far more intense than the pain of his broken bones. The characters are semi-autobiographical and set in the Parsee community in India. How to Increase Height After 25 |
Two Lives | William Trevor | 1,991 | Reading Turgenev deals with the life of Mary Louise Dallon, a farm girl from southeastern Ireland who marries an older draper named Elmer Quarry. Her marriage remains unconsummated, in part due to the growing alcoholism of her husband. She falls in love with her invalid cousin Robert, who introduces her to the works of great Russian writers (including Ivan Turgenev). She eventually goes mad and structures her life around preserving the existence of Robert to the finest detail possible, including re-creating his room and possessions in her attic. In My House in Umbria, the first-person narrator, a retired prostitute and madam, now a writer of romantic novels, recollects a brief period when she sheltered in her Umbrian retirement villa three fellow survivors of a terrorist attack on an Italian passenger train. The novella has been made in to a made-for-television film, also entitled My House in Umbria, which departs substantially from the somber plot of the original. |
Dexter is Delicious | Jeff Lindsay | null | The book begins nine months after the end of Dexter by Design with the birth of Lily Anne Morgan, the daughter of Dexter and Rita Morgan. His daughter's birth has brought remarkable changes in Dexter; apart from feeling genuine love and emotions for the first time he also does not feel his Dark Passenger's compulsion to kill and vows to swear off his dark hobby in order to be a better father for his daughter. Soon after Dexter is called to a crime scene by his sister Deb, who is in the middle of a jurisdictional fight with the FBI who claim that a kidnapping has taken place. Dexter believes that the large quantity of blood found there was planted, and that the missing girl in question is faking her disappearance in order to get money from her parents. Dexter runs tests and discovers that the blood type does not match the missing girl, Samantha Aldovar. Deb and Dex go to the private school Samantha attends and talk to her principal, who at first is reluctant to divulge any information. This changes when the principal discovers that Tyler Spanos, a wild child and Samantha's friend, is also missing. Subsequent interviews with their friends indicate that they were both befriended by a young man with teeth filed down like fangs, and that only a few dentists in Miami offered such a service. Their prime suspect is Bobby Acosta, the son of Joe Acosta, a wealthy and city official, whose influence has already rescued Bobby from felony prosecutions. Dexter receives a surprise one day bringing Cody and Astor home from school; waiting for him is his brother Brian, whom Dexter last saw at the end of Darkly Dreaming Dexter. Brian quickly ingratiates himself with Dexter's family, who rapidly start to adore him much to Dexter's dismay. Dex soon receives another call from his sister, and arrive at a crime scene where someone was apparently cooked and eaten. DNA from the gnawed bones matches that of Tyler Spanos. One of the detectives working under Deb uses his contacts and arrests two Haitian men who swear that they saw Bobby Acosta leaving Tyler's car at a known chop shop. Deb and Dex arrest Victor Chapin, another young man with artificial fangs, but are forced to release him when a public defender shows up. Dexter, in a fit of overprotective fury over his daughter, stalks Chapin and kills him. Just before dying, Chapin admits to having taken part in eating Tyler Spanos. Things get worse when the remains of Deke, Deb's obnoxious partner, are found partially eaten. Rummaging through a nearby trash bin, Dexter finds Deke's blood sodden shirt and a chip from a local goth nightclub called "Fang." Dex and Deb force their way into the club, but shortly after finding Bobby Acosta they are thrown out by the club's irate manager. Deb resolves to wait until everyone leaves, and makes Dexter break in to search for Samantha. While searching, Dexter remembers that he had previously considered the manager of Fang as a potential "playmate" (victim), because of a large number of migrants who vanished after working at the club. Dexter eventually finds Samantha in a large refrigerator; but, rather than follow Dexter to freedom, Samantha locks them both inside. Samantha then reveals that she desires to be eaten, and that she and Tyler shared the same fetish and volunteered to let the cannibals cook and eat them. Dex and Samantha are then taken to a trailer in the Everglades, where they are left with only a jug of water. While drinking the water Dexter and Samantha become euphoric and eventually have sex multiple times, despite recognizing that the water is laced with MDMA ("Ecstasy"). Shortly afterward Deb and the Miami PD arrive (thanks to a tracer Deb's boyfriend Chutsky placed on the vans leaving the club) and arrest the cannibals, except for the club manager, who is killed. Samantha, irate at being rescued, issues a thinly-veiled threat to Dexter: as revenge for ruining her fantasy, she will say Dexter raped her. The next day Deb approaches Dexter and tells him that Samantha has run off again. She and Dexter approach Joe Acosta and urge him to get Bobby to turn himself in, so that Samantha can be recovered – even though it will likely mean Bobby will avoid prison time. Bobby's father refuses to turn his son in, but his trophy wife Alana, Bobby's stepmother, privately reveals that he is at an abandoned amusement park that his father owns. Deb, Dex and Chutsky arrive at the park and begin searching it; eventually the three are caught and the leader of the cannibal "coven" is revealed to be Alana Acosta. Deb and Chutsky are taken away leaving Dexter to watch Alana cook pieces of a still-conscious Samantha. As Alana approaches Dexter to begin cutting and cooking him, one of Alana's guards guns her down as well as two other guards. Dexter's savior is revealed to be Brian, who had started working for the cannibals a few weeks prior. He cuts Dexter loose and reluctantly helps him rescue Deb and Chutsky; while leaving they check on Samantha, who has since died of her wounds. Chutsky decides to leave Deb because he failed her and nearly got her killed; upon waking up on the way to the hospital Deb reveals that she is pregnant. The book ends with Deb preparing to give birth despite Chutsky vanishing, and Dexter deciding that even though he now feels emotions like normal people, he can't stand by and let people be preyed upon when he can do something about it. He decides that the best he can do for his sister right now is to honor an earlier request of hers, and "take care" of Bobby Acosta. |
Click Here : | Denise Vega | 2,005 | Erin Swift is a seventh grader with big feet who keeps a private website, on which she writes all her feelings and what's happening in her life. Erin and her best friend, Jilly, were about to attend an Intermediate School by the name of Molly Brown. Unfortunately, they are separated by tracks. Erin is on A track, while Jilly is on C track. At first, Erin wants to be with Jilly more than anything, but when she met "Cute Boy", a.k.a. Mark Sacks, she changes her mind. On her first day, she receives three days of detention because she punches a childhood enemy, Serena, on the nose for calling Jilly her master puppeteer. Her elder brother, Chris, becomes annoyed over the incident, because he loves Serena's older sister. After the "puppet incident", Jilly signs herself and Erin up for the Thanksgiving Day play. Jilly gets the role of Goody Stanton, the main character, while Erin receives the part of an Ear of Corn, a moment of great ire for her. Erin also signed up for the school Intranet Club (the school's Internet) without Jilly, which is very significant because it's the first time she breaks away from her friend's hold and does anything on her own. There, she meets Tyler, whom her new friend Rosie said had been crushing on Erin. Meanwhile, Erin tries not to let Mark meet Jilly and vice-versa, because she knows if they meet each other, they'll fall in teenage love, effectively ruining Erin's chances at Mark. Eventually, though, they bump into each other, and Jilly becomes Mark's girlfriend. Erin is (teenage) heartbroken, and thinks lowly of Mark and his actions. Later on, Jilly wants to break up with Mark because she thinks he is "losing interest" in her, and asks Erin to choose between Mark's friendship or hers. Erin chooses "not to choose", instigating a dispute. Erin writes mean things about Jilly in her private blog. Through this time, Erin has written about how she practices kissing on a pillow for Mark, made a Hate-O-Rama page for Serena, and has talked about her suspicion of Tyler leaving notes in her locker - notes that smell like his hair gel. She also comments that he is a bit geeky. Life goes on, and it comes time for the Thanksgiving Play. Once the play ended, Tyler and Erin went to her locker to retrieve the disc for the school Intranet, but unfortunately, Serena accidentally rams into Erin, while she (Erin) is still in her Corn Suit. Because of the immobility the costume causes, her arm is pinned under her body, resulting in a fractured arm and a trip to the hospital. Tyler holds onto the disc while Erin is being checked by the doctor. Because of the broken arm, she misses the Intranet launch. Little did she know, the disc that she brought was, in fact, not the school Intranet disc. Instead, her private blog is put on the Intranet, and is revealed to the entire school. Erin receives many messages after the intranet is launched. Some are nice, agreeing that what she wrote was correct, but much more common were the mean notes. Rosie still supports her, her family along with her. Unfortunately, many other people do not, Jilly especially. Erin agrees that she did write some pretty horrible things about her, including Jilly's bruises from her bedframe that result from her fear of monsters in the night. Jilly thinks Erin released the blog to get even with her, and is embarrassed, enraged, and hurt. In the end, Erin does a public apology through "walking spam", with more personal apologies to those most deeply affected by her blog - Jilly, Serena, Tyler, and Mark. Erin and Jilly gain a better understanding of each other, while Serena becomes more friendly. Tyler eventually does forgive her, although Erin suspects he likes another girl now. Mark decides to forgive her as well, giving her a pillow and kissing her. They decide to be just friends, with Erin deciding that a good friend was better than a boyfriend. |
Fortunate Son | Walter Mosley | null | After her husband, Elton Trueblood, abandons her after she refuses an abortion, Branwyn Beerman gives birth to her child, whom she later names Thomas. Thomas is born with a hole in his lung, and is given a dire prognosis by the hospital's head paediatrician. While Thomas is in the hospital, she falls in love with a white heart surgeon, Dr. Minas Nolan, whose wife had died due to complications giving birth to an abnormally large and strong "Nordic Adonis" named Eric. Branwyn takes Thomas home in defiance of the hospital, but Thomas survives, living with Eric under one roof, and, while different in every respect, they build a strong friendship as children. They are both cared for by a Vietnamese nanny, Ahn. Their pleasant state of affairs takes a turn for the worse after Elton returns. Branwyn perishes soon after, leaving Thomas in Elton's hands due to her unmarried status. While Thomas is forced to eke out an existence in the slums, dealing drugs and being sent to jail, Eric goes to college and has no trouble attracting women. However, Eric is also faced with problems as he confronts the consequences of his actions. After years apart, they later reunite and solve their problems together. |
Undead and Unworthy | MaryJanice Davidson | null | Betsy Taylor, back to rule the nights as Vampire Queen––and survive the days as a new suburban bride. But it’s not all marital bliss. Betsy’s husband, Sinclair, has been perusing The Book of the Dead, Betsy’s being hounded by a ghost who’s even more insufferable in death than in life, and a pack of formerly feral vampires has decided to pay an unwelcome visit… |
Undead and Unwelcome | MaryJanice Davidson | null | Betsy Taylor has problems that only a vampire queen/suburban wife could possibly understand. Such as taking the body of her werewolf friend Antonia—who died in her service—to Cape Cod, where she's not sure if the Wyndham werewolves will welcome her with fangs or friendship. Meanwhile, her posse back in St. Paul is sending frantic e-mails alerting Betsy to her half-sister's increasingly erratic behavior. Looks like the devil's daughter is coming into her own—and raising hell. |
Sag Harbor: A Novel | Colson Whitehead | 2,009 | School is over and summer begins and the return to Sag Harbor is finally in full swing. Teenagers Benji and Reggie Cooper escape their majority white preparatory academy in Manhattan. Still clad in Brooks Brothers polos and salmon colored pants, the pair remeet all of their friends. Like most well-to-do kids at their family's beach houses during the summer, most of the teens in Sag Harbor go the entire summer with very little contact with their parents besides a weekend visit or two. The lack of authority allows for plenty of interesting run-ins. Benji constantly remakes himself to become the coolest in town. |
Genesis | null | 2,006 | The entirety of the novel consists of Anaximander, a new candidate for The Academy, participating in a grueling five-hour auditory entrance exam. The Academy consists of the most elite class in society and plays an influential role in the lives of all living on the island Republic. Therefore, it is little wonder that Anaximander would be enthusiastic over such an opportunity and consequently spend large amounts of time preparing with her tutor Pericles. Her chosen area of expertise, which she will be questioned over, is on the life of her long-dead hero Adam Forde. As the exam progresses, the reader is granted much insight into the history of the Republic, information that is integral to understanding the significance of Adam Forde’s life. Anaximander explains how, beginning in 2030, early attempts at genetic engineering created widespread fear throughout the world. The United States entered a war with the Middle East that could not be won in an attempt to spread democratic ideals that fit poorly with the native culture of the country. Europe at this time was viewed as having lost its morality, and China’s rise in power led to a fear that a global conflict loomed. In the midst of such global turmoil, a worldwide plague developed, and the island Republic formed, isolating citizens completely from outside contact. All living on the island were consequently safe but not free. Adam Forde is the first to act against the extensive security measures. He spots a young girl in a small battered boat that narrowly avoids the explosives placed in the surrounding ocean and, in an act of compassion, rescues and protects her against assassination. He is consequently thrown in prison and is sentenced to participate in an experiment involving artificial intelligence developed by a respected leader of the Republic, Philosopher William. William wished that the android’s education be furthered after his death, and Adam complied knowing that it was his only opportunity to avoid a public execution. Anaximander gives an extremely detailed account of the interactions between Adam and Art, the android. The conversations she recites illustrate Adam’s reluctance to develop and converse with artificial intelligence, as he believes it lacks personhood. Anaximander encounters numerous Socratic lectures in which she arrives at a greater understanding of the reasoning behind Adam’s actions and the true extent of Art’s intelligence and being. In the end, The Final Dilemma, accurately revealed by the examiners, answers Adam’s question of Art’s identity far better than any of Anaximander’s well-developed speculations. A never before released hologram shows Art acting upon free will to self-replicate and kill a conscious being, Adam. As Anaximander is experiencing history redefining itself through these explanations, the reader learns that the examiners, Pericles, and Anaximander herself are all replications of Art’s orangutan being. The examiners sadly reveal that The Academy never accepts new applicants, and that the examination is a way to control the “virus” that Anaximander is subject to. The virus is found in all candidates that find a particular interest in Adam Forde’s life and allows the infected orangs, another name for Art–like androids, the ability to understand the extent of free will these mechanical beings possess. In a final act to control the virus, Pericles enters the examination rooms and breaks Anaximander’s neck, disconnecting her for the final time. |
Amanda Morgan | null | null | In both "Amanda Morgan" and the later portion of Tactics of Mistake, Dow de Castres unites Earth forces and galvanizes Earth opinion against the Splinter Cultures of the colonized worlds and against Cletus Grahame who leads the bid for independence of those cultures. As de Castres arrives at The Dorsai's Foralie District, local residents, under Amanda Morgan, enact a pre-arranged plan of defending their home against the invading troops with the power of the disabled, the elderly, and the children. The plan is predicated on the principle of inevitable and acceptable losses in the face of unavoidable conflict. As a science fiction story, it employs a subtle and clever, nearly passive form of chemical warfare as a military action. The theme is given its central power when the disabled, the elderly, and the children overcome the seasoned and better equipped Earth troops in the cause of their culture's independence from Earth control. The subplot of the naming of Betta Hasegawa's child, Amanda's great-great grandchild, treats Amanda Morgan's age with sympathy and grace. However, it may be noted that Dickson did not foresee the direct involvement of women in combat to the extent that it seems likely to develop over the course of the next century. When he was writing these stories, United States women were still not in active combatant positions, though other nations had already passed that barrier. Nevertheless, Amanda Morgan is a strong and able commander and a flawed, elderly woman of pride and wisdom. Both her strengths and weaknesses are treated with literary integrity. Morgan's identity in the inner struggle over the use of her name, is as important as the idea of cultural identity to the development of the over all Cycle theme. |
The Enemy | Charlie Higson | 2,009 | The book begins a year after a worldwide sickness has infected all the adults, turning them into zombie-like creatures. The surviving children have formed a number of groups throughout London in order to better combat the threat posed by the adults and to increase their odds of survival. A young survivor named Small Sam is kidnapped by infected adults and taken away. He and several other children have made a base within the confines of a Waitrose supermarket. The other children led by a boy named Arran and his second-in-command, Maxie, have increasingly grown tired of the children being killed one-by-one. The adults are becoming smarter and as a consequence the children are being picked off more frequently. A scavenger party, composed of Arran and several other boys Achilleus, Ollie, Freak and Deke, explore a building with a swimming pool and they find a vending machine, but it turns out to be a trap. During the battle, Deke is killed and Arran is bitten by an adult woman. He becomes sick from the bite, and they only just manage to escape. Later that night a boy in a patchwork coat named Jester arrives at the gates of the building and asks for the group's help. He tells the group he has come from Buckingham Palace, where a group of kids are based in a safe environment. He claims that if they travel there, they will all be safe as well. The majority of the group like the idea and soon set off through Camden to the palace, along with another group of kids from a Morrisons supermarket who share the same feeling. A loner named Callum decides to stay behind on his own, afraid to leave to confines of his base. Meanwhile, Small Sam awakes in a grown-up base made at Arsenal Stadium. He escapes and heads back to Waitrose to find only Callum, as the other children have left. Callum explains that the other children are headed for Buckingham Palace, and Sam sets off to catch up with them. Sam is unable to catch up with the other kids and is chased by adults into the London Underground and gets as far as King's Cross when an older, uninfected man named Nick appears with a sawed-off shotgun and saves him. Nick has been living in the tunnels inside a train with his wife, Rachael. The couple aids Sam, but appear to have sinister motives behind it. Later Sam discovers he is chained up with 3 other children whom the couple have found, and it seems the couple are cannibals. With the help of a young boy known only as "the Kid" Sam escapes. However, Nick chases them outside but then gets infected and dies. Sam and the Kid go on, eventually making it to safety at the Tower of London, where another group of kids have taken shelter. As the Waitrose and Morrison's group travels to Buckingham Palace they are attacked by a pack of grown-ups, led by one wearing a St. George's Cross shirt. The children win the fight, but Arran has gone out of control because of his bite wound, and gets carried away with killing the adults. As a result he is mistaken for an adult and becomes fatally wounded by an arrow, which was shot by a girl named Sophie from another surviving group of kids. Maxie comes to Arran's aid but he dies in her arms. The group teams up with Sophie's group and after a few more skirmishes they eventually manage to find Buckingham Palace. The group of kids meet David King, the leader of the kids at Buckingham Palace who seems to have things well worked-out, but turns out to be hiding the truth of his plans. The Waitrose and Morrison's group are pressured into going to a park opposite the palace to peacefully talk with a group of kids, called the "squatters," about joining them at Buckingham Palace. However, after their leader, Just John, refuses, fight breaks out. After a tough fight in which Freak dies, they capture John and take him back to the palace. John and David come to an agreement: Achilleus and Just John fight to the death over the territorial ownership of the park. They fight, and Achilleus wins and spares Just John's life. Callum becomes overly upset at his loneliness, despite having stashed things like a music player which he hid from other kids, and becomes upset when he remembers having to kill his own mother after the epidemic. He loses hope slowly as adults led by the Saint George zombie break into the store and kill him Maxie and Ollie find that they don't trust David because of how he acts, and his obsession with taking over London. Maxie expresses her concerns to the rest of the group and they decide to escape. David and Jester attempt to stop them, but they all manage to escape, with a girl named Brooke, who leads them to the British Museum, where there is another group of kids. Meanwhile, the Saint George zombie continues to grow smarter and to lead his army of adults through London, searching out more kids. He craves more power and destruction, and wants to kill and eat every last child he can find... |
The Hundred Tales of Wisdom | null | 1,978 | The tales, anecdotes and narratives in this collection are used in Sufi schools for the development of insights beyond ordinary perceptions. Although the number 100 is used in the title, in Idries Shah’s presentation there are 159 tales beginning with a brief description of Rumi’s childhood and youth. |
Don't Care High | null | 1,985 | Paul Abrams has just moved to New York City with his parents. He starts at tenth grade in a new high school, Don Carey High School. When he finds out that no one at his new school cares much about much of anything, he tries to shake things up by nominating Mike Otis, a reclusive man of mystery, for Student council president. Mike runs unopposed and is soon elected and soon forgotten. Sheldon then begins to care and starts to talk up Mike and attributes a wave of needed repairs to Mike. As the students begin to care, the teachers sense that something is going on. They take it to the next level by publishing a short newsletter entitled The Otis Report, which criticizes school staff and praises Mike to the heavens. They distribute it on roller skates, wearing masks. As a result, Mike is dismissed as student body president. The pair react with a campaign to restore him and the students begin to care about something. Mike's address in his permanent file is on the eleventh floor of a ten-story building. The pair track him and locate his real address. Eavesdropping, they discover that he is about to fail a course. They seize on the chance to increase student participation even more, as a large part of the student body now idolize him. They collaborate to produce a project for him. The project is of such quality that it is entered in a science fair. It is disqualified when the judges discover that the work is not his. The students react badly, resulting in the schools banning from the event. Next they turn to sports. An announcement that Mike likes basketball results in full-on participation in the game. They play an away game and win (63-62). This results in a joyous riot and much destruction. Eventually, the staff gives in and confirms Mike as student body president. Paul and Sheldon are ecstatic at this news, feeling that the sky is now the limit. However, Mike soon announces that he is leaving. The students are surprised, but plan a party to "send Mike off in the style he deserves." |
The Pollyanna Principles | null | 2,009 | Gottlieb discusses in the book the effects of time and expectation in regards to the community benefit sector, and how past events have encouraged a 'Culture of Can't' amongst community benefits organizations. This concept is typified by a "litany of seemingly reasonable reasons why something cannot be done", and therefore thwarts efforts to make changes within communities. One of the principal issues discussed in the "Pollyanna Principles" is notion of board accountability on the means versus the ends (discussed below). Gottlieb the responsibilities of the board of a community benefit organization into two groups: the means and the ends. The means is defined, by Gottlieb, as that which is inherent to the day to day operation of the organization. For example, securing funding, office purchases, and managing employees and volunteers are all responsibilities that fall under the category of "means". It is also, according to Gottlieb, what most organizations spend the majority of their time and resources finding solutions for. Where more energy ought to be focused, says Gottlieb, are the ends. The "ends" in this case is the mission of the organization and the vision for the community they serve. The book also contains methods which Gottlieb refers to as the titular Pollyanna Principles, divided into two sections: The Ends and The Means. These principles define what should be concentrated on for the duration of all processes in regards to community benefit. 1. We accomplish what we hold ourselves accountable for. The book describes this first principle as such: "There are four basic functions of a board that relate to its ultimate accountability: leadership (the "ends"), legal oversight, operational oversight, and board mechanics (the "means"). Boards generally regard their accountability in a way completely asymmetrical in emphasis on the "means". A by-product of a "means" emphasis on "keeping the organization out of trouble" (legal and operational oversight) is a fear-based risk management system as a result, the actual vision of the organization remains unfulfilled." 2. Each and every one of us is creating the future, every day, whether we do so consciously or not. Gottlieb offers this explanation for the second principle: "Community benefit organizations aim to solve problems; however, the 'problems' that many organizations attempt to fix are often symptoms of a larger problem that have been misdiagnosed as individual maladies. The vast majority of contemporary efforts to create better communities myopically focus on the "problems of today" and ignore the future that is shaped with every decision. Focusing on the future allows for a greater context by which to measure "success"; it allows an organization to focus on the contemporary situation and what lies beyond it." 3. Everyone and everything is interconnected and interdependent, whether we acknowledge that or not. According to the book, the third principle can be explained in this way: "The assumptions the sector currently holds about interdependence are actually quite the opposite: competition and independence are the keys to success. Most grant processes, even the ones designed to encourage "collaboration" within the sector, are competitive by nature and resource centers ground their educational approaches in the "dog-eat-dog" mentality. If this competitive mindset were working, we would see amazing communities and amazing results from organizational efforts to improve them, but we do not." 4. Being the change we want to see means walking the talk of our values. On the fourth principle, the books provides this account: "The inclination to rationalize often allows an organization to unwittingly stray from its mission or even behave completely opposite from their ideology. 'Walking the talk' is at the root of the word 'integrity', however few organizations implement systems to ensure their values are upheld. 'Walking the talk' requires that systems are in place so that decisions that may lead to rationalization are solved before they even arise, even while survival-driven concerns can complicate even the simplest choices." 5. Strength builds upon our strengths, not our weaknesses. Gottlieb illustrates the fifth principle accordingly: "Community strength is built on the strength of the organizations that serve it, however most of the work being done by community benefit organizations is being done with an attitude of scarcity and weakness. This scarcity assumption yields a focus on what will bring in money and what aspects of the organization are in a crisis state. When the scarcity assumption is replaced with an assumption of strength, the whole world changes: 'can't' becomes 'possibility'." 6. Individuals will go where systems lead them. The book constructs the sixth principle along these lines: "None of the standard systems used by this sector planning, governance, development etc. - are aimed at potential. These systems primarily focus on reactive or incremental change vs. creating a proactive, extraordinary future for our communities. Individuals and groups will go where the systems point them. What is needed are systems that set high expectations and inspire decisions that aim towards those expectations." |
1635: The Dreeson Incident | Virginia DeMarce | 2,008 | The novel takes place after the events of 1635: The Cannon Law, in which French Huguenot extremist Michel Ducos came close to assassinating Pope Urban VIII and forced to flee with his followers from Rome. The leaders of the French Huguenot group under Ducos settled in Scotland making plans to embarrass Cardinal Richelieu. Michel also has left strict instructions for several of his followers, led by Guillaume Locquifier, in Frankfurt to do nothing until he gives them new orders. Meanwhile, Duke Henri de Rohan, the highest ranking Huguenot, has his own group of agents monitoring events throughout Europe. He also would like to see Richelieu removed from office, but he views the radical actions of Ducos as self-defeating. After having learning the events in Rome, Henri writes letters to his agents in Grantville, Frankfurt and elsewhere warning of the escape of Ducos and ordering them to notify him if Ducos appears. Rohan has two double agents working within the Ducos operation. Jacques-Pierre Dumais is one of the double agents working for the Duke, who works in Grantville as a garbage collector while secretly examining 20th century knowledge that are discarded by the American residents. Spymaster Francisco Nasi has also been trying to track down Ducos. His agents and others have been sending reports on activities in Grantville and elsewhere within the State of Thuringia-Franconia. In the midst, the United States of Europe elections are taking place which incumbent Prime Minister Mike Stearns is sure that his political party will lose these. But he figures that his opponent William Wettin will overextend himself and his respective Crown Loyalists party. Ducos' Huguenots in Frankfurt plans a demonstration and action in Grantville to vilify Richelieu by making assassinations on Grantville's powerful figures: Mayor Henry Dreeson and Methodist Enoch Wiley (as attempts on individuals such as Mike Stearns and Gustavus Adolphus remain impossible to do). The assassinations are successfully carried out during several manipulated demonstrations against vaccination and autopsies through down-timers and an anti-Semitic incident at Grantville's synagogue as covers for the assassination. In the aftermath, the results did not came out as the Huguenots had planned: Nasi, Stearns, and several others figured out the cause for the assassinations. Although, they and other like-minded are shocked by the provocative actions of the anti-Semites and decided to use the incident as a result of antisemitic influences to justify the total eradication of all antisemitic forces in the area controlled by Grantville's allies. |
Monk's Hood | Edith Pargeter | 1,980 | The book is set in the late autumn and winter of 1138. After a tumultuous year (described in One Corpse Too Many), Abbot Heribert of Shrewsbury Abbey announces to the distress of many of the monks that he has been summoned to attend a Legatine Council and that his authority is in abeyance. Although much of the Abbey's business must also be suspended, one transaction proceeds assuming that it will be completed once Heribert is confirmed in authority or another Abbot is appointed. Gervase Bonel, the lord of a manor in late middle age, has ceded his manorial estate at Mallilie to the Abbey in return for a small house near the Abbey where his needs in retirement will be provided for. The ambitious Prior Robert is left in charge of the Abbey while Heribert is away. Some days later, he sends a small gift, part of a roasted partridge, to Bonel. Bonel is taken ill immediately after eating it. Brother Cadfael, who is skilled in herbs and medicines, and Brother Edmund the Infirmarer try to aid him but are too late, and can only ease his last moments. To Cadfael's alarm, he recognises Bonel's widow as Richildis Vaughan, to whom he was informally betrothed many years previously, before he went on Crusade. He also realises that the sauce in which the partridge was served was poisoned, by a rubbing oil he himself has made to treat muscular pains. Its active ingredient is monkshood (Wolfsbane), and many people around the Abbey are aware of its dangerous nature. The murder is reported to the authorities in Shrewsbury Castle. Cadfael's friend, Deputy Sheriff Hugh Beringar, is away so the unsubtle Sergeant Will Warden investigates. Since Prior Robert ate the other half of the partridge without any ill effects, suspicion immediately falls on Bonel's household. The servant, Aelfric, who carried the dishes from the kitchen, bears a grudge as Bonel deprived him of free status and made him a villein. The maid, Aldith, has no apparent motive and Richildis herself was never alone with the partridge. There was one other present in the house when Bonel died; Meurig, an illegitimate son of Bonel by a Welsh maidservant, who had been apprenticed to master carpenter Martin Bellecote in Shrewsbury and who was paying court to Aldith. He was on good terms with Bonel and appears not to benefit by his death. However, Warden quickly finds that Edwin Gurney, Richildis's son from her first marriage to a Shrewsbury craftsman, was present at the meal but stormed out after a quarrel before Bonel ate the partridge. He and Meurig had just come separately from the Abbey's infirmary, where the monkshood oil was often used, and his motive for murdering Bonel appears to be plain, as Bonel (who had no lawful issue) had planned to make him heir to his estate, before he granted the estate to Shrewsbury Abbey. Since the agreement with the Abbey is not completed, Edwin remains the heir apparent. Richildis refuses to believe her son capable of murder. Edwin has presumably taken refuge with her daughter Sybil, wife of Martin Bellecote, although Warden has failed to find him. At Richildis's urging, Cadfael goes to Sybil to offer comfort and help. That night Edwin and his equally youthful nephew, Sybil's son Edwy, meet Cadfael in his workshop in the Abbey grounds. By pretending that Bonel was attacked with a sword or dagger, Cadfael establishes that Edwin did not know how Bonel died and is innocent of poisoning him. He disguises Edwin in a monk's habit and conceals him in one of the Abbey's barns. He then investigates the possibility that someone in the Abbey intended the poisoned dish to be eaten by the unpopular Prior Robert, but finds this to be unlikely. The next day, Sergeant Warden questions Cadfael about the source of the oil. Cadfael cannot say whether it was stolen from his workshop or the Abbey's infirmary, but he suggests that Warden search for the bottle which the murderer used to carry it. Warden smugly replies that Edwin was seen to throw it into the River Severn. Momentarily shaken, Cadfael questions Edwin, who says that he actually threw a carved wooden reliquary, a gift intended for Bonel, into the river after their quarrel. That night, Cadfael again visits Richildis, and asks what is to become of the estate should Edwin be convicted of Bonel's murder and hanged. The distracted Richildis does not know, and in distress refers to her former relations with Cadfael. Brother Jerome, Prior Robert's sanctimonious clerk, is eavesdropping outside the door. At Chapter the next morning, Jerome betrays Cadfael's and Richildis's former relationship. Prior Robert forbids Cadfael to have any further contact with the widow, or even to leave the Abbey's precincts. Bound by his vow of obedience, Cadfael has no choice but to comply. The same morning, Edwin is discovered in the barn by Abbey servants, and flees on horseback. He is captured after a chase lasting all day. When Cadfael is summoned to give spiritual comfort to him, he finds that the pursuers have actually caught Edwy Bellecote, who distracted the authorities while Edwin escaped. Hugh Beringar has returned to Shrewsbury, and allows Edwy to return to his family on parole. Although Cadfael may not leave the Abbey, he sends his assistant, Brother Mark, to search around Bonel's house for any bottle which might have held the poison. Mark does indeed find it, in a position to which Edwin Gurney could not have thrown it, further proving his innocence in Cadfael's eyes. Before Cadfael can report Mark's find to anyone, the Abbey's steward at Mallilie sends word that a brother at a remote sheepfold at Rhydycroesau in Wales belonging to the Abbey has fallen ill. Prior Robert seizes the chance to send Cadfael as far from Shrewsbury as possible to attend the sick brother. Cadfael realises for the first time that Mallilie's location near to or even within Wales alters some people's motives. In the Abbey's infirmary, he questions the aged Brother Rhys, a distant relation of Meurig's mother, about local relationships and customs around Mallilie, before departing. He tries to report his errand to Hugh Beringar at the Castle, but Beringar is absent, searching for the reliquary which Edwin threw into the river, and Cadfael does not confide his discoveries to the sceptical Sergeant Warden. At Rhydycroesau, the ailing brother is soon recovering. Cadfael visits the manor at Mallilie and then takes Brother Rhys's greetings to his surviving kinfolk in the district. At the house of Rhys's widowed brother in law, Ifor ap Morgan, he discovers Edwin in hiding. Sergeant Warden has followed Cadfael, and takes Edwin into custody. Cadfael now has only one chance to prove Edwin's innocence, at the Commote court at Llansilin the next day. Cadfael attends the court unobtrusively. Towards the end of the day's business, Meurig bursts in, producing written proof of his paternity, and lays claim to Mallilie. The manor lies within Wales, and under Welsh law (the code of Hywel Dda) any son, even an illegitimate son, has an overriding claim to his father's property. Cadfael intervenes, stating that Meurig cannot inherit as he murdered Bonel. He produces the small bottle which Brother Mark found, and challenges Meurig to display his scrip (purse or carrying pouch) to prove that the bottle did not leak the strongly scented oil into it. Meurig instead flees. Cadfael asks the court to send word of Meurig's guilt to Shrewsbury and returns to Rhydycroesau. Meurig is waiting for him, armed with a knife. At the last minute, Meurig does not take his revenge on Cadfael, but instead confesses to Bonel's murder. He knew from an early age that he would inherit Mallilie under Welsh law, but Bonel's agreement to hand it to Shrewsbury Abbey would put it out of reach. Frantic to gain the manor before the agreement was completed, he purloined some of Cadfael's rubbing oil (which he had used to ease Brother Rhys's aches, and which Brother Edmund had warned him was fatal to ingest) from the infirmary, and having overheard Aldith say that the partridge was a gift for Bonel, added the oil to the sauce while briefly alone in the kitchen of Bonel's house. After Warden left the house to search for Edwin, he threw the bottle out of the window of the house. Having heard Meurig's confession, Cadfael tells him his penance is to live a long life, doing as much good as he can. He then allows Meurig to escape on one of the Abbey's horses. Soon after the new year, he returns to Shrewsbury to find the monks eagerly awaiting Abbot Heribert's return. When Heribert arrives, he admits he is no longer their Abbot, but has returned as a humble brother to end his days. He then dashes Prior Robert's hopes of succeeding him by introducing Radulfus, their new Abbot appointed by the Legatine Council. Though legal problems still abound, it appears that Edwin will inherit Mallilie under Bonel's earlier will. Although Cadfael has the opportunity to rekindle his relationship with Richildis, he is content to remain within the Abbey. |
A Push and a Shove: A Novel | Christopher Kelly | 2,007 | Benjamin Reilly, a high school English-teacher in Staten Island, N.Y., witnesses a fight between two students. This brings him back to childhood years of bullying by Terrence O'Connell, a popular jock he had a crush on at the time. Reilly decides to quit his job, track down his bully and wreak revenge on him. He visits his parents in Indiana, where he also engages in unsafe sex with a Hispanic man. In Manhattan, he meets with Terrence and they become friends. While on holiday in Vail, Colorado, he takes an HIV test - by the end of the novel, he learns he doesn't have AIDS. Terrence breaks up with his girlfriend and slowly admits to being gay, though he won't let Benjamin kiss him. Out of anger, Benjamin pushes Terrence down a mountaintop, sending him off to hospital for several weeks. Terrence proves to be understanding, and they both decide they are now even. Benjamin learns about the circumstances surrounding his sister's death and his brother's runaway streak as a teenager. Finally, Benjamin is invited to Terrence's same-sex marriage with an investment banker in Massachusetts. |
Inspector Ghote Goes by Train | H. R. F. Keating | 1,971 | The novel opens with an article in The Times of India, which names Ghote as the officer to escort fraudster A. K. Bhattacharya from Calcutta to Mumbai. Bhattacharya made a fortune selling wax fakes of ancient Indian statues as the real thing. An American professor exposed him with a cigar lighter but Bhattacharya escaped. He has never been photographed and only his description is known. On the train Ghote finds himself in a compartment with a well dressed, charming Bengali. Ghote is reluctant to talk about his mission and his travelling companion begins trying to guess Ghote's profession and reason for travel; his guesses are ridiculous, possibly even insulting. Eventually he guesses that Ghote is the Inspector escorting Bhattacharya to trial. Ghote notes the initials on his companion's luggage are A. K. B. and suspects the man may, in fact, be A. K. Bhattacharya. The stranger reveals that he had read the newspaper article about Ghote and introduces himself as A. K. Bannerjee. The next day Ghote and Bannerjee are joined in their compartment by a pair of young backpackers travelling with an Indian Guru. The boy, Red, is British and the girl, Mary Jane, is an American. They are hippies. Ghote argues their right to be in the compartment without tickets, but the train moves off and it is impossible for the trio to disembark. Although Red is antagonistic towards Ghote, Mary Jane charms the inspector. The next morning a telegram informs Ghote the prisoner in Calcutta is actually A. K. Biswas, wanted in Mumbai for gambling offences, not Bhattacharya. Bannerjee discovers Red has used J. R. Kipling's novel "Kim" as the source for much of his journey across India. Ghote persuades Red to take Mr Bannerjee's photograph. Bannerjee convinces Red to wait until the next day. The next morning Bannerjee oversleeps, then claims his unshaven face is unsuitable for photography. All the film proves to be missing from the camera and the luggage. Bannerjee blames thieves at the last station. Red suspects Bannerjee but can prove nothing. At the next stop a Mr Ramaswami joins them. He explains his job consists of visiting each station on the railway to see that railway stationary and forms are only used for official purposes. Bannerjee suggests that Ramaswami falsifies his returns to save travelling so much. Shortly thereafter Bannerjee questions the ethics of Ghote condemning a person to jail. Ghote insists that would be the job of the magistrates and judges. Bannerjee seeks to enlist the guru as a moral ally in his cause. The guru is unhelpful, saying that a man lives his life regardless of his surroundings and brings to everyone's attention Mr Bannerjee's use of hair dye. Bannerjee claims he dyes his hair from simple vanity, though he jokingly calls it a disguise. Mr Ramaswami notices the initials on Bannerjee's suitcase and accuses Bannerjee of being A. K. Bhattacharya but relents, as it seems too far-fetched. At the last stop before Calcutta, Bannerjee persuades Ghote to get a shave from one of the local barbers. The barber Bannerjee selects speaks no language Ghote knows. The barber is deliberately very slow. The train pulls out and Ghote has to run and jump to get on board. Ghote accuses Bannerjee of engineering the incident so that Ghote would be left behind. In a dialect that the backpackers do not speak Bannerjee blames Red and Mary Jane, claiming that they feared Ghote would denounce them for not having visas. The train approaches Calcutta and Bannerjee notes that he feels as if A. K. Bhattacharya were on the train with them. He praises Bhattacharya at length and suggests that he is akin to the hippies, Red and Mary Jane, in that he breaks down the barriers of society that have become too rigid. In so doing Bannerjee inadvertently incites those present to break the law, which gives Ghote the opportunity to arrest him. As the train draws up to the platform "Bannerjee" refers to Bhattacharya's scheme being exposed with a cigar lighter, which is not public knowledge. Ghote exposes and arrests Bhattacharya. Ghote travels in a private carriage on the return journey. He has been ordered to get a confession from Bhattacharya, since the authorities wish to avoid the expense of a full trial. Ghote must also escort Mr Biswas, the card sharp, back to Mumbai for trail. At the last minute, Red and Mary Jane board the carriage, claiming to be concerned for Bhattacharya's well being. Bhattacharya states his intention to escape during the journey and claims he has accomplices who will help him. Ghote suspects the backpackers of being Bhattacharya's accomplices. As night falls, Ghote works on getting Bhattacharya to confess. Mary Jane argues that Bhattacharya is a force for good in society, as he boasted on the outward journey. Mary Jane believes this should be his courtroom defence. Ghote sees Mr Ramaswami at a station and invites him to join the party in the private carriage. Bhattacharya tries to frighten Mr Ramaswami by claiming to be friends with Thuggee cultists, who murder travellers. Ghote rebuffs this and indicates that Bhattacharya can expect a thirty-year prison sentence. The length of the sentence horrifies Ghote's travelling companions and Ghote goes to sleep resolving to use a sympathetic approach to draw Bhattacharya into a confession. The next day Ghote suggests the charges could be reduced if Bhattacharya pleas guilty. Bhattacharya in turn offers Ghote a partnership in exchange for the charges being reduced to a single, minor item. Ghote rejects this. At lunch Red abruptly insists on taking Ghote's photograph. The train enters a dark tunnel and no one can see anything. Ghote finds the meal bitter and unpleasant but has a second helping to please the cook and notices the second helping tastes different. Ghote realises that he has been drugged. He forces himself to get up and vomit in the toilet, then collapses. Waking, he overhears Mary Jane arguing with Bhattacharya. He asks for tea, which Mary Jane helps him to drink. By the time the train reaches the next station Ghote is well again. He decides to take no action against Red, who he is sure is responsible for the poisoning, out of respect for Mary Jane. At the next station an old lady, Mrs Chiplanka, insists in joining their carriage. She claims to be a respectable pillar of the community who once worked with Mahatma Gandhi to achieve independence from the British. Ghote notes her spectacles are fitted with ordinary window glass. He searches her luggage but finds nothing. Although Ghote suspects her of being Bhattacharya's accomplice, he can do nothing without evidence. That afternoon Ghote makes little progress in obtaining a confession, so he decides to wear down Bhattacharya by depriving him of sleep. Mrs Chiplanka objects to this as it is a form of torture. Angered, Ghote accuses her of being Bhattacharya's accomplice. Mrs Chiplanka, embarrassed, admits that she wears the glasses for show. Many years ago Gandhi told her to wear spectacles when he saw her leaning close to her work. Rather than correct the great man's mistake or worry him, Mrs Chiplanka began wearing false glasses much like his own. After this, Ghote realises there never were any accomplices and Bhattacharya says he will plea guilty. He makes a full statement, which Ghote takes down. Red seems disillusioned by Bhattacharya's confession. Mary Jane comforts Red, who agrees to go with her to the United States of America. Bhattacharya signs the statement, which is witnessed by Ramaswami. Tired from the long night, Ghote accepts Ramaswami's offer to guard Bhattacharya while Ghote sleeps. An hour later Ghote is woken. Bhattacharya has escaped. Ghote gives chase. The train is in motion and Ghote searches the other carriages then climbs onto the roof. He finds Bhattacharya in the driver's compartment and takes him into custody. Moments later the train arrives in Mumbai and the novel ends. |
Creature of the Night | Kate Thompson | 2,008 | Bobby, the fourteen-year-old narrator, is a thief and a hooligan. When his mother moves him and his young brother to a cottage in rural Ireland his only thought is how to get back to a life of crime in Dublin. Eventually he steals a Skoda car and goes back, only to find things have changed and he has no place there. He reluctantly returns to the cottage and is given work by a local farmer. The cottage they are living in is on a path between two fairy forts. The family are warned by the farmer’s wife to put out a bowl of milk every night, but they consider this a mere superstition. Being deprived of the milk, a little old fairy woman comes through the dog flap into the kitchen. Dennis, Bobby's brother, sees and accepts her, but for Bobby it is a baffling and rather frightening mystery. |
Twilight | Meg Cabot | 2,004 | In the final installment of The Mediator series, Suze finds herself fighting for the love of her life, Jesse. When Paul reveals he has found a way to time travel, another gift all Mediators share, he tells Suze he plans on going back to Jesse's time and save him from his murder. Thus altering time so that Suze and Jesse will have never met nor fell in love and meaning Paul is able to have Suze to himself. Desperately trying to stop him, Suze struggles to prevent Paul from doing so, but in the progress finds herself torn between meeting her one true love or letting him live the life he deserves. On the night when Paul "shifts" and travels through the forth dimension (time travel) Suze accidentally travels as well back to Jesse's time when he was alive and meets up with Paul and hides out in the O'Neil's barn (friends of the De Silvas back then). After she goes to the outhouse and Paul finds her, he bounds and gags her before going to go to find Felix Diego, Jesse's murderer. Just when she gives up and convinces herself Jesse deserves to live, the Alive Jesse - who unties her - stumbles upon her in the barn and Suze tries to convince him that she is a Mediator from the future and that he is in great danger; telling him that Felix Diego is out to kill him and how they met 150 years into the future. At first, he thinks she is delusional and is angered by her accusations about Maria and Diego out to kill him. However, he is finally convinced when Suze tells him how he wants to become a doctor, but can't because of his parents; something that he never told anyone, including Maria. Suze then tells him he must go, but Alive Jesse refuses to. He then asks her why she traveled back into time to save him and, although she wants to say because of her love for him, she instead says because it isn't right what had happened to him. Paul comes back and finds out Alive Jesse knows about everything. Paul attempts to convince Jesse that Diego was too dangerous and that he should just leave, but Alive Jesse firmly insists that he will stop Diego, prompting Paul to literally doze off. Meanwhile after this, Alive Jesse once again asks Suze why she is helping him, to which she responds, "Because it's what I do." Alive Jesse then asks if she does this for all who die before their time to which her answer is no, but that his is a "special" case. Alive Jesse then goes on to admire her for her bravery, even though Suze disagrees, she smiles at Jesse before Diego shows up. Jesse and Diego fight and battle. Suze, worried, demands for Paul to help Jesse. But as Paul insists everything was under control, Diego grabs Suze and holds a knife to her throat, threatening to kill her causing Jesse to drop his knife. Diego using this chance to throw Suze to the side and lunge at him, however, Jesse manages to throw Diego off the ledge, snapping his neck. Suze ends up landing on a lantern during her fall, breaking it and starting a fire and soon becomes trapped in a circle of fire. Jesse jumps through the flames to Suze despite Paul's protests, and kicks floorboards and tells her they have to jump to safety. Paul yells to Suze that he will meet her "on the other side" and is going to shift back to present time. While Jesse and Suze jump, in midair she shifts and due to holding Jesse's hand brings him back to present times along with her, causing him to slip into a coma and slowly die. This causes Paul to finally realize that Suze was right; some events in time just aren't to be messed with. While Jesse's body is in a hospital Father D shows up and Paul and Suze explain what happened. Father D tells Paul to make amends with his grandfather (who Paul tricked into giving him information on how to use his gifts to time travel for his own selfish wanting) and tells Suze not to be too hard on Paul saying how he thought he was doing "good" to which she replies saying, "He thought he was robbing me of Jesse," and he says back, "In the end, Susannah, that might have actually been kinder, don't you think? Kinder than this, anyway". Also stating that Jesse would have had to have left her one day anyway since he was a ghost. This causes Suze to blame herself for the mess. Father D leaves and Suze begins to sob before Ghost Jesse comes to her in the room. Once seeing his coma state body, he asks what she had done. She explains how she went back into time to save him and prevented his murder, but she accidentally brought him back to present times and that this meant "goodbye." Just as Ghost Jesse leans in to give her a final kiss, his hand brushes against his body's leg (the one in the coma) and for Ghost Jesse to glow brighter than ever before being sucked into the body like "smoke pulled into a fan," before being gone altogether. Suze believes Jesse is now gone forever and sobs harder. Father D shows up to comfort her when he suddenly gets teary eyed, causing her to look at Jesse's body. She notices his hand tightening around her own and sees color in his skin and more alive looking "like back at the O'Neils barn," and breathing and had a pulse. His eyelids open and he removes the oxygen mask and says, "Querida." Suze then goes to her winter formal with Jesse (whose spirit had returned to his body in the hospital and remembered everything about his past life on Earth, in the afterlife and his relationship with Suze) who is now living a normal life and having a real relationship with Suze now that he is alive and no longer a ghost and adapting to the 21st century. Paul apologizes to Suze for all his trouble and says she was right about everything, including about him and her and how she and Jesse really were meant to be together, now finally convinced. They make peace. Jesse shows up and makes an awkward hello to Paul before walking off with Suze. He asks her if things with Paul were okay and she tells him everything was finally okay before they share a slow dance. Suze's father's ghost comes and Suze and him make their final goodbyes before he vanishes; forever crossing over. Jesse asks her if Suze's father was now "gone", shocking Suze. She asks him if he saw her father to which he replies that he saw their whole conversation, revealing that he is not only just alive now, but also a Mediator. As Jesse and Suze continue to dance, he says how he just doesn't understand why her father took so long to cross over. Suze says, "Do you really not know?" Causing him to shake his head, smiling as Suze smiles back feeling that her heart "might burst with joy." |
Driven to Distraction | null | 1,994 | The authors discuss ADHD from a medical perspective, describing it as a genetic neurological disorder. They discuss the diagnostic criteria of the disorder as listed in the DSM-IV and distinguish symptoms of ADHD, such as impulsivity and difficulty focusing on tasks, from personality flaws such as laziness or self-indulgence. According to the authors, ADHD symptoms are caused by neurological differences and cannot be changed at will or "cured," although they can be managed through coping strategies and medications. The authors describe the biological mechanisms thought to underlie ADHD symptoms and also describe a variety of subtypes of ADHD. The authors discuss the effects that ADHD can have on the sufferer's life, including: * Underperformance at school as a child; * Underperformance at work as an adult; * Interpersonal difficulties, including short temper, impulsive behavior, and perceived irresponsibility; * Compulsive behavior and low self-esteem The authors then discuss strategies for treating and coping with ADHD, including obtaining a diagnosis by a qualified professional, treatment with medication and cognitive-behavioral therapy, symptom management through diet and exercise, and coping strategies. |
Forgotten Fire | null | null | It's about a young early teen boy Vahan Kenderian, who must resort to a variety of measures to survive the Armenian genocide. Having lived a privileged life as the youngest son of one Armenia's richest men, Vahan witnesses the deaths of family members - often through execution. One of his sisters commits suicide with poison to avoid suffering rape. While surviving the war and genocide, Vahan aims to reach Constantinople where refugees are taken into safety. From there on Vahan felt relieved because of the end to his suffering. His only relative to survive the genocide is his sister Oskina, who is separated from early in the novel but later reunites with her as read. |
Orosa-Nakpil, Malate | Louie Mar Gangcuangco | 2,006 | Orosa-Nakpil Malate is a gay themed story that revolves around a University of the Philippines, Manila Intarmed freshman by the name of John David “Dave” de Jesus who looked for fun but found love and life in the liberated world of Orosa-Nakpil streets in Malate, Manila. Dana, his Intarmed classmate and his best friend, served as his “fairy godmother” while he goes on his sexcapades in Malate. She kept him strong at and stayed at his side during his toughest times at school and in love and turned him from an innocent rural gay into an outgoing urban gay hottie. In Orosa-Nakpil, Malate, he met not only the men who spent steamy nights with him in the dark room on the second floor of Barn bar, but also the men who changed his life forever. The complexity of the story started from a high school rivalry between Dave and Michael that turned into a bitter revenge against the former. He fell in love with a guy, who turned out to be part of the big plan against him and broke his heart - big time. Another guy, who he thought he could trust, destroyed his dignity in the dark premises of a campus comfort room and was framed as the sinner - the unfaithful cock sucker. Then he met Ross, the guy who made him fall in love like he never did. He never felt more special. But then, a painful event took them apart. Ross gave him a stethoscope before he bid goodbye. Dave then, slowly and surely but not completely, moved on and became successful in his studies. He graduated with flying colors and became a doctor. Then an unexpected encounter presented shocking revelations to Dave that made everything clear to him. Why he was raped, why Ross left, why a hundred crumpled fliers containing libelous information flew towards Dave at the Barn bar 6 years ago, why Ross did something Dave never thought he could. He knew why - he knew that it was because of revenge, HIV-AIDS, and Ross’ incomparable love for Dave. Orosa-Nakpil Malate, is a story of love, hate and hope; of family, friendship and rivalry, sending great awareness about HIV-AIDS, how brutal and merciless but life-changing it is, and most especially, how to prevent yourself from being infected. |
Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas | Maya Angelou | null | Singin' and Swingin opens shortly after Angelou's previous autobiography, Gather Together in My Name. Marguerite, or Maya, a single mother with a young son, is in her early twenties, struggling to make a living. Angelou writes in this book, like her previous works, about the full range of her own experiences. As scholar Dolly McPherson states, "When one encounters Maya Angelou in her story, one encounters the humor, the pain, the exuberance, the honesty, and the determination of a human being who has experienced life fully and retained her strong sense of self". Many people around Angelou influence her growth and—as critic Lyman B. Hagen states—"propel Angelou ever forward". Maya is offered a job as a salesgirl in a record shop on Fillmore Street in San Francisco. At first she greets her boss' offers of generosity and friendship with suspicion, but after two months of searching for evidence of racism, Maya begins to "relax and enjoy a world of music". The job allows her to move back into her mother's house and to spend more time with her son. While working in the store, Maya meets Tosh Angelos, a Greek sailor. They fall in love, and he is especially fond of her son. Against her mother's wishes, Maya marries Tosh in 1952. At first, the marriage is satisfying, and it seems that Maya has fulfilled her dream of being a housewife, writing "My life began to resemble a Good Housekeeping advertisement". Eventually, Maya begins to resent Tosh's demands that she stay at home; she is also bothered by her friends' negative reaction to her interracial marriage. Maya is disturbed by Tosh's atheism and his control of her life, but does little to challenge his authority. After Tosh tells her son Clyde that there is no God, Maya rebels by secretly attending Black churches. After three years the marriage disintegrates when Tosh announces to Maya that he is "tired of being married". She goes into the hospital for an appendectomy, and after the operation, she announces her desire to return to her grandmother in Stamps, but Tosh informs her that Annie died the day of Maya's operation. A single mother once again, Maya begins to find success as a performer. She gets a job dancing and singing at The Purple Onion, a popular nightclub in San Francisco, and—on the recommendation of the club's owners—she changes her name from Marguerite Johnson to the "more exotic" "Maya Angelou". She gains the attention of talent scouts, who offer her a role in Porgy and Bess; she turns down the part, however, because of her obligations to The Purple Onion. When her contract expires, Maya goes to New York City to audition for a part opposite Pearl Bailey, but she turns it down to join a European tour of Porgy and Bess. Leaving Clyde with her mother, Maya travels to 22 countries with the touring company in 1954 and 1955, expressing her impressions about her travels. She writes the following about Verona: "I was really in Italy. Not Maya Angelou, the person of pretensions and ambitions, but me, Marguerite Johnson, who had read about Verona and the sad lovers while growing up in a dusty Southern village poorer and more tragic than the historic town in which I now stood." Despite Maya's success with Porgy and Bess, she is racked with guilt and regret about leaving her son behind. After receiving bad news about Clyde's health, she quits the tour and returns to San Francisco. Both Clyde and Maya heal from the physical and emotional toll caused by their separation, and she promises never to leave him again. Clyde also announces that he wants to be called "Guy". As Angelou writes: "It took him only one month to train us. He became Guy and we could hardly remember ever calling him anything else". Maya is true to her promise; she accepts a job performing in Hawaii, and he goes with her. At the close of the book, mother and son express pride in each other. When he praises her singing, she writes: "Although I was not a great singer I was his mother, and he was my wonderful, dependently independent son". |
Inspector Ghote Plays a Joker | H. R. F. Keating | null | Ghote is summoned by the Deputy Superintendent of Police and charged to protect a flamingo presented to Bombay Zoological Gardens by the American Consulate. The bird is one of four and the other three have already been shot. At the zoo the inspector interviews a senior zoo official who informs him that the Director of the zoo has ordered that the bird be left on display in order to trap the perpetrator. During the interview the bird is shot. Ghote believes the marksman is in a clock tower, which he searches. He does not find the marksman but does note the smell of fine tobacco. The next day Ghote arrives at the office to find Sergeant Desai has been allocated to his investigation of the shooting. This does not please Ghote, as Desai has a reputation for hilarious incompetence. Desai tells Ghote that a donkey was substituted for the favourite racehorse in the derby three months earlier and Ghote realises they are dealing with a rich and cruel practical joker. Ghote's investigation is interrupted by a phone call from Mister Ram Kundah, deputy to the Minister for Police Affairs and the Arts. Kundah wants to liaise with Ghote on the investigation. Ghote and Desai go to the records department to check for other incidents that resemble practical jokes. Here Ghote first hears of the guru who intends to attempt to walk on water and finds a complaint from Professor Rustom Engineer. Professor Rustom Engineer was a well-respected a scientist until he presented a new desalination machine to the media. A reporter discovered that, without the Professor's knowledge, someone had installed a small pump into the machine to remove the salt water and replace it with ordinary tap water. The next day Ghote goes to the racecourse to interview the owner of the racehorse that was replaced by a donkey, Mr Bedekar. Here Ghote meets Jack Cooper, an English alcoholic follower of horse racing, and "Bunny" Bender, who has inherited the title of Raja but appears to have only modest financial means. Bedekar is unenthusiastic about renewed police interest into the incident, but Bender seems more interested in helping. In order to educate Ghote in the subject of horse racing, Bender persuades Ghote to place a bet of 50 Rupees on a horse called "Cream of the Jest". Unexpectedly the horse finishes first, but a steward's inquiry seems to rob Ghote of his winnings. Only when Ghote finds Desai does he learn that the objection to "Cream of the Jest" was overturned and that he has indeed won enough money for a good air-conditioner. As Ghote collects his winnings he again encounters Bender, who offers to use his connections to obtain Ghote an interview with Professor Rustom Engineer. At the professor's house Sir Rustom talks of the prank that was played on him very reluctantly. He admits to taking his work very seriously and only revisits the memory when Ghote reminds him that there have been other victims. Rustom Engineer tells Ghote that he had two trusted assistants (no longer with him) who had worked for him for many years. Rustom often showed friends and visitors the workshop and the machine he was working on. He shows Ghote the machine he showed to the press, complete with the pump that was used to fool him. The next day Ghote is telephoned by Raja Bender, who wants Ghote to accompany him to see the yogi Lal Das attempt to walk on water. Ghote is alarmed to learn that tickets are being sold for up to 500 rupees and strongly suspects that another prank is about to be played. Raja Bender has also invited Rustom Engineer, Jack Cooper and Ram Kundar to witness the attempt. Lal Das begins his attempt to walk on water and immediately fails. Ghote becomes concerned when the yogi does not emerge from the tank and is forced to dive into the tank to rescue him. The yogi survives and Ghote resolves to interview Lal Das to learn who convinced him that he could walk on water. Ghote deduces that a heavy sheet of glass placed below the surface of the water must have been used to fool the yogi. A brief search locates the glass sheet at the back of the temple. The next day Ghote is in a meeting with Ram Kundar when Raja Bender calls him unexpectedly. Ghote accuses Bender of being the prankster and Bender invites him to see him in his summer home so they can talk about it. Ghote accepts and at the summer home a Sikh servant shows Ghote into to see Raja Bender. Bender is certain that no charges will be brought against him because of his privileged social position, because of the ridiculous nature of the charges themselves and because of the lack of material evidence. Bender persuades Ghote to play cards and bet the money he won at the horse race against an assurance the Raja will play no more practical jokes. At a loss for any better idea, Ghote agrees to the game and the wager. Raja Bender wins the game easily, possibly cheating, as well as a second round played for double or quits. Ghote is given until the next day to pay the debt then sent away by the Raja, who carelessly says that the rifle used to shoot the flamingos has been stolen. Ghote is forced to borrow to meet his gambling debt. That evening he plays with his son, Ved. While playing, Ghote decides to play a joke on Ved by hiding behind a bush. Ved is terrified by this prank and Ghote is instantly remorseful. Later Ghote calls the office and orders Desai to ask Rustom Engineer if the Raja had left the rifle at the professor's home. When Desai does not report back Ghote must visit the professor's home to search for the sergeant. The professor denies any knowledge of the sergeant's visit or the theft of the Raja's rifle. Later, Ghote receives a telephone call telling him that the Raja, "Bunny" Bender, has been shot dead at his summer home. Ghote is ordered to go and take charge of the investigation. At the scene he meets Inspector Gadgil, who has arrested the Sikh servant, Mr Singh. Ghote interviews the suspect but quickly clears him. Singh says no one wanted to kill Bender, which surprises Ghote, until Singh explains that "Bunny" Bender did not care enough about anyone to kill them and therefore everyone he knew felt the same about him. Ghote tells Singh of the Raja's practical jokes, which Singh has trouble believing. The next day Ghote visits and interviews Mr Bedekar. Bedekar confirms that at the time his horse was replaced by a donkey, costing him a winning place in the derby, he would have killed the person responsible. Bedekar claims he still does not know who was responsible for this. The interview ends when Sergeant Desai is caught attempting to obtain inside information for gambling on horse races. Afterwards Ghote goes to interview Lal Das, the yogi. Lal Das is quite mild mannered and unperturbed by his recent disgrace. He freely admits that he was made to look a fool, but is philosophical about it. He tells Ghote that he was persuaded to walk on the water in a specially made tank only to prove that he could not do it, yet found he was able to do so. He could not explain this and it puzzled him greatly. When he tried again in front of the crowd he failed. Yogi Lal Das thanks Ghote for saving him, though the yogi's spiritual beliefs mean that he considers his life to be of little importance. After interviewing the yogi, Ghote is summoned to an interview with Ram Kundah. At first Ghote suspects he is about to be rebuked but it emerges that Kundah only wants to learn the details of Ghote's investigation. Ghote again interviews Rustom Engineer. The interview proves difficult and Rustom admits being deeply affected by joke that was played on him, but claims to have spent the evening of the murder at home with his brother. After the interview with Rustom Engineer, Ghote receives a telephone call that informs him that Lal Das has been arrested by Inspector Gadgil. Lal Das was found occupying the garden shed of the late Raja "Bunny" Bender's summer home. Ghote is told by Lal Das that the street urchins tormented him until he was forced to leave the spot where he meditated. He knew the house was empty from Ghote's earlier interview and went there for peace and quiet. Inspector Gadgil is disappointed that Lal Das is not the murderer. Before Ghote can leave two constables bring Jack Cooper in for being drunk and disorderly. Cooper tries to wheedle Ghote into having him released and in the process mentions that Bedekar had "Bunny" Bender investigated by a private detective. Ghote revisits Bedekar who claims that before the Raja was shot he discovered one of his racehorses was of good enough quality to win the next derby, which means he has no motive for the murder. By a process of elimination Ghote realises that Professor Rustom Engineer is the only suspect left. He visits the professor's home again and interviews the professor's brother. The professor's brother denies the professor's alibi but also undermines the professor's motive. The professor's research had gone down a blind alley decades ago and he was too old to start again, so secretly the professor welcomed the excuse to abandon his work. Ghote returns to the police station and catches Sergeant Desai playing cards with a joker in the pack. This inspires Ghote and he goes to visit Ram Kundah. Ghote notes that Kundah devotes himself to his job twenty-four hours a day, every day with complete single-mindedness. Ghote characterises Kundah as "totally serious". Kundah accepts this because he sees nothing wrong with the description. Ghote explains that when he is looking for a murderer, he is looking for someone who was at least totally serious at the time of the crime. He observes that Kundah has several times stressed that he did not know that "Bunny" Bender was the prankster, even though Ghote was with Kundah during the telephone call in which Ghote first accused Bender of committing the pranks. Kundah attempts to flee but is overpowered by Ghote and Sergeant Desai. Back at the police station the Deputy Superintendent of Police, who has not yet heard the news of the arrest, tells Ghote that Kundah has contacted him with news of a vacancy for a security officer in the ministry. He intends to recommend Sergeant Desai for the role. |
Vampirates:Black Heart | Justin Somper | 2,009 | There's a new ship of vampirates roaming the seas, leaving a trail of fear and devastation in its wake, led by Sidorio. When a high-profile pirate is slain, the Pirate Federation takes decisive action and dedicates Cheng Li's ship to be the first of many ships to be vampirate assasians. Amongst the dynamic crew is young pirate prodigy Connor Tempest and two of his academy friends. Meanwhile, Connor's twin sister Grace enjoys a bittersweet reunion with their mother, Sally, who has some important and shocking news for her daughter. As Grace uncovers the truth about her family's past, she realizes that she and Connor face a daunting and uncertain future, because Grace and Connor are half vampires and half human. Alas, Sally dies, and Connor then "kills" Lady Lola Lockwood by beheading her with a special sword. Sidoro then tries to kill him but then Cheng Li tells him that Connor is his son. On hearing this shocking piece of news, he brings him on board his ship. He tracks down Grace and keeps her on his ship too and refuses to let the twins leave. |
Windsor Castle | William Harrison Ainsworth | null | The focus of the novels is on the events surrounding Henry VIII's replacing Catherine of Aragon with Anne Boleyn as his wife. During Henry's pursuit of Boleyn, the novel describes other couples, including the Earl of Surrey and Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald, a match Henry does not support. However, some of the individuals oppose Henry and his desires for Boleyn, including Thomas Wyat who wants her for himself and Cardinal Wolsey, who uses his own daughter, Mabel Lyndwood, to lure Henry away from Boleyn. Eventually, Wolsey turns to outting Wyat's desires for Boleyn to the Court, which almost results in Wyat's execution but is stopped before that point. Wolsey is then kicked out of the court and is executed himself. Intertwined with the Court is the story of Herne the Hunter, a spirit of Windsor Forest. He is an evil force that seeks to take the souls of various individuals, and Henry tries to stop him, but is never able to do so. Eventually, Wyat and Lyndwood are captured by Herne. The two fall in love and try to escape, but Mabel drowns. As the main plot progresses, Catherine accepts her fate but also warns Boleyn that Henry will treat her in the same way. It is revealed that Boleyn was involved with Henry Norris, and Henry uses this as evidence to have Boleyn executed. The story ends with Boleyn being replaced by Jane Seymour. The illustrations for Windsor Castle dominate the text. They were started by Tony Johannot, a French illustrator. After producing four illustrations for the Ainsworth's Magazine, he was replaced by Cruikshank as the illustrator for the rest of the work. Cruikshank, during the beginning of the publication of Windsor Castle was busy producing illustrations for Ainsworth's The Miser's Daughter. In terms of style, Cruikshank's illustrations are similar to those of Remebrandt. In addition to the two illustrators, W. Alfred Delamotte worked on the novel. Ainsworth told Delamotte exactly what he wanted for his work, and, in a letter written with these orders, said, "I shall be glad to see you to a family dinner at half-past three o'clock to-morrow-Sunday. Bring your sketch-books with you [...] Remind Mr. Costello, when you see him, to get the order from Lady Mary Fox for her apartments at Windsor. You had better go down to Hampton Court and sketch Will Sommers, and some of the other figures in the old pictures of Henry the Eight's time, carefully." Delamotte created 87 woodcut illustrations that focused on trees or architectural features. He also added three images that depicted a plan for Windsor Great Park, of 1529, and two for Windsor Castle, of 1530 and 1843. |
The Sunless Citadel | null | null | This 32-page book begins with a two-page introduction. According to the adventure background provided, the plot involves a fortress that became buried in the earth ages ago, and became known as the Sunless Citadel. In the citadel's core grows the terrible Gulthias Tree, shepherded by the twisted druid, Belak the Outcast. The Tree spawns magical life giving (and life stealing) fruit, as well as evil creatures known as twig blights. The adventure starts with player characters hearing rumors about the citadel while staying in the nearby small town of Oakhurst. The majority of the adventure then focuses on the characters exploring the citadel and encountering the malign creatures that have taken up residence within, such as kobolds and goblins. The characters eventually come upon the Twilight Grove and its blighted foliage, where they find the Gulthias Tree and encounter the druid Belak. He explains that the tree grew from a yet-green wooden stake that had been used to kill a vampire on that very spot, and the tree accepts humanoids bound to its bole as "supplicants", making the victims completely subservient to its will. A three-page appendix at the back of the book features statistics for all of the creatures encountered in the adventure, as well as three new magic items and the twig blights. |
Lord of the Iron Fortress | null | null | This 48-page book begins with a two-page introduction. According to the adventure background provided, the plot involves the Blade of Fiery Might once wielded by the sultan of the efreet, which was destroyed and scattered across the planes. Imperagon, a half-duergar/half-dragon and ruler of the Iron Fortress of Zandikar on the plane of Acheron, has been reforging the sword using the trapped spirits of the greatest forgemasters of history as slave labor. Imperagon intends to wield the ancient blade at the head of a great army to conquer and build a kingdom on the Material Plane, with allies among the drow, the illithids, and fellow natives of the evil Outer Planes. The adventure begins when the player characters investigate events involving local craftsmen, following the trail of clues to the city of Rigus, which leads into the plane of Acheron. Once there, the characters encounter formian settlers from Mechanus, whose hive can serve as a base of operations while preparing an assault on the Iron Fortress. If successful in defeating the golems and steel predators that guard the fortress, the characters may breach its walls and destroy Imperagon's works. The book contains four appendices. Appendix I contains the statistics for the non-player characters encountered throughout the adventure. Appendix II contains statistics for new monsters, including the axiomatic creatures template, the bladeling, and the steel predator. Appendix III contains statistics for two new spells and four new magic items (including the Blade of Fiery Might). Appendix IV contains statistics for four pregenerated player characters, recommended for use in case the players require extra player characters. |
Give Me Back My Legions! | Harry Turtledove | null | Publius Quinctilius Varus, formerly the governor of Syria, is appointed to the governorship of Germany, a hold-out full of what the Romans thought of as barbarians. During a brief assignment to the Legions in Dalmatia, Varus befriends the Germani auxiliary commander Arminius, unaware that the latter has plans of his own for the Romans occupying Germany. |
Jack Sheppard | null | null | The story is divided into three parts, called "epochs". The "Jonathan Wild" epoch comes first. The events of the story begins with the notorious criminal and thief-catcher Jonathan Wild encouraging Jack Sheppard's father to a life of crime. Wild, who once pursues Sheppard's mother, eventually turns Sheppard's father into the authorities and he is soon after executed. Sheppard's mother is left to raise Sheppard, a mere infant at the time, alone. Paralleling these events is the story of Thames Darrell. On 26 November 1703, the date of the first section, Darrell is removed separated from his immoral uncle, Sir Rowland Trenchard, and is given to Mr. Wood to be raised. The third epoch takes place in 1724 and spans six months. Sheppard is a thief that spends his time robbing various people. While he and Blueskin rob the Wood's household, Blueskin murders Mrs. Woods. This upsets Sheppard and results in his separation from Wild's group. Sheppard befriends Thames again and spends his time trying to correct Blueskin's wrong. * Jack Sheppard * Jonathan Wild * Thames Darrell * Mr. Wood * Mrs. Wood * Winifred Wood * Blueskin – Joseph Blake * Thomas Sheppard |
Guy Fawkes | null | null | The story of Guy Fawkes starts in summer 1605, when a plot to blow up Parliament was underway. The first book of the story begins with the execution of Catholic priests in Manchester. During the execution, Elizabeth Orton madly raves before being chased by an officer overseeing the execution. In order to avoid capture, she leaps into the River Irwell. She is pulled up by Humphrey Chetham, a Protestant member of the nobility, and Guy Fawkes, a Catholic. After she is brought out of the water, she predicts that both men will be executed before she dies. The novel transitions to Lancashire and the Radcliffe family. William Radcliffe is a supporter of the plot, and his daughter, Viviana Radcliffe, is revealed to love both Chetham and Fawkes. Fawkes travels to John Dee, an alchemist, who is able to call forth the ghost of Orton. The ghost warns Fawkes again. This is not the only time Fawkes is warned, as he receives a vision from God that the plot will end in disaster. During this time, the Radcliffe family is exposed as hiding two priests, which provokes the destruction of the home by the British Army. Having lost their home, the conspirators in the plot travel to London. In the second book, Fawkes and Viviana Radcliffe marry, and she tries to convince her new husband not to continue with the plot. Fawkes argues that he is bound to follow through with events. The book ends when the conspiracy to blow up Parliament fails on 5 November 1605 and Fawkes is arrested. The third book deals with the trial of Fawkes and the other plotters. They are all held in the Tower of London, and Viviana, who is by then dying, convinces Fawkes to repent. Eventually, he does so as she dies, following which he is executed. The book ends with the execution of the last of the plotters, Father Garnet. |
The Tower of London | William Harrison Ainsworth | 1,840 | The plot begins with Lady Jane Grey, wife of Guilford Dudley and daughter-in-law to the Duke of Northumberland, as she enters the Tower of London on 10 July 1553. Prior to her entrance into the Tower, she ruled as Queen of England for nine days after she and her husband were put on the throne by the Duke of Northumberland. Soon after, Mary I was able to take control of England and sent the Duke to be executed. Dudley, in order to gain back the kingdom, formed a rebellion, which results in failure and the imprisonment of both himself and his wife. After the imprisonment, Simon Renard, the Spanish Ambassador to England, arranges a marriage between Mary and Philip of Spain in order to bring a Catholic take over of England. The events of the book alternate between historical background and the plot of Lady Jane. In Book II, incidents throughout the history of England from William the Conqueror to the 1820 Cato Street conspiracy are mentioned. The novel returns to Lady Jane busying herself with prayer as she awaits her execution with her only hope for freedom is to become a Catholic. * Lady Jane Grey * Guilford Dudley * John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland * Mary I * Philip of Spain * Xit (Sir Narcissus Le Grand) * Og, Gog and Magog * Winwike * Cuthbert Cholmondeley * Mistress Cicely * Nightgall * Elizabeth The novel is illustrated with 40 engravings and 58 woodcuts by Cruikshank. The illustrations depict moments from the story while the woodcuts show off architectural features related to the Tower. Ainsworth was grateful for the illustrations to the novel, and he wrote in the preface that "it was no slight satisfaction to him, that circumstances at length enabled him to carry into effect his favourite project, in conjunction with the inimitable artist whose designs accompany the work." |
St. James's | null | null | Of all of Ainsworth's novels, the plot of St. James's is almost non-existent. The story takes place during the end of Queen Anne's reign. She was friends with the Duchess of Marlborough, and two Tories, Robert Harley and Henry St John, want to separate the Duchess and the queen. After plotting, they are finally able to separate the two, which allows them to remove the Duke of Marlborough from the queen's favour. Without the Duke around, Harley is made Earl of Oxford and St. John made Viscount of Bolingbroke. When Queen Anne dies, Harley and St. John turn against each other and soon lose their status at court. * Queen Anne * John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough * Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough * Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer * Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke The Ainsworth's Magazine edition of St. James's included 14 illustrations by Cruikshank. However, only 7 appeared in the three volume book edition of the work. Two of the illustrations not carried over in the book edition were of Cruikshank's best depictions: one titled "The Double Duel" and another titled "Sergeant Scales's Drum". A rift developed between Cruikshank and Ainsworth, and St. James's was the last work of Ainsworth that Cruikshank illustrated. It is possible that the rift came as Ainsworth was giving up his ownership of the Ainsworth's Magazine, but the cause is unknown. It is also possible that the dropping of illustrations from the three volume edition was either a cause or an effect of the rift. |
Haunted | Meg Cabot | 2,004 | In this book we return to Susannah (Suze) Simon's life. Suze is going back to high school and on the first day, she meets Paul Slater from book 4, The Darkest Hour, whom she met during the summer. At home, Suze meets Neil Jankow, a friend of Jake's, and also meets Neil's brother's ghost, Craig Jankow. Suze learns that Craig died from a catamaran accident and that Craig strongly believes that Neil should have been the one who dies. Afterwards, Paul tells Suze to come to his house by telling her about that they were more than just a mediator. At his house, Suze learns that they are "shifters" but soon afterwards, Paul abruptly kisses her. Suze runs away mad and finds Neil. Neil drives her home but during the trip, Craig takes over the wheel nearly killing Neil and Suze. Back at school, Suze learns from Father Dominic that Jesse, Suze's crush, will be leaving her and will be going to the rectory. After Suze learns this, she becomes extremely mad at Jesse and believes that he never loved her. Later during the week, Suze's stepbrother, Brad, hosts a hot-tub party at the house. During the party, Jesse learns that Paul had kissed Suze and tries to kill him. In order to end the fight, Suze drags Paul and unknowingly takes Craig to the spirit world. At the spirit world, Craig opens a door and disappears going to his "future." After Craig leaves, Paul tries to make a deal to Suze stating that he tell her about being more than a mediator and not hurting Jesse if Suze agrees to spend time with him. Suze agrees to what Paul makes, so she can protect Jesse. After they revisit the party, Paul goes to the hospital after being beat up by Jesse. At the feast of Father Serra, Dr. Slaski, the grandfather of Paul, visits Suze and tells her not to listen to what Paul tells her. After hearing this, Suze runs to the mission's cemetery and there, she meets Jesse once again. Soon afterwards, she learns that Jesse truly is in love with her and always has been. The story ends with Suze overjoyed with happiness and kissing Jesse. |
Love, etc | Julian Barnes | 2,000 | Love, etc was written some ten years after Talking it Over and is set ten years later. In the intervening period Stuart, the protagonist, has emigrated to America, remarried, opened a restaurant, got divorced and returned to England where he has set up a successful organic food business. Meanwhile Oliver and Gillian and their two daughters live in a small flat in north-east London, Oliver still seeks success as a writer supported by Gillian's picture restoration. Stuart appears to have forgiven Oliver for stealing his wife and offers him a job as a driver... |
Spellfire | Ed Greenwood | 1,989 | The book follows the journey of an orphaned girl named Shandril who later leaves her home and embarks on a journey, thus discovering love, and of course Spellfire. |
Bloodhound | Tamora Pierce | 2,009 | Beka's story continues when she gets sloppy with her reports to Ahuda, and she decides to practice again by starting a new journal. Now a first year Dog, Beka works the Evening Watch with her loathsome partner, Silsbee. His attitude of letting Day Watch catch the criminals they see annoys Beka to no end. Silsbee eventually dumps her as a partner, and she is partnered with Clara Goodwin and Matthias Tunstall, her former trainers. Beka learns of the existence of coles, or counterfeit coins, from her friend Tansy. As she and her partners investigate, they get word of a thin harvest, which bodes ill for the poor of the Lower City. Beka and Pounce--a speaking constellation in the form of a cat--find Achoo, a bloodhound, being hurt by her handler. When Beka steps in to stop the abuse, she takes Achoo as her scent-hound. Meanwhile, due to the thin harvest, bread prices go up and a riot starts in the city. Beka, Goodwin and Tunstall get caught up in the fight, and Tunstall gets both of his legs broken. After the riot, Lord Gershom, the Lord Provost, sends Beka, Goodwin and Achoo to Port Caynn to further investigate the coles while Tunstall recovers. Pounce, for once, cannot go with her as he is actually a constellation and he must deal with some troublesome stars. They depart and on board the ship are reacquainted with Dale Rowan, a banker who helped them during the Bread Riot. Together Goodwin and Beka make friends and try to pry information, pretending to be corrupt, or "loose." Beka's romance with Dale blossoms, and Goodwin too flirts playfully, though she never forgets her husband Tomlan back home. When Goodwin returns to Corus to deliver reports to Lord Gershom, Beka comes across several pieces of evidence that point to Pearl Skinner, the Port Caynn Rogue, as the colemonger. She goes to Sir Lionel of Trebond, the Deputy Provost, but Sir Lionel's fear of Pearl (who had previously murdered his children) prevents him from acting. Beka loses her temper with him, and Sir Lionel orders her sent to Rattery Prison. With the help of one of the loyal Dogs, Beka is able to escape and goes to Pearl for shelter. Through use of a gift, flattery and an amusing tale degrading Sir Lionel, Beka is able to convince Pearl to let her stay for now. However, one of Lionel's men goes to Pearl and tells her that Beka has evidence that Pearl is the one behind the coles, and Beka is forced to flee once more. This time, Beka goes to Nestor Haryse, Lord Gershom's younger cousin, and his transgender lover, Okha Soyan (Amber Orchid). With Nestor's help, Gershom is able to bring in a large squad of Dogs to arrest Pearl and her conspirators. Pearl and her bodyguards escape, but Beka follows them down into the city's sewers, where, with Achoo and Goodwin's help, she manages to arrest Pearl. They suffer numerous wounds, and when Beka wakes, she must face the sad reality that she and Dale must part; they live too far apart, and their jobs leave no time for each other. When they return to Corus, Goodwin tells Beka that the Evening Watch Sergeant, Ahuda, was offered a position in Corus's Flash District, and that Goodwin was going to take Ahuda's place, leaving Beka with Tunstall as a partner. She says that she is tired of being a street dog, and that desk sergeant will be the perfect position for her. The novel ends at Beka and Goodwin's welcome home party, as Beka and Tunstall agree to stay partners. She gains a new nickname, Bloodhound, from the public and her friends. |
Koolaids: The Art of War | Rabih Alameddine | 1,998 | The novel deals with issues such as the AIDS epidemic, sex, the Lebanese civil war, death, and the meaning of life. It is a postmodern novel told from the point of view of numerous narrators. Koolaids breaks from the traditional novel style in that the whole book is a non-linear narrative. Koolaids is written in a creative style, with short paragraphs and sentences that have deep meanings. In fact, the whole novel is a series of short sections, or vignettes. Each vignette is part of a stream of consciousness from one of the multiple narrators. The different types of vignettes include diary entries, e-mails, newspaper articles, holy texts/prayers, and dialogues to name a few. Also, there is a multitude of characters who make quick appearances in different spots throughout the novel. The randomness and fragments of thought add to the overall theme of chaos, and the meaninglessness of everything in life. The main sub-themes of the novel are death, AIDS, war, art, and violence. The novel also offers narratives on the inadequate representation of the realities of AIDS and the Lebanon civil war in the mass media. Alameddine achieves this by citing fictional examples told from the first person point of view on the exploitation of the sick and the disregard for human life in war. These examples help reflect the insufficiency of monolithic narratives of AIDS and war. Often, people's harrowing personal experiences are not accounted for in the news or in history books. Alameddine's central purpose for this novel is to portray the meaninglessness of life and to show that the only thing that is certain in life is death. |
Black Bird | null | null | Grandfather Desouche, a pessimistic old French Montrealer, makes a living by digging bodies out of their graves and selling the embalmed corpses to a doctor who uses them for medical experiments. When the winter comes, the frozen ground forces Grandfather and Uncle to retire for the season. Grandfather, after his wife's death, has taken to hating his neighbors and indulging in food and drink. Grandfather decides to marry Aline Souris, a spinster who cares for her widower father. She becomes the woman of the house, caring for the house and for Grandfather. Aline realizes that Grandfather tricked her into marrying him in order to have someone to take care of him. Granddaughter Marie Desouche, a leading member of the Front de libération du Québec, is abhorred by her family's Anglo-ism. Her boyfriend Hubert is the leader of their cell. Her brother Jean-Baptiste, a quiet romantic poet, opposes his sister's burning idealism, and spends most of his time reading and writing. One night, after planting a bomb next to a crowded restaurant, Marie comes home to find a police car outside her house and is immediately alarmed. She forces her brother to be her alibi, insinuating that they were having sex. It turns out the police were there to inform their Mother of the death of her father, Angus, who was killed by Marie's bomb. Mother is destroyed by this news, and enters a coma-like state. Marie leaves to live with Hubert. Recognizing her marriage to Grandfather as a sham, Aline moves into Marie's vacated room. She becomes attached to his pet crow, which she names "Grace". Grandfather gradually comes to hate the crow as his wife gains affection for it. Eventually Grace attacks Grandfather and scratchs out one of his eyes. Dr. Hyde becomes depressed at his mother's condition. Her friends, Mrs. Harrison and Mrs. Pangloss, come every week to visit hoping she will recover. She, however, cannot hear a word they are saying when they try to speak to her. Grandfather becomes increasingly frustrated with his new handicap, a missing eye, but realizes that it is an excuse to be bed-ridden and have Aline wait on him hand and foot. At Christmas, the Desouches gather, and Marie gives Jean-Baptiste a blank book, a statement of her dislike of empty words but instead he choses to write a play. Meanhwile, Hubert has a drunken disagreement with his own father and wanders off very drunk. He gets hit by a car while shouting separatist manifestos into the night air. Ironically, he gets hit by a personal hero of his and is killed in the accident. The local police do not want the premier's reputation, so take the corpse to Grandfather to be disposed of. Grandfather charges a high price for the body. Marie becomes the head of her FLQ division. Meanwhile, Jean-Baptiste becomes a political paraiah over the summer, thanks to the play he wrote about his family, creating a sensation. He is arrested by the police when Marie sneaks felquiste pamphlets into his possessions. Hoping to free her brother, Marie kidnaps a British government official and holds him hostage. Meanwhile, Dr. Hyde experiments on Hubert's corpse, trying to revive him. He offers Grandfather and Uncle a pretty sum if they extract the bleeding heart of Frere Andre from the Cathedral so he can insert the heart into Hubert's corpse, and thus find out where the human soul dwells. On Hallowe'en, he revives Hubert, Marie strangles the British diplomat, and Jean-Baptiste is finally let out of jail. Hubert comes back to the Desouche house, looking like a Zombie made of different body parts from different corpses. When he sees Mother sleeping it becomes apparent that it is not Hubert at all but Angus dwelling in the mangled body. Mother is revived upon seeing him, and a gas leak explosion destroys the house. Aline flies out the window with Grace. After the explosion, Jean-Baptiste sees his family from a distance, Grandfather and Marie, Mother and Father, Uncle and the ruined house. He realizes that he has lost all of his writing, but understands that he can now start again. And so the book ends as it begins "Montreal, an island..." |
The Boys on the Rock | John Fox | null | Set in the Bronx against the historical backdrop of United States Senator Eugene McCarthy's unsuccessful bid to become the Democratic presidential candidate for the 1968 elections, the novel focuses on Connors's "rocky relationship that fared no better than McCarthy's campaign", in the words of critic Wayne Hoffman (author of the novel Hard), who described it in The Washington Post as a "classic". |
Incidents | Roland Barthes | 1,987 | In the first essay, La Lumiere du Sud-Ouest, first published in L'Humanité in 1977,, Roland Barthes reflects on the South West of France, the Adour and Bayonne. The second essay, Incidents, written in 1969, details Barthes's holiday in Morocco, where he pays men for sex. In Au Palace Ce Soir, the third essay, first published in issue 10 of Vogue-Hommes in May 1978, Barthes describes Le Palace, a fashionable theatre-house in Paris. The fourth essay, Soirées de Paris, is a diary from August to September 1979, where Roland Barthes admits to using male escorts as all his relationships have been disappointing to him. |
The Fourth World | null | null | Santee St. John is a reporter for NewsReal, a shock site for which he records video via a virtual “interface” allowing viewers to actually experience his recordings on the World Wide Web. He is sent to record a massacre of indigenous people being attacked at Chiapas, Mexico without warning by landowners working for capitalist corporations. However, due to a business deal with Mexico’s government, NewsReal decides not to show the story, prompting Santee to take a sabbatical. While on sabbatical, he meets Margaret Mayfield, a rebel Zapatista with whom he is swayed to travel with and, eventually, fall in love with and decide to fight against the capitalist elite. St. John and Mayfield decide to join a group called Intrepid Explorers, working for the corporations, in order to find a strong group of Zapatistas to join. They are met by an individual claiming to be Subcomandante Marcos, the first revolutionary to use cyberspace, who helped Santee and Margaret establish a plan: to give the rebel victims of the capitalists’ massacres interfaces, which will allow the entire world to experience their sufferings via the World Wide Web by actually taking on all sense perceptions of that person through a completely realistic virtual reality simulator. Margaret Mayfield went on her part of the mission with Webster Webfoot, who used to be one of the most highly rated internet stars but became a “webkicker” and now tries to avoid using an interface whenever possible. However, once there, she is told that Santee is dead and that the funeral will be held the very next day; she and Webster travel to Chiapas, where the funeral is to be held, and discover that Santee is not actually dead, but that someone has faked his demise. Margaret abandons Webster, leaving him some cash for travel, and travels with a hotel owner named Zack Hayman who seems to have an inside connection with the conspirators. In Chiapas, Margaret discovers that Santee left her a personalized interface, which cannot be activated until Santee is actually present. At the same time, Webster’s girlfriend on the internet, Starchilde or “Starr” for short, discovers through her work on a space station that there exists oil on Mars, which means that biological extraterrestrial life must have existed on the planet at some point, as well as that Mexican rebels are being shipped to Mars in order to harvest the oil. Back on Earth, Zack, the hotel manager whom Margaret is with, discovered that the rebels are being sent to Mars in part so that the rich landowners can take their land without resistance. Santee and Margaret believed that they were setting up the victims with interfaces so that they would be able to show their sufferings to others outside of Mexico, but in fact the interfaces were going to make them think that they were receiving messages from Santee, while they were actually going to be tricked to going to Mars as slave labor. On the ship near Mars, Starr discovers that the slaves are to be sent to Mars in order to live there for a time and scout out any biological hazards or chemical hazards. Starr meets an intelligent AI, called Alice Irene, who serves as a literal deus ex machine. Starr convinces Alice Irene to join the cause of the rebels by having her examine the entire Internet and come to her own conclusions about the corruption of the current capitalist regime. Starr was given control of the ship, and the Zapatistas took control with the assistance of Alice Irene. The revolutionaries were given the option to stay on Earth or go to Mars, but as a form of utopian paradise rather than as slave labor. Santee St. John and Margaret Mayfield chose to stay on earth, while the remaining main characters chose life on Mars. |
God Drug | null | 2,004 | God Drug is the story of one large acid trip that literally alters the reality and changes the lives of several college students and drug users. The basic plot of the novel centers on the effects of the use of a form of LSD that the military tested out on some its marines during Vietnam as a means of making its soldiers better in combat. The intent of the drug was to enable the soldiers to be able to communicate telepathically and thus be able to work together more effectively during battles. Unfortunately, the experiment did not go according to plan, and the LSD caused more warfare in an alternate reality than it was able to solve in actual reality. This powerful drug left only one survivor, Jovah. Jovah is never seen in the book, only referred to by the other characters. Jovah’s reality was drastically altered by the use of the LSD and caused all of his thoughts to become realities. These realities were constant nightmares and wars within the users’ minds that actually became real. Anything that he believed to happen in his mind would actually take place. Therefore, Jovah had to be locked away in a sensory deprived room, secluded, and deemed insane and not allowed nor able to exist in normal society. The remnant personalities of Jovah’s realities and those of the other soldiers that he was telepathically linked to have now been set free and are roaming around in the real world. Jovah wishes to be God-like by consuming all of the realities and personalities that make him up so that he can be completely whole. He attempts to do this by means of the LSD trips. These characters consist of the war veteran known as the General and the beauty Hanna. These people are not actually real but become real when one has experienced the use of this form of LSD. The story takes place in Gainesville, FL at the University of Florida where a drug dealer named Galactic Bill sells some of the LSD to college students, Tom and Sparrow who live in what can be seen as a contemporary counter culture of hippies. Tom, Sparrow, and some of their friends find their lives intermingled with Hanna and the General as they become linked with their minds and thoughts by the use of the LSD. The central struggle of the novel takes place as Hanna, Tom, and Sparrow try to fight off the General as he strives to consume all of Jovah’s personalities in order to make Jovah whole once again. However, the General and the rest of the crew also fight a common enemy known as the heli-dragon, which is in true reality a helicopter that is transformed to a dragon in the reality of the LSD. As the story takes place, the induced realities of the LSD actually become true realities in the lives of Tom, Sparrow, and Hanna. The group of friends begins encountering increasingly more strange phenomena as the novel progresses, including flying. The group perceives these occurrences to be results of the LSD, but are they really only just that? The epic war between the General, the students, and the heli-dragon ends when Hanna, Tom, and Sparrow are able to erase the war reality and transform the old into a new reality. They are now able to start their lives over and create their world as they would like it to. The novel contains very graphic war and sex scenes, and it is also accompanied by intense artwork and drawings done by Andy Lee which adds to the overall effect of the acid trip. |
The Modular Man | Roger MacBride Allen | 1,992 | The novel concerns the issue of personhood and what it takes to be considered a member of the moral universe. There are three main characters: Herbert the vacuum cleaner, who is modified by his owner, David Jantille, a scientist who specializes in figuring out how to "mindload". Mindloading is the act of a human downloading their mind into a machine. A successful mindload entailss the death of the human. It is a way for humans to become immortal, if only in the form of vacuum cleaner. The book begins with the arrest of Herbert, the vacuum cleaner, for David's murder . David's wife, Suzanne Jantille, is a trial attorney who is a quadriplegic as a result of a car crash that also paralyzed her husband. She lives through a "Remote person" who has all human senses except for the ability to feel by touch. She can guide the remote person through a helmet attached to her "bio body", and retrieves all "video and audio" signals through the remote. She can function as a whole human being, but the outside world notices that she is a remote, does not approve. Suzanne defends Herbie, with the help of an astute journalist and a police officer who has access to documents that she wouldn't otherwise. The book ends with a recognition of David’s humanity due to the ultimate confusion in the courtroom. It also ends with the death of Suzanne’s bio-body, and in turn, her ultimate death. |
Bad Faith | null | 2,008 | The book begins with the death of Cass’s grandmother, whom she calls Bunty. Seemingly simple, the story starts to show the attitudes of the people around her, and is an introduction to the characters themselves. At the beginning of chapter one, the family is back in their home, going about their normal routine, when Cass mentions to her brother that Bishop Todd, Bishop of the One Church, is missing. Griffin, or Griff, being a seventeen year old cynic, shrugs it off, ignoring his little sister and continuing to play black market video games. Later, when they go to deal with their family, Griff creates a spark. The family argues and the father admits to more than he wants known publicly, leading to everyone going about their own ways. Cassandra decides to meet up with her boyfriend, Ming, despite the fact that she has homework due, but first overhears a revealing conversation between her parents. Things start to fall into place in her mind at that point. She hurries off to meet her boyfriend, and they discover a body. Neither wishes to be involved, so they do not report it. They hide the body in a cave, where they hope it will not be found. Ming makes a reference to Orpheus and Eurydice, begging her not to look back, but she does. The story continues with Cassandra's father leading a church service, also making a reference to Orpheus and Eurydice. Cass asks for an explanation. She and her family then end up back at their home, with Ming appearing shortly. After seeing a press conference with Ma Baxter, they are all disgusted, but manage to go eat. The children end up parting ways after a run-in with an unpleasant acquaintance. Cassandra is mad at Ming because he has been using her as a pawn, as she describes it, in his little twisted games with Jeremiah. Cass ends up in the vestry searching around for things, where her brother finds her not long after she arrived. They then find their Aunt Abby, who has it in for Cass and is determined to give her a lesson in love. |
Marooned on Mars | Lester del Rey | null | Chuck Svenson, a seventeen year old living on the Moon, is chosen to be one of six crewmembers of the first spaceship to travel to Mars. His juvenile status keeps him from being allowed to take the position, once his age is discovered. He boards as a stowaway, and is accepted by the other crew upon discovery. The Mars landing is a disaster, damaging the ship. While attempting to repair the ship, the crew encounter aliens, who abduct Chuck without harming him. The crew learns that the aliens are friendly, and want the crew to be able to return to the Moon. |
Yellow Tapers for Paris | Bruce Marshall | 1,943 | The crushing 1940 defeat of France (an event the author lived through) is the subject of this novel. Marshall implies that France lost its soul and was itself more responsible for its defeat than Germany. We meet Bigou, the protagonist, in 1934. He is an honest, hard-working, but irreligious and immoral accountant, employed by a successful industrial firm in Paris. He is mildly troubled that his firm expends considerable effort conniving to avoid paying its legitimate taxes. Conversations with accountants and employees of other companies lead Bigou to realize that most of the business enterprises of the time in France are behaving similarly, The novel gives us a picture of Bigou’s life. The reader is introduced to his family, sulky, plucky daughter Odette and sickly wife Marie, friends, his coworkers and other people he meets in his business life. The author endeavors to show that money and pleasure were the main goals sought with any sincerity. Even religion, when it did exist, wasn’t much more than an outward display. Bigou does come to believe that the local priest is one of the few people he knows who exhibits integrity. The “petit bourgeois” in the novel are shabby and bewildered as they assist helplessly at their nation’s funeral, but they stand in brilliant contrast to the insatiable greed and craftiness of the wealthy. Marshall clearly believes that France lost its virtue, especially among its elites. He even implies that the leaders of the Church were more interested in status and materialism than spirituality. The novel indicates that the common people, deprived of the just rewards of their labor, and without worthy spiritual direction, became trapped in immorality, and were spiritually and physically impoverished. |
Sea Dragon Heir | Storm Constantine | 2,001 | It starts of with Pharinet describing her life as a young girl, playing in the gardens with her best friends Ellony and Khaster, and thinking about her brother's future. Valraven and Pharinet engage in twincest leaving Pharinet pregnant with her brother's child. Valraven attends a military academy where he meets a brash and sexually extrovert young man. Pharinet visits a soothsayer who predicts the miscarriage of her child. The prediction is realised a few days after she leaves. Valraven returns with his lover who takes an interest in Pharinet culminating in them having sex. He empties his seed into her saying the immortal lines: "Now I have been in both of you." Ellony is possessed by the Sea Dragon's singing, so allured by the melody that she runs into the sea and drowns. |
The Howling III: Echoes | Gary Brandner | null | A year after the Californian mountain village of Drago was destroyed by fire, sinister murders begin to occur in the neighboring town of Pinyon. A teenage boy named Malcolm is found living in the woods, and is one of the survivors of the Drago fire. Also surviving the fire is Derak, the former leader of the Drago community and a werewolf, responsible for the recent deaths. Derak wants to bring Malcolm back to his people, the other survivors of Drago, so that he can learn about his true heritage; Malcolm is also a werewolf. Malcolm is hospitalized and placed under the care of resident psychiatric specialist Dr Holly Lang, who becomes Malcolm's friend. However, an ambitious and unscrupulous doctor, Wayne Pastory, abducts Malcolm so that he can experiment on him and learn more about werewolves. At a secret clinic, Malcolm is tortured as Pastory conducts cruel experiments on him, but as he is so young, Malcolm is only partially able to transform into a werewolf. Holly discovers the whereabouts of the clinic and tries to rescue Malcolm but she is attacked by Pastory's henchman. Just as he is about to rape her, Derak - in werewolf form - bursts in and kills the henchman. Malcolm is freed by Holly, who is subsequently rescued herself by the Pinyon sheriff, Gavin Ramsay. However, Malcolm runs away before they (or Derak) can take him back to Pinyon. Over the course of the next year, Malcolm lives as a drifter, wandering throughout California. He eventually meets a man named Bateman Styles who works for a travelling carnival. Seeing that Malcolm has certain abilities (he continues to partially transform into a werewolf), Styles offers him a job working in the carnival freak show as "Grolo - The Animal Boy". Malcolm, without money or a place to live, accepts and the show becomes a minor success. However, publicity leads to Malcolm's picture being published in the press, which is seen by Holly and she travels to see him. She offers Malcolm the choice of returning to Pinyon with her, which Malcolm accepts. However, the publicity has also attracted the attention of Dr Wayne Pastory, who has been dismissed from the Pinyon Hospital over his dubious activities, but is still keen to resume his experiments. He travels to the carnival and tries to make a deal with Styles, who refuses. Pastory tries to strangle Styles, who then has a heart attack and dies. Malcolm, who is hiding nearby, transforms partially into a werewolf and kills Pastory. However, he is surprised to find that Derak has also tracked him down and still wants him to join their people. In order to persuade him, Derak has kidnapped Holly. This prompts Sheriff Ramsay from Pinyon to travel to the carnival to find her. He learns from a female Drago survivor named Lupe that Derak is holding Holly hostage in the mountains until Malcolm joins them. Ramsay makes Lupe take him to where they are hiding, though she begins to transform into a werewolf on the way and Ramsay shoots her with a silver bullet. In the mountain lair, Malcolm arrives and fights with Derak (who reveals himself to be Malcolm's father) for Holly. The two change into werewolves, but end up killing each other just as Ramsay arrives and rescues Holly and the other members of Derak's group from Drago head off into the forest, now without their leader. |
The Troubled Man | Henning Mankell | 2,009 | A highly-decorated Swedish naval officer, Håkan von Enke, disappears during his daily walk. For Kurt Wallander this becomes a very personal case as Von Enke is Linda Wallander's father-in-law. The clues lead back in time to the Cold War and hired killers from Eastern Europe. Inspector Wallander suspects he has traced a big secret. This could be the worst spy scandal in Swedish history. At the same time, evidence suggests that Wallander is losing his memory. |
Thomas the Rhymer | Ellen Kushner | 1,990 | Thomas, a harper from court, befriends a humble farmer and his wife. As he begins a relationship with Elspeth, their neighbor, he is whisked to Elfland, ensnared by the Fairy Queen. After seven years he returns to Gavin and Elspeth with a parting gift from the Queen: He can only speak the truth. |
The Last Dickens | Matthew Pearl | 2,009 | The novel is set in the US, England, and India in 1867 and 1870. When news of Charles Dickens’s untimely death reaches the office of his struggling American publisher, Fields & Osgood, partner James R. Osgood sends his trusted clerk Daniel Sand to await Dickens’s unfinished last novel – The Mystery of Edwin Drood. But when Daniel’s body is discovered by the docks and the manuscript is nowhere to be found, Osgood must embark on a transatlantic quest to unearth the novel that will save his venerable business and reveal Daniel’s killer. Danger and intrigue abound on the journey, for which Osgood has chosen Rebecca Sand, Daniel’s older sister, to help clear her brother’s name and achieve their singular mission. As they attempt to uncover Dickens’s final mystery, Osgood and Rebecca find themselves racing the clock through a dangerous web of literary lions and drug dealers, sadistic thugs and blue bloods, and competing members of the inner circle. They soon realize that understanding Dickens’s lost ending is a matter of life and death, and the hidden key to stopping a murderous mastermind. The novel also includes interspersed sections about Charles Dickens's 1867 reading tour of the United States and Francis Dickens's role as a mounted policeman in Bengal, India. Critics Say: "Rollicking entertainment." —Washington Post "Well-executed and tightly controlled." —Los Angeles Times "A plot packed full of incident, coincidences, devious twists and dramatic set pieces ensures excitement." —Daily Mail (London) |
The Lost Fleet: Relentless | John G. Hemry | 2,009 | The plot of Relentless picks up in Dilawa. Jack Geary, commander of the fleet, after much deliberation, mostly due to struggling with potential losses regardless of his decision, sets the fleet on a course to Heradao, a system that is holding many Alliance POW's. After a fleet engagement and a lengthy land battle, during which the Syndicate system planets all rebel and plunge into a civil war, Geary manages to free many of the prisoners, despite suicidal attack attempts, including nuclear strikes against the camp. After recovering the prisoners and available supplies, Geary sets course for Padronis, only after learning of a massive "reserve flotilla" fleet of Syndicate ships that the Syndicate had held in reserve to fight off the still unseen alien race. Shortly after arriving at Padronis, another sabotage attempt is made, this time claiming heavy cruiser Lorica and nearly battle cruiser Dauntless herself. After receiving vital information from Commander Gaes, Geary unmasks the traitor during a fleet conference, as well as the identity of a second participant, and despite attempts by Captain Kila to silence her collaborators, Geary manages to capture several of the main saboteurs, though the leading dissenter, Captain Kila, herself manages to commit suicide rather than face a trial of her peers. Arriving at the Atalia star system, Geary comes across the aftermath of a fleet action between the reserve flotilla and a fleet of Alliance warships. Continuing to be true to his word, Geary accepts the pseudo-defection of a Syndicate commander, who informs him that the hypernet gate at Kalixa, the system where her ship had initially been stationed, spontaneously exploded, utterly destroying all human life in the system, though the Syndicate officer believes the Alliance to be responsible for purposefully using the gate as a weapon of mass destruction. Finally jumping to Varandal, Geary leads a successful attack against the Syndicate fleet, managing to prevent them from making a retaliatory strike using the Alliance hypernet gate. This is the moment he unites with his grandniece Jane Geary, captain of Dreadnaught. Dreadnaught plays an important part in holding of the Syndic attack on the hypernet gate. After the Syndicate fleet flees, Geary puts his fleet, at this point nearly completely out of munitions, fuel, and overloaded with rescued POWs, in for refitting and repair. |
The Seventh Secret | null | null | British historian Harrison Ashcroft is told by an informant of information which "proves" Hitler survived the end of World War II, rather than (the popular version) committing suicide. When he journeys to West Berlin to investigate, he is killed by a heavy Mercedes lorry and his murder is made to resemble an accident—and described as such by West Berlin's police chief Wolfgang Schmidt. Ashcroft's death draws the following people to Berlin to investigate: * Ashcroft's daughter Emily. She worked with her father on a biography of Hitler. * California architect Rex Foster * Mossad agent Tovah Levine, for whom "the very mention of Hitler or Nazis, is grist to the mill" * Mr. Kirvov, collector of Hitler's Art. Emily is working to finish her biography of Hitler that she started with her father. She visits one of Hitler's dentists and he shows her two things, a dental chart and a drawing of a necklace. He says that Hitler always wore a necklace with a picture of Fredrick the Great for good luck, yet the Russians had never found it. He also told Emily that he had put another dental crown on his teeth during the last days of the war, yet the Russians never found that either. This prompts Emily to dig at the bunker where Hitler supposedly lived his last days. While she ventures on this quest to find the truth to Hitler's story she meets Levine and Foster. Emily has an instant connection with Foster and unwillingly tells him information that she was supposed to keeps as a secret. After Foster saves her life from a murderous intruder and admits his love for her; she ends up spending the night with him while drunk with scotch. Emily along with Kirvov, Foster and Levine all used their combined power which leads them the unbelievable truth. Kirvov finds out about the painting that he has that is supposed to be an authentic painting by Hitler that the real Adolf Hitler might still be alive. The painting that depicted a Nazi building showed the image of a renovated building that had an additional element that was constructed in 1952. How could this painting which is supposed to be an authentic Hitler painting still have the designs of the building that were added in 1952 which was 7 years after his supposed death? Levine helps the four of them by discovering that Hitler and Eva Braun(his wife) had legitimate duplicates who normally attended functions in their place and who resembled Hitler very closely. Could the Hitler and Eva doubles have been the one who died in the bunker instead of the actual two people? Foster helped the group significantly and he discovered through a former Nazi bunker architect that Hitler had seven bunkers even though only six were known to other people. Foster discovers that the seventh Bunker is right next to the bunker that Hitler supposedly died in and he goes and investigates to find a secret passage that leads from the Hitler and Eva's personal bedroom to a seventh bunker in a hidden passage route which was previously build by Jewish slaves (who were later killed to silence by Hitler himself). As Foster goes through this passage he find out that it certainly leads to another unknown bunker where he find that his love, Emily Ashcroft, is hidden after her sudden disappearance in the Cafe Wolf(this bunker happens to be right beneath this cafe which Eva Braun first used as her photo studio and later turned into a cafe to not attract too much attention. He also finds that Eva Braun is still alive and sleeping is the adjacent room! He let Emily escape and he later drugged Eva(who went by the name Evelyn Hoffman to not attract too much attention)with the truth drug which made her spit out the facts! Braun admits that she and Hitler used their doubles when they claimed their death and were alive and living in this bunker the entire time which completely escaped the eyes of the Soviets when they raided the bunker. She claimed that the real Hitler died on the same day as JFK did and ever since that, she has been at the head of the Nazis. She said that over fifty Nazis were in the secret bunker at the moment and that they would rise once more when Nazis were strong enough and when the Americans and Soviets destroyed each other with their missiles! Eva Braun also revealed one of the most ghastly secrets which was that she and Hitler had a child before he died! The daughter that they had was kept a secret from the rest of the world. Hitler did not want his daughter to rot in the bunker so he arranged for their previous maid to take care of the daughter as her own in exchange of a great bribe. The daughter's name is Klara Feigbig who is already married and pregnant with Hitler's grandchild but she has no idea about her actual parentage and she lives a peaceful life. Eva also revealed that the police chief, Wolfgang Scmitct, who the whole town trusted as an anti-Nazi was actually one of Hitler secret SS guards and was to take over as leader when the new Nazi Germany was established once again! |
The Cardinal Sins | null | null | Lifelong friends and occasional rivals, Kevin Brennan and Patrick Donahue enter seminary together, but their lives soon diverge dramatically. Brennan achieves success as a scholar but often finds himself at odds with his superiors in the Church. By contrast, the ambitious Donahue rises steadily through the Church hierarchy, only to fall prey to the temptations of lust and power. |
Papa Sartre | null | null | The novel opens with two charlatans commissioning a biographical novel. A starving academic is hired to write the life story of an Existential philosopher who died in the late 1960s and was acclaimed as the (Sartre of Baghdad). Father Hanna and his sexy consort, Nunu Bihar, are pragmatic and clear from the very beginning: philosophy is a business and the narrator’s assignment is to create a larger than life Iraqi equivalent of the original Jean Paul Sartre. The would-be narrator is introduced to a third party; the project’s funding supreme, Sadeq Zadeh, whose remit is to approve the version of the philosopher’s death. He is then handed dossiers of documents, photographs, diaries, letters and assigned a dubious research assistant, who looks more like a pickpocket, to accompany him on interviews with the remaining few friends of the late philosopher. The charlatans demonstrate an amorality that fascinates the narrator, with their wide latitude for unconstrained heckling, irreverence and recklessness along with factual discrepancies. Not to mention the scandalously seductive nature of Nunu Bihar’s overt sexuality. A biography can, then, depicts a life with all its flaws, weaknesses and baseness, thinks the narrator. This proves difficult for him at first with collective memory being subject to strict cultural variables. He finds there were those who admired all the dead: servants overlooked and forgave mistakes, hesitated at admitting domestic scandals, attributing superhuman qualities in hagiographic proportions to those no longer living. The philosopher’s friends, on the other hand, told another story, accurate but equally flawed. They decked him out like a Christmas tree. Glossing over a sense of shame, they assigned to themselves important roles, their talk of the 1960s sounded like an elegy for a lost Paradise that had expelled its most prominent philosopher with no recognition. A solipsistic gaze constructed the only life worth living. Existentialist of Al-sadriyah Documents prove similarly discouraging for the narrator: "All spoke a single character, a unique and towering figure, one that summarized for an entire society a tragic world and symbolized for an entire notion tragic anomie" Overriding these methodological obstacles, the narrator eventually succeeds in producing a candid account of the life of Abdel Rahman Sartre’s, the Existentialist of al-Sadriyah. One day, as on many other days, the Sartre of Baghdad woke up feeling nauseous. He picked up a gilt-framed photograph of Sartre and admired the physical resemblance between them. But adoration turned to feelings of inadequacy. He glanced at the philosopher’s bad eye. "Abdel Rahman had immense faith in the philosophical bad eye, he understood its value and greatness while appreciating how difficult a condition it was attain. It was the defect of the impossible, a metaphysical defect like that of god. He experienced despair…as if something was missing in his existence…(a shortcoming) remained a heavy load on his heart, a cruel destructive feeling that he felt when he was in Paris. The reality of Abdul Rahman Sartre student days in Paris was dismal. His linguistic proficiency was such that he was unable to approach, let alone conducts a conversation with, the giant of existentialism. Incapable of learning French, he never completed his degree, his rapturous audience back in Baghdad would lovingly support Abdul Rahman , "was Sartre a philosopher because of his degree or because of his philosophy?" True. He assumed the role of witness, the man who had seen Sartre and had arrived from Paris to tell them all about him. Unable to write in either French or Arabic and incapable of concentrating for long hours or of thinking with any systematic logic, he owned the complete works of Sartre from which he would read a few lines and swoon into day-dreaming. Our philosopher despised writing as an act of estrangement ; it resembled masturbation in that it was an act of identification with words –images of nothingness-and not with nothingness itself. Speech, on the other hand represented the moment, the emotion-it was as cathartic as it was euphoric. Oral discourse was integral to the culture of the coffee house of the early 1960s in Baghdad . Most of the intellectuals of his generation pontificated endlessly over dominoes in the morning and regrouped in the local bars at night. Their knowledge of philosophy was limited to books titles and short summaries found in newspapers and literary magazines. Existentialism legitimized a way of life. "There was no reality, no reality to be understood". Abdel Rahman Sartre’s identity was locked into that world. His aristocratic background shielded his self-image; he never saw the need to work for a living, always believing that he was a speaker not a writer, a philosopher not charlatan. One of the outstanding characters in Papa Sartre is Ismael Hadoub, he first appears selling pornographic photographs in Baghdad in the mid-1950s, his most enthusiastic customer being a rich Jewish merchant, Saul, who owns a store in al Sadriyah and bargains tirelessly over prices. Saul takes on Ismail and transforms him into an obedient and grateful acolyte. |
The Scarecrow | Michael Connelly | 2,009 | The story begins with Jack McEvoy's termination by the Los Angeles Times due to the newspaper's financial crisis. He is given two weeks to train his replacement, Angela Cook, on the "cop beat" and decides that he wants to write one more major story before his last day. Jack focuses on the case of 16-year-old drug dealer Alonzo Winslow, who confessed that he brutally raped one of his clients, then stuffed her body in the trunk with a plastic bag over her head, tied shut with a length of rope around her neck. Angela, a beautiful and ambitious young reporter, maneuvers to get herself a part of the story. However, after Jack is given access to the defense files, he learns that Alonzo only confessed to stealing the car containing the body, not to the rape-murder. In researching trunk murders on the Internet, Angela unwittingly finds evidence of a similar crime in Las Vegas. However, Angela's research also took her to a "trap" site set up by the real murderer: Wesley Carver, an MIT graduate who is the chief security officer of a "server farm" (colocation and backup services) near Phoenix, referred to by everyone as the "scarecrow" of the farm. Carver cracks her e-mail password at the Times and learns that Jack is headed to Vegas. He promptly creates a fake data emergency so that his company will send him to L.A. The next day, Jack finds that none of his credit cards nor his cell phone work, so he buys a throwaway phone. He shows the evidence of the identical L.A. murder to the attorney for the convicted Vegas murderer, who gives Jack a letter permitting him to meet his client, imprisoned in a remote location in Nevada. During the lengthy drive on the "loneliest road in America", Jack calls FBI agent Rachel Walling, his former girlfriend to whom he hasn't spoken in years, to report the "under the radar" serial killer and also tells her about his bad luck that day. When he arrives at the prison, he is told that he cannot see the prisoner until the next day and books a room in a local hotel. A cowboy with long sideburns plays slots next to him. When Jack heads to his room, he sees "Sideburns" coming directly toward him in the hallway as his door opens ... to find Rachel inside his room. "Sideburns" passes by. Rachel had taken a private FBI plane to the prison after she concluded that Jack's discoveries and his electronic problems were linked but that she had no way to warn him. Rachel and Jack learn that "Sideburns" was not staying at the hotel and surmise that he must be the killer. When calling the Times, Jack learns that Angela has disappeared. Rachel and Jack promptly take the FBI jet back to L.A., during which Rachel examines the evidence and notes that the murdered women were both exotic dancers with similar body types ("giraffes"), and that both were put in leg braces ("iron maidens") while being sexually abused before death, a perversion known as abasiophilia. On arrival, Rachel admits that her recent relationship with a police detective ended in part because she still had feelings for Jack, but they then find Angela's dead body under Jack's bed, killed in the same style as the other victims. Because of Rachel's testimony, Jack is cleared of Angela's murder, and the evidence causes both Alonzo and the Vegas convict to be freed. The FBI links the trap site to Bill Denslow, a fake name used by an online client of Carver's server farm. Jack is a featured guest on CNN to discuss the case, but Rachel is summoned to a disciplinary hearing and forced to resign from the FBI under threat of a theft prosecution for "stealing" the gasoline in the FBI plane during the round trip to Nevada. Carver has his assistant, whom he gave the pseudonym "Freddie Stone", help him murder and bury the server farm's CEO and then quit. Jack deduces that the serial killer knew non-public legal information about his victims and finds that all of them were represented by law firms whose sites were handled through Carver's server farm, just like the trap site. He persuades Rachel to join him there, where they pose as potential clients and talk to Carver, who doesn't reveal that he knows their real identities. Following a trail laid by Carver, they find Stone's house, identify him as "Sideburns", and uncover evidence concerning the killings. They call in the FBI, and Rachel is able to use her role in finding the killer to regain her job. Jack agrees to return to L.A. and goes to Rachel's hotel room to say goodbye—but finds that she has just been kidnapped by Stone. He intercepts Stone, rescues an unconscious Rachel from a laundry bin, and then chases and kills Stone in a battle on the top floor. Rachel tells Jack that the FBI believes there were two killers: Stone and Angela's murderer. With Carver's help, Rachel and the FBI team find evidence that Stone and the missing CEO committed all of the murders. Jack's high profile causes the Times to rescind his termination, even though Jack's role as a participant means that he cannot write the story of the Arizona events. Jack turns it down and accepts a two-book deal to write about this case. However, Jack then sees a picture from The Wizard of Oz in his editor's office and realizes that the method used to suffocate the victims looks like the classic head of a scarecrow, except using a plastic bag instead of a burlap sack. He immediately heads to Arizona to warn a disbelieving Rachel, including the links to the real Fred Stone and Bill Denslow, but unfortunately meets her in a coffee shop near the server farm with a full-time Webcam in it. Jack deduces that they are being watched by 'The Scarecrow' over the webcam. Carver watches their discussion, then ambushes the other FBI agents. Carver's plan to kill the agents and fake his own death is foiled when Jack figures it out, and Rachel shoots Carver in the head when he tries to ambush them, leaving Carver in a seemingly permanent comatose state. In a brief epilogue, Jack's research has revealed that Carver's mother was an exotic dancer similar in appearance to the victims who needed to wear leg braces when not performing. The story closes with Carver in medical lockdown, deep in a coma, alone with his thoughts. |
Zoeken naar Eileen W | Leon de Winter | 1,995 | A young man has just lost his young girlfriend, and becomes depressed. But then he meets a woman which resembles his late girlfriend a lot. Their meeting is brief, but the main character knows enough to know that he only wants her from that moment on. The only thing he knows of her, is that she speaks English, that she is from Northern Ireland and that she is called Eileen. |
Hasamba | null | null | A group of girls and boys set up a secret society called "Hasamba"; their adventures take place, first during the British Mandate and the struggle for statehood of Israel, and then as they battle their country's enemies: infiltrators, spies, criminals and other offenders. The group has taken active part in the wars of Israel during the period the series has been written (until 1994). Though suspenseful, the writing is entertaining, with humor, as well as with related science, history, and trivia information, provided by knowledgeable participating characters. It emphasizes kindness, good behavior, loyalty, friendship, dedication, courage, and love to Israel. Yaron Zahavi (the handsome guy) and his deputy, Tamar (the pretty girl), are the first leaders of Hasamba. In later books (where they are supposed to be much older) they are replaced by the younger Yoav Tzur and his deputy, Rachel. The other heroes are replaced as well. Years later Yaron and Tamar get married, and their son Uri joins Hasamba in book number 25. In the books they face dangerous and smart enemies. They fight them, occasionally become captives, but outsmart the enemies and get free, sometimes with help of allies, and finally win. But not always a happy end: Two of the first-generation heroes, Eliahu Hermon and Refael Kaduri die, sacrificing their lives for important causes. Their secret meeting place is a real location in Tel Aviv, known as "The Electric Cave", which upon returning from a long stay abroad, the author discovered to be destroyed for the sake of building the Tel Aviv Hilton Hotel. High-tech inventions, sometimes preceding the technology available when written about, plays role in the stories. This includes the Electric cave, an intelligent robot, "Zagloba," that helps the group in some adventures, a laser rifle, and more (Yigal Mossinson himself was the inventor of patents). |
Young Pioneers | Rose Wilder Lane | 1,932 | Newlyweds Molly and David are only sixteen and eighteen years old when they pack up their wagon and head west across the plains in search of a new homestead. At first their new life is full of promise: The wheat is high, the dugout is warm and cozy, and a new baby is born to share in their happiness. Then disaster strikes, and David must go east for the winter to find work. Molly is left alone with the baby — with nothing but her own courage to face the dangers of the harsh prairie winter. Under Lane's original title Let the Hurricane Roar, the two characters are named "Charles" and "Caroline" which were the actual names of Lane's maternal grandparents - they were changed to "Molly" and "David" for the re-issue of the book as Young Pioneers. |
Flowers in the Mirror | Li Ju-chen | null | Flowers in the Mirror is set in the reign of the Empress Wu Zetian (Wu Tse-tien) who reigned from 684 to 705 in the Tang Dynasty. She took the throne from her own son, Emperor Zhongzong of Tang (Emperor Chung-tsung of Tang). Empress Wu lets the power she is given go to her head, and demands that all of the flowers on the earth be in bloom by the next morning. The flower-spirits fear her and follow her orders, but are then punished by the gods for doing so. Their punishment is to live on earth. Once their penance is complete, they will be allowed to go back to heaven again. Tang Ao is the father of the incarnation of the Fairy of a Hundred Flowers. The Empress suspects him of having had a part in plotting rebellion against her and so she takes away his high scholarly rank and leaves him with the lowest rank that one can obtain. Tang Ao responds to this by freeing himself from the coil of the mortal strife which binds the soul to the body and resolves to become an immortal by cultivating Tao. Then Tang Ao is told by a dream spirit that his destiny lies in foreign parts and so he decides to go overseas by junk, with his brother-in-law, Merchant Lin. Tang Ao finds twelve of the incarnated flower-spirits during his journey, and helps them all with the difficulties that they are having. Doing so enables him to become an immortal, and at the fair mountain of Little Penglai he disappears. During his journey, Tang Ao travels to the Country of Gentlemen, the Country of Women, the Country of Intestineless People, the Country of Sexless People, and the Country of Two-faced People, as well as many other countries. In the second half of the book Tang Ao’s daughter goes to Little Penglai to look for him after his disappearance. Also, the incarnated flower-spirits take part in the "Imperial Examinations for Women", and along with their husbands and brothers they rise up and overthrow Empress Wu’s rule, so restoring Emperor Tang Chung-tsung to the throne. |
Engaging the Muslim World | Juan Cole | 2,009 | Cole makes five central points. First, he states that Al-Qaeda is better thought of as a small cult rather than a true mass movement like fascism or communism in the early 20th century. Second, he states that the Muslim world contains large sections of people who can be potential allies to the U.S. Third, he states that American energy independence cannot really happen. Fourth, he states that Iran is not an implacable enemy of the U.S. and should be engaged with. Fifth, he states that coalition forces in Iraq should undergo a careful, deliberate military disengagement rather than an immediate withdrawal or an extended military presence. Cole makes an analogy between Islamists and what he sees as similar American groups. He views Salafi jihadists as fundamentalist vigilantes similar to Timothy McVeigh while Wahabis can been seen similar to the Amish. Cole argues that a distinction should be made between al-Qaeda and non-violent, compromising political Islamists such as the Muslim Brotherhood the same way far right militas in the U.S. are distinguished from the center-right Republican Party. |
Deadtime Stories | null | null | Deadtime Stories is a children's horror fiction series, following the same genre of writing as Goosebumps. The subjects of the series vary from hauntings to monsters and other weird happenings which are encountered by normal kids who are directly or indirectly involved in them. |
Envy: A Luxe Novel | Anna Godbersen | 2,009 | Henry Schoonmaker, the handsome son of a wealthy tycoon, is now married to Penelope Hayes, due to her scheming. Henry refuses to even sleep in the same room as his new wife, as he remains infatuated with Diana Holland. Diana Holland is heartbroken about the marriage, but she acts to appear genuine and gay at the many balls and parties she is obligated to attend to, in order to preserve her family's reputation. She continues to avoid any confrontations with Henry. Her sister, Elizabeth Holland, grieves over the loss of her true love, while growing weaker and more fragile every day. Carolina Broad, a maid turned socialite, is content befriending a wealthy elderly gentleman, Mr.Carey Lewis Longhorn, who continues to provide for her financially. The characters' paths once again intertwine when Henry plans a fishing trip to Florida with his good friend, Teddy Cutting. However, Penelope invites herself along, and offers Carolina Broad the invitation, as well. At a luncheon hosted by the Hollands, Penelope extends the invitation once more to her once good friend, Elizabeth Holland. Meanwhile, Henry confronts Diana on the Holland porch, and explains his piteous situation with Penelope. He then asks her to find a way to secretly meet him in Florida, where they may possibly be together. When Diana returns to the luncheon, Elizabeth presses Penelope to allow her sister to join them, as well. The group of socialites, along with Penelope's older brother, Grayson Hayes, and another member of New York's ellite, Leland Bouchard, travel south to Florida, where they vacation on the beach. Before they arrive, Penelope pulls her brother aside and asks him to play a bit with the younger Holland's heart strings. She then claims the reason for the trouble is mere amusement, but her hidden intentions become clear when she suspects Henry and Diana have planned the trip for their own romantic affairs. However, Penelope's scheme backfires when her brother begins to legitimately fall in love with Diana. Meanwhile, Elizabeth and Teddy rekindle their lost friendship, and Teddy proposes for the third time to Elizabeth. However, when Elizabeth begins to feel a certain attraction to her friend, she is overwhelmed with guilt, due to her past love. Romance blooms further after Carolina discovers she has grown a bit too fond of Leland. Still, it seems Leland has taken a liking to her, as well. At the peak of their romantic expedition, Carolina receives news that Mr. Longhorn has passed on. She then returns to New York to attend his funeral, where she makes the miraculous discovery that he has left all of his estates and wealth to her. She shares this joyous reason with her good friend and part-time lover, Tristan Wrigley. Back in Florida, Henry and Penelope continue to bicker and Penelope threatens Diana's reputation several times when the papers report of Penelope's marital insecurities. Nevertheless, Henry and Diana continue to meet secretly, and express their undying love to each other. Diana, however, feels as if Henry has seduced her into becoming his mistress, and before she has a chance to fully dismiss him, he quickly promises to leave Penelope. Later, Teddy informs Henry that he plans on joining the army and will be shipped to the Philippines. A more worldly Henry then joins Grayson in the bar, where his brother-in-law expresses his love for Diana. Henry feels a ridiculous amount of pride for having claimed her heart, and returns to his hotel room in a drunken state to find Penelope bawling on the balcony. After making a futile attempt at comforting her, Penelope decides that she wants more, and Henry easily gives in to her seduction and they have sex. Diana sees the enviable couple half-naked on their balcony, and assumes that Henry has deceived her. Heartbroken, Diana runs off into the early morning. Later, Henry tells Penelope that their love making was a mistake and he that never should have committed the act. He goes after Diana, who then confronts him, claiming that she no longer loves him. Henry is distraught. After returning to New York, Penelope informs the guests at a Schoonmaker dinner party that she and Henry are expecting a child. Hearing this, a dejected Diana invites Grayson along for a walk through the mansion, where he professes his sincere love to her. He allows her to seduce him and they make love, accidentally witnessed by a horrified Henry. Meanwhile, Elizabeth discovers that she is pregnant with Will's child. When her mother demands she get an abortion, Elizabeth refuses, and plans to proceed with the pregnancy. Snowden, Mr. Holland's former business partner, is told of this and he proposes to her. Elizabeth accepts in order to avoid any scandal. Later, Henry enlists in the army. He notifies a brutally shocked Penelope of this, and accuses her of her false pregnancy. He then sends Diana a long letter, professing his love to her and his apologies. In response, a determined Diana cuts her hair to pass as a man, and runs away to join the army in search of her love. |
Unbowed: A Memoir | Wangari Maathai | 2,006 | Maathai discusses her life from childhood until she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. She discusses her childhood, education in the United States and her return to Kenya, moving on to her life as an environmentalist and political activist, culminating with the victory of the opposition in the 2002 elections against the ruling KANU party and her election to parliament, followed shortly after by the Nobel Prize. Maathai stresses the connection between environmental conservation and good governance. |
Tales of the Dervishes | Idries Shah | 1,967 | Tales of the Dervishes is a collection of stories, parables, legends and fables gathered from classical Sufi texts and oral sources spanning a period from the 7th to the 20th centuries. It introduced a 'genre' – the teaching story – to a contemporary readership familiar with the entertainment or moralistic values of such tales but unfamiliar with certain instrumental functions claimed for them. An author's postscript to each story offers a brief account of its provenance, use and place in Sufi tradition. |
Thinkers of the East – Studies in Experientialism | Idries Shah | 1,971 | Thinkers of the East consists of a series of anecdotes and brief recorded conversations between thinkers and questioners, mingled with occasional extracts, stories and legends (including "The Legend of Nasrudin"). The preface asserts that the book’s contents are "arranged in a manner commanded by the tradition and not by superficialist obsessional arranging." As the book's subtitle Studies in Experientialism suggests, these illustrate Sufi thinking in action, rather than in theory. On the principle that it is for the reader to dwell, not the author, the narratives are related with a deliberate economy: enough detail to provoke thought, but too little to flood it. |
Eighth Grade Bites | Heather Brewer | null | Life is not easy for any thirteen-year-old, but when your mother was a human and your father was a vampire, and they were both killed in a fire, it's especially hard. The school bullies harass Vlad, the principal seems to have it in for him, and his dream girl, Meredith, seems to prefer his friend, Henry. Vlad's mother's long-time friend, Nelly, is raising him, and she understands his problems and helps him to hide the fact that he is a vampire and must have blood to survive. Vlad's best friend, Henry is the only other person who knows his secret, and Vlad bit Henry once when they were eight years old, making Henry his drudge (someone who is forced to the will of a vampire). Vladimir has real rapport with one teacher, but that teacher has disappeared and no one knows where he is. Vlad and Henry are determined to find out what happened to him. But the substitute teacher begins to question Vlad too closely ... and there is just something strange about Mr. Otis. Vlad worries that Otis might suspect the truth. Then when Otis assigns Vampires as Vlad's research project, and the teacher scribbles "I know your secret" across the bottom of his essay, he is really frightened. Vlad discovers his father's journal and is learning about the reality of being a vampire and the powers that he may possess. He also becomes convinced that there is a Vampire slayer in town, and that he is searching for Vlad. Things go from bad to worse when Nelly invites Otis to dinner and he confronts Vlad with what he knows. |
The Four Seasons of Mary Azarian | Lilias MacBean Hart | null | The Four Seasons of Mary Azarian has carvings of all four seasons, depicting activities and sights which may occur in each of them. For each season, there are short stories of inspiration by seasonal changes, or of stories that Mary has experienced in those seasons. |
Hearts Grown Brutal | Roger Cohen | 1,998 | Cohen follows the story of a man named Sead who had been searching for his lost father. Cohen goes on to describe the lives of three other families, one Muslim-Serb, one Muslim, and one Serb-Croat. He details the history of Yugoslavia from the end of World War I onward and then shows how the Yugoslav Wars affected the daily lives of ordinary people. He states that, in general, "This was a war of intimate betrayals". He blasts leaders such as Slobodan Milosevic, whom he calls "a craven, clever bully", Franjo Tuđman, whom he says played a "macabre dance", and Radovan Karadžić. He writes with outrage against the United States and the United Nations for what he sees as their moral cowardice in the wake of genocide. |
Wanting | Richard Flanagan | 2,008 | Wanting cuts between two stories based on real historical figures under the central theme of 'wanting', and is set in both nineteenth century Tasmania and Britain. One tells the tale of an Aboriginal child, Mathinna, adopted by then governor of Van Diemens Land, Sir John Franklin, and his wife Lady Jane; the other of Charles Dickens love affair with Ellen Ternan after one of his daughters dies., |
Soldiers and Slaves | Roger Cohen | 2,005 | Cohen details how the prisoners, many of whom were accused by their Nazi captors of being Jewish, were mixed in with victims of the Holocaust and sent to a concentration camp in Berga. |
The Exeter Blitz | David Rees | 1,978 | The novel opens in Colin Lockwood's school during a history lesson, the night after an air raid. Colin has fallen asleep, provoking sarcasm from the teacher, Mr Kitchen. At home, Colin irritates his mother and older sister Mary, and so decides to go to see his father, who is working at Exeter Cathedral. At the cathedral Colin notes down an inscription carved by one of his ancestors, for his history homework. As Mr Lockwood has to check on the fire-fighting arrangements, Colin climbs to the top of the south tower for the first time, and is impressed by the extensive view of the city. He accidentally leaves his jacket up there, with his homework in the pocket. When Colin gets home, his mother recruits him to hand out sherry and snacks at the fashion show in Nimrod's that evening. Colin finds he quite enjoys his duties, and he is surprised when Mr Kitchen and his wife join the party. He gets a fit of giggles when he listens to the speaker, Mrs Wimbleball, describing the new collection in glowing terms, and is sent out by his mother. He decides to retrieve his jacket from the cathedral tower, and climbs to the roof. At this point the sirens start, and the planes arrive unusually soon afterwards. Colin sees the bombing start and is thrilled and fascinated until he realizes his danger. During a lull in the bombardment, he runs down the steps to an air raid shelter. On the way he narrowly escapes being hit by machine-gun fire. Mr Lockwood and his younger daughter June are at home where they shelter under the stairs. A bomb falls on the house, destroying half of it. When the all-clear sounds they are able to crawl through the rubble to the street. At Nimrod's, some people are trapped in the lift when the power station is hit. When a bomb hits the shop, Mrs Lockwood is injured, Mrs Wimbleball is paralyzed and the Kitchens are killed outright. Mary and her boyfriend Lars are at the cinema, and leave immediately for the nearest shelter. Mary, a nurse, badly wants to get to the hospital, but Lars makes her wait until the all clear sounds. Later at the hospital, Mary sees her mother brought in unconscious. Colin meets his Cockney schoolmate Terry at the shelter, and although they have been at odds before, the common experience brings them closer. As their fish shop has been destroyed, Colin invites Terry back to his house to sleep, not knowing it has also been bombed. Instead, they camp out in the fields. The next day, it is clear that despite devastating damage to the city centre, the cathedral has been largely spared, raising morale. Colin and Terry decide to use some of the no-longer frozen fish from the shop to provide free food for their neighbours. They cook all day and win praise for their efforts. It is the beginning of a new phase of life for Colin, more independent and adult. The other family members do not fare so well, although they find a new home. Mr Lockwood is overwhelmed at work, Mrs Lockwood recovers, but misses her home, Mary is depressed and haunted by the injuries she has seen, and June mourns for all her beloved books and toys. |
Skeleton Key: The Graphic Novel | Antony Johnston | 2,009 | The plot is based around the book of the same name: "Reluctant teenage superspy Alex Rider is useful to MI6 in ways an adult could never be. Now they need his help once again. But a routine reconnaissance mission at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships sets off a terrifying chain of events for Alex that sees him on the run from a murderous Chinese triad gang. Forced to hide out, Alex is sent to Cayo Esqueleto – Skeleton Key – an island near Cuba. Waiting for him there is General Alexei Sarov – a coldly insane Russian with explosive plans to rewrite history. Alex faces his most dangerous challenge yet. Alone, and equipped only with a handful of gadgets, Alex must outwit Sarov as the seconds tick away towards the end of the world..." |
Transformers: The Veiled Threat | Alan Dean Foster | 2,009 | Present-day, Megatron lies dead, at the bottom of the sea. Cut to the Gulf of Aden where pirates attack a freighter which just so happens to be ferrying Epps, Lennox, Ironhide, Ratchet, and other NEST (Networked Elements: Supporters and Transformers) members to their base on Diego Garcia. Ironhide soon transforms to robot mode and scares the pirates off. Arriving at Diego Garcia, the boys meet up with cybernetics expert Kaminari Ishihara, who has been swimming in the lagoon with the newly arrived Autobot veteran Longarm serving as lifeguard. Everyone enters a briefing where a sighting of Starscream in Zambia is discussed and a plan is hatched with Optimus Prime to confront him. Meanwhile, we find that Agent Simmons is now, with the disbanding of Sector Seven, working in his mother’s deli in New York. He’s also tinkering with Frenzy’s disembodied head in his basement. In Africa, we learn that Starscream is not only in the area, he’s gaining control over local rebel groups by using his internal synthesizers to create gold coins. He is also accompanied by three other Decepticons: Dropkick, Macerator, and Payload. They soon attack a local dam construction site, making short work of the security forces, and proceed to steal mass quantities of explosives. The NEST team soon arrives in Africa with Prime, Ironhide, and Ratchet as well as new arrivals: Salvage and Beachbreak. The Autobots soon engage Dropkick, Macerator, and Payload in battle in the Zambezi River. This is all part of Starscream’s brilliant plan, however, as the Autobots soon discover that the current is pushing them towards Victoria Falls. Everyone but Prime and Macerator gets out in time, as the dueling pair going over the side. Starscream swoops in to save Macerator while Prime dangles helplessly. Eventually the NEST team manages to haul Prime up using Beachbreak’s tow-cable, but the celebration is short lived as Starscream swoops in and knocks the diminutive Beachbreak off the waterfalls and to his death. The Autobots and their human allies soon realize that Starscream may try and destroy a series of dams along the Zambezi and head off after the fleeing Decepticons. At one of the dams, the ground-based Decepticons attack. Payload heads to the valley floor to try to crack the dam with repeated blasts while Dropkick and Macerator fend off the arriving Autobots. After a short scuffle, Prime manages to knock Macerator over the side of the dam before dispatching his dangling foe with his built-in sword. Ratchet takes repeated hits from Payload while trying to melt the fissures in the cracking dam back together. Both Ratchet and the dam are ultimately saved when the humans enter the dam and open the flood gates, knocking Payload downriver. A damaged Dropkick escapes and everyone returns to Diego Garcia. Again, we cut back to Simmons in his basement, experimenting on Frenzy and brooding that that ("punk kid") Sam Witwicky has a "hot girlfriend" and is going to Princeton University. Frenzy suddenly comes to life and tries to subvert the building’s electrical system. And after a little chaos, Simmons decides he needs to move the Decepticon head to a space beneath his mother’s deli. Back at NEST headquarters, two more Decepticon presences are detected and a pair of teams is readied to head out and take care of them. Epps and Russian scientist Petr Andronov accompany Longarm and the impetuous young motorcycle Knockout to Peru to find the Decepticons that have been detected in the deep jungles. On a steep mountain pass, the party is attacked by Decepticons Ruination and Blademaster. Despite inexperienced and risky behavior by Knockout, both are severely damaged and driven off. Simultaneously, Lennox, Ishihara, Prime, Ironhide, and Salvage arrive in the Western Australian Outback and begin searching for Decepticons. Lennox soon realizes that the ‘Cons are attacking sites with energy reserves; oil and coal in Peru; and uranium in Australia. The team decides that there is a second group of Decepticons not under Starscream’s command, harvesting massive amounts of energy in an attempt to revive Megatron. Arriving at a uranium mining site, the NEST team discovers a trio of construction vehicles which, naturally, turn out to be Decepticons. The leader, Kickback, takes Prime on and is quickly run through with the Autobot leader’s sword. The other two, Tread and Trample, are quickly killed through the combined efforts of the rest of the team. Back at Diego Garcia, a small crab-like Decepticon infiltrates the base and hacks into the NEST computers before sneaking back into the sea and rendezvous with an unknown accomplice. Despite the break-in, the NEST team continues their usual business; discussing different ways the Decepticons could draw massive quantities of power to revive Megatron. In Italy, Starscream enters into a deal with an Italian criminal named Bruno Carrera to help destroy Optimus Prime in exchange for dominion over Europe when the Decepticons triumph. A plan is hatched and Swindle and Deadend begin ripping through the streets of Rome causing general chaos and trying to draw the Autobots out. After an extended chase where Knockout proves he has what it takes, and Starscream challenges Prime to single combat inside Rome's Colosseum. Prime and the Autobots enter the ancient structure, and Prime promptly falls through a trap door to a subway tunnel extension and into a strong set of restraints arranged by Carrera. Starscream then proceeds to attack the remaining Autobots while a helpless Prime is confronted by a vengeful Barricade. Before the Decepticon can dispatch Prime, the humans attack Barricade and Prime manages to work himself free. He easily defeats Barricade returns to the surface where Starscream has fled. On his way to whatever scheme he has come up next, Starscream takes the time to visit Carrera at this villa, where he pays him back for his “failure”. Finally, Epps and Lennox are relaxing on the beach back at Diego Garcia when Knockout approached and informs them that something significant is happening, mentioning how he is unfamiliar with the term “shanghaied”. |
The White Rabbit | Bruce Marshall | 1,953 | F. F. E. Yeo-Thomas was the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) agent, "The White Rabbit" of World War II. He was given responsibilities by the British government in Occupied and Vichy France because he had lived in France during the interwar years and was fluent in French. An assignment required Yeo-Thomas to be parachuted into France. Shortly after his arrival he was betrayed and captured by the Gestapo at the Passy metro station in Paris. The Gestapo took him to their headquarters in the Avenue Foch, and he was subjected to brutal torture, including beatings, electrical shocks to the genitals, psychological gameplaying, sleep deprivation, and repeated submersion in ice-cold water — to the point that artificial respiration was sometimes required After the interrogations and torture, he was moved to Fresnes prison. After he made two failed attempts to escape he was transferred first to Compiègne prison and then to Buchenwald concentration camp. Within these various detention camps he attempted to organize resistance. Late in the war, he briefly escaped from Buchenwald and, on his recapture, was able to pass himself off as a French national and sent to Marienburg, Stalag XX-B, a "better" camp, where the Nazis sent enlisted Frenchmen, instead of back to Buchenwald. It is reasonable to conclude that his chances of surviving the remainder of the war at Buchenwald were low. After the war he resumed his life in France. |
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