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Spare Change | Robert B. Parker | 2,007 | The novel begins with the notorious Spare Change serial killer resurfacing after 20 years. Sunny’s father, Phil Randall, worked this case years ago, and enlists Sunny’s help investigating the new string of murders. The killer’s MO is to shoot the person in the head, and leave three coins at the scene of the crime, hence the name Spare Change. Spare Change sent numerous letters to Phil during the original crime spree, but then the killings abruptly stopped, until now. The reemergence of the killer after such a long time causes the Randall’s to suspect a copy-cat killer. After the first killing, Phil Randall decides to detain everyone at the scene of the next killing. They take down all of their information, and later bring them to the station and question them one by one; their hope being that the killer would have hung around the crime scene to watch. The interviews are tedious, but when Bob Johnson walks into the room he immediately becomes a suspect. Everything cries out that he is the killer, from the way he speaks, to the way he calls Sunny’s father Phil, just like in the killer’s correspondence. It doesn’t take long before Sunny is convinced he is the killer. Sunny begins seeing Bob Johnson in hopes of discovering some sort of evidence to allow them to arrest him. Meanwhile, the investigation continues. From a photo of his she tracks down his old college girlfriend. She informs Sunny that she dated Bob in college, had sex with him once, he was bad at it, and then she broke up with him and married someone else. While investigating at Bob’s alma mater, she also discovers that his father was a professor there and had a fatal heart attack in his office. However, despite the official cause of death, the former secretary insists she saw blood when she discovered the body. Sunny follows up by interviewing the police officer at the scene who reluctantly confirms that it was in fact a suicide. The college president had insisted on reporting it as a heart attack to prevent a scandal the school couldn’t afford. Later Sunny breaks into Bob’s apartment and while searching his address book, finds the name Chico Zarilla. This name leads them to an apartment and the first thing they see in the apartment is a life-size picture of Robert Johnson Sr. and a young Bob Johnson. They also find a .38 revolver and bullets that match the killer’s gun. Sunny insists on having one final meeting with Bob so she can confront him with what they know and try to get a confession out of him. She fears he will just play with them after he is arrested and they will never get any answers. The police agree to this and she arranges the meeting at Spike’s restaurant. The restaurant is packed with undercover police when she confronts him with what she knows. She asks him about his father, but he refuses to speak about it. He then draws his gun, puts it to Sunny’s head, and begins calling for Phil. After finding pictures of herself in Bob’s scrap books and feeling the sexual tension between them, Sunny thought Bob was obsessed with her, but it turns out he was obsessed with her father all along. During the stand-off, Bob is so intent on Phil that he doesn’t notice Sunny draw her weapon. She shoots him in the wrist and pulls away. The other police officers then shoot and kill him. The next day Sunny receives a package from Bob containing a videotape. The video is of Bob explaining everything. He explains that when he was fourteen he walked in on his father dressed as a Mexican gunfighter. Robert Sr. then confides in his son that most of the time he is Professor Robert Johnson, but that sometimes he is Chico Zarilla, and Chico is a killer. He confesses to his son that Chico is the Spare Change killer. Later when his mother discovers this, his father commits suicide. When Bob reaches the age that his father was when he died he decides to take up his mantle. His parents are dead; the only woman he ever loved is with another man, so he feels that Chico Zarilla is all he has left. And like before, Chico wants to kill. |
Danny Dunn on a Desert Island | Raymond Abrashkin | null | Danny, his friend Joe Pearson, Professor Bulfinch and Doctor Grimes are flying a small, private jet over the Pacific Ocean. The plane is forced to crash land on an uncharted desert island. Armed only with the items in their pockets, the four must create a living environment and come up with a plan to be rescued. |
Shiki | null | null | The story takes place in a particularly hot summer in the nineties, in a small quiet Japanese village called Sotoba. A series of mysterious deaths begin to spread in the village, at the same time when a strange family moves into the long abandoned Kanemasa mansion. Toshio Ozaki, dean of the only hospital in Sotoba, initially suspects an epidemic. But as investigations continue and the deaths begin to pile up, he becomes convinced that they are the work of the undead plaguing the village. A young man named Natsuno Yuuki, who hates living in the village, begins to be pursued and surrounded by death. |
Fire | Kristin Cashore | 2,009 | When a mysterious archer wounds Fire, she accompanies Archer to a fort nearby, partly to request assistance from the army and partly to meet the lovely and accepting Queen Roen. Once there, she meets the two heirs to the throne: King Nashdell and Brigan, the exalted, not to mention young commander of his brother's military. The two brothers take to her completely differently. Nash falls immediately in lust with Fire, while Brigan hates her on sight. Mostly for her beauty and power, she also reminds him of her dead father, the man that twisted the dead King Nax's mind and drove the kingdom to ruin. Fire, used to being hated and desired, avoids them. When the army is in danger and many lives are at stake, Fire risks herself and saves many, earning her status among the soldiers. After returning to the North Brigan arrives, inviting her on Nash's orders to come to King's City to help squash the unknown trespassers who have been plaguing the royal family. Fire agrees, and begins to make the long road to the capital, along the way coming to an uncomfortable but desired truce with Brigan. Once there, she finds herself overwhelmed with the gorgeous city, and likewise the city is awed by her. And frightened. Nash, unable to control himself, succumbs to his passion and frequently throws himself at Fire, much to her dismay. While turning him down coldly, rumors spark of their hidden affair. Fire also meets the two illegitimate twins of King Nax, Clara and Garan, the two gifted spymasters of the Dells. They convince her after a time to begin questioning those involved in the resistance, but she has limits. Thoughts of her father continue to torture her, so she resists forcing the truth out of people, only using her presence to intoxicate the prisoners into honesty. While doing this unwanted but necessary duty, she comes across Hanna, a young girl who is skilled at picking fights with large groups of kids twice her size. Hanna is revealed to be Brigan's daughter by a stable girl and the third heir to the throne. The two quickly become friends, and Fire becomes increasingly closer to Brigan. After some time in King's City, Archer arrives, ruining the peace Fire has found with his furious jealousy. She halts their relationship, causing Archer to become involved with several women in the city. This results in two pregnancies by two women: one by Clara and one by Fire's guard, Mila. Fire is furious, but also jealous. Not because of their relationships with her ex-lover, but because of their upcoming children. Fire, despite her intense desire for some of her own, decides the best thing she can do as a monster is to make sure none other exist. She takes a drug Clara suggested that will prevent her from ever having children, much to her sorrow. When an upcoming gala between the three factions arrive, Fire is planned to play a major role as an assassin of the enemies leaders. Archer is extremely against it and the two clash, which eventually leads to him blurting out in spite the secret Fire wished never to be said: that she killed her own father. While Fire loved Cansrel, she also recognized his evil heart and twisted mind. She takes it upon herself to murder him and make it look like suicide, knowing she's the only one who can stop him. Fire is ashamed when this secret is revealed for many to hear, and she flees, eventually meeting the mother of her mother she never knew she had. Archer arrives soon after, disgusted by himself. He confesses he needs escape and time to think, so he goes in search of a young boy that has bothered Fire immensely. With his red eye, casual cruelty, and a voice that hurts her but entrances everyone else, she links him to the strange and thoughtless men that have been bothering her and the royal family with increased frequency. No one gives her much heed except Archer, who sees it as his responsibility after he wronged Fire. He leaves with her forgiveness and love. Soon after the gala arrives, and with Fire's help two leaders of the rebels are killed and much information is found. Primarily about a joint attack set by both rebel groups on King's City. Brigan had enough time to arrange his forces in response, and in the mayhem of the gala Fire is kidnapped. She is captured, drugged, and continuously shot on the mysterious boy's orders, who is revealed at one point to be a young Leck, the main antagonist in "Graceling". He confides that he wants to rule the Dells with Fire as his partner and equal. She refuses and escapes, only to find Archer's body. In rage she burns down Leck's estate, killing his mind slaves in the process. Alone and without supplies or heat she wanders, eventually meeting Leck. They struggle, and Leck tells her of a land across the mountains that hold many people like him, his home country which is the stage for "Graceling". In their struggle he falls into a crack in the mountain, and Fire prays he is finally dead. She wanders aimlessly afterward, caring little for her own life, and is saved by a horse, then rescued by villagers. She falls unconscious and reawakens among friends. Her hands are frost bitten and she has lost two fingers, and she despairs because she believes she will never play the fiddle again. She is transported back to King's City, and she remembers the name of the archer who killed Archer, a criminal named Jod. She recalls that he was indeed Archer's sire, having raped Brocker's wife on orders from King Nax. Fire arrives at a Fort Flood which is under attack, and meets Brigan. The two confess they are in love with each other, but Fire refuses to give into her feelings because she doesn't want to love him if he's "only going to die." He leaves for battle once more, and Fire is rocked with agony and worry for his safety. After living in relative seclusion while trying to process Archer's death and the loss of her fingers, Fire is brought to life again thanks to Garan. He convinces her to begin working in the hospitals relieving people of their pain and helping doctors with minor tasks. She comes to meet Nash, who she also wants to disconnect from because of his status as a soldier. He informs her that she is being silly, because death will come to all for many different reasons, not just war. She and Nash talk, coming to terms with the love they feel, even for their fathers. Fire meets Roen and Brocker who confide in her that Brigan is not really Nax's son but Brocker's, Roen and him having an affair that led to his banishment and the abuse he suffered on Nax's account. Fire, after fighting with this, comes to accept it. She meets Brigan at Fort Flood and the two reconcile, making love and coming to terms with all that they've lost and gained. Soon after, the rebels request a meeting under the pretense of peace. During they ask for Fire to be given to them, and after being refused Nash is shot. He lives and Brigan's army conquers, returning the Dells to relative peace. Fire returns to King's City hailed as a hero, much to her embarrassment. A ceremony to mourn Archer is held at Brocker's estate, and many return there to grieve his passing including Clara and Mila with their newborn babies, Aran and Liv, respectively. Mila tells Fire she has begun a relationship with Nash, and Fire is pleased, though she is uncommonly happy due to Archer's two babies. At Archer's ceremony she mourns both him and her father who she misses, but she also forgives herself for his murder. She plays a song on her fiddle that she has fought so hard to once again play. With one tune she lets out her sadness for those she cares about, dead and living. |
Stranger in Paradise | Robert B. Parker | 2,008 | In Stranger in Paradise, Wilson "Crow" Cromartie from Trouble in Paradise returns to the quiet town. On arrival he meets with Jesse Stone to let him know he’s in town looking for someone. Unfortunately Jesse cannot arrest him because the statute of limitations has run out for the Stiles Island robbery Crow was involved in ten years earlier that cost residents over $20 million in cash. And since Jesse has no evidence linking him to any of the murders, he has no choice but to let Crow go about his business. It turns out Crow is looking for a 14 year old girl named Amber Francisco. Amber is the daughter of Florida mob boss Louis Francisco, who employs Crow to find his daughter. Crow starts by searching her credit card record. He discovers that a flat screen television was purchased on the card. At the store where it was purchased, Crow poses as Amber’s father complaining that the television was never delivered. The clerk assures him that it was and gives him the address that it was delivered to. There he encounters the Horn Street gang, a group of young Latino gangbangers. He asks for the whereabouts of the girl, but when a gangbanger named Puerco tries to get tough, Crow shoots and kills him. The gang leader, Esteban, then gives up her location. At their home, Crow confronts Amber, and her mother Fiona. Fiona is a drunk, and when Amber gets disrespectful with Crow he slaps her across the face. Crow then calls Francisco in Florida to let him know that he has located the girl. Francisco orders Crow to murder Fiona and bring his daughter back to Florida. Crow, for some mysterious reason, refuses. Instead he calls Chief Stone and relates the story to him, even admitting the murder of Puerco, claiming self defense. Later when Amber’s boyfriend, the gangbanger Esteban, discovers who she is he contacts Francisco in Florida and accepts the contract on Fiona. Amber assists in the murder of her mother, luring her out back of their apartment. However, when she later discovers that Esteban also agreed to bring her back to her father in Florida, she runs away. Desperate to stay away from her creepy father, she calls Crow. Crow takes the girl to Chief Stone. Jesse puts her up in his condo, and has Jenn come over to help with her. Molly and Suit watch her during the day while Jenn and Jesse are working. Meanwhile, Francisco sends four mobsters up to Paradise to kill Crow. Crow discovers them immediately and starts picking them off one at a time. The police find a hotel key on the second victim, which leads them to one of the mobsters. When the police threaten to frame him for firing on the police when he was arrested, which would give him his third felony and a life sentence, he agrees to inform on his employer. From him they discover that Francisco has given the contract on Crow’s life to the Horn Street gang. They also discover that Francisco is on his way up to personally see that Crow is killed and to retrieve his daughter. Jesse and Crow then formulate a plan to catch the killers in the act. Amber calls Crow and asks her to meet him on the middle of a bridge. Jesse and Crow immediately know this is the setup. With the police standing by, Crow goes to the bridge. They have a Hollywood dummy with him dressed to look like Amber. The Horn Street gangbangers drive by and open fire on Crow who dives over the sea wall and disappears. Francisco and his men then open fire on the Horn Street gang. Immediately the police surround them, but before they are arrested one of the Florida mobsters named Romero walks up to Esteban and shoots him dead. Francisco then discovers that the dummy is not his daughter, and is hauled off to jail. After his release, he turns up dead in Florida along with two of his body guards. Although the police suspect Crow, he is nowhere to be found. Jesse suspects correctly that Crow is just in it for the excitement. Still rich from his Stiles Island caper ten years earlier, he involves himself in this situation simply to alleviate his boredom, and for sex. During his stay he beds Marcy Campbell, the hostage he protected ten years earlier, and Jesse’s right-hand woman Molly Crane while her husband and kids are away. Crow sees himself as an Apache warrior playing cowboys and Indians. And although Jesse feels some confliction about working with Crow, as he discusses with Dix, he wants to help Amber. He ends up getting some money for her from her father before he is murdered and then puts her up with Daisy Dyke and her wife. She seems unconcerned with her parents murders, and the novel ends with her having dinner with Jesse and Jenn. |
Song for the Basilisk | Patricia A. McKillip | 1,998 | The sole survivor of a massacre, Caladrius, nicknamed Rook, has been living with the bards of Luly since the day he was rescued from the smoldering remains of his home. Despite falling in love and having a son, Caladrius is unable to make peace with his memories, and so ventures into the world to discover how his family was destroyed - and why. He learns his true name: he is Raven Tourmalyne from the house of Griffin, which was crushed by Arioso Pellior, the patriarch of the house of Basilisk and tyrant of the city of Berylon. In Berylon, Caladrius, who takes the name of Griffin, enters Pellior's house as a music teacher for Pellior's decidedly un-musical daughter. As Griffin tutors Damiet Pellior for an upcoming opera, the city's musicians hatch their own plots. Armed with his picochet, a single-stringed instrument played by peasants, and a small bone pipe, Griffin challenges the Basilisk and exacts his revenge. But his revenge is not complete. Arioso Pellior is stricken, but not dead. Pellior names his other daughter, Luna, a powerful magician who has been his apprentice all her life, as his heir. Unexpectedly, Luna declares that thirty-seven years of torturing Tourmalyne House are enough. Hearing this, her father dies of anger. Luna begins to help Caladrius restore Tourmalyne House. |
Bug Jack Barron | Norman Spinrad | null | The "Bug Jack Barron" show begins Wednesday evening with an on-air call from Rufus W. Johnson, who claims that the Foundation for Human Immortality refused to accept his assets as payment for a Freezer contract. Rufus accuses the Foundation of being a racist organization, unwilling to offer Freezer contracts to an African-Americans even if they have the $500,000 required payment. Jack Barron is appalled to hear this and makes several live calls using his studio Vidphone to hear all sides of Mr. Johnson's claim. He first calls Benedict Howards, but is told that he is unavailable. Jack is transferred to John Yarborough, Public Relations Director for the Foundation. Barron quickly dismisses Yarborough's counter-claims, and then calls the Governor of Mississippi, Lukas Greene. The Governor feels the Foundation is not only racist, but destined to abuse rights of one kind or another if they succeed in getting their Freezer Utility Bill through Congress. Should the bill pass, the Foundation would gain monopoly status. To stop this injustice, Greene supports a Public Freezer system, open to all Americans. Hoping not to anger the FCC (influenced by Benedict Howards and his supporters in Congress), Barron calls Senator Theodore Hennering, a supporter of Benedict Howards and his Freezer Utility bill. However, even though Barron gives the Senator ample chance to defend the Foundation and the Utility bill, the Senator appears nervous and does a very poor job convincing Barron and his audience that the Foundation is not a racist organization. The following day, Howards visits Jack in his office. They exchange casual threats to destroy each other, after which Howards requests Jack's support for his Freezer Utility bill in congress. Jack is insulted by this and refuses, but Howards continues by offering Jack a free Freezer Contract and immortal life. Though tempted, Jack refuses the bribe. Howards gives Jack more time to think about it, and leaves Jack to consider the offer. Howards later meets with his head of Personnel Research, to see if they can find information of any incidents in Jack Barron's that can be used to either coerce him to cooperate, or to discredit him publically. From that meeting, Howards deduces that Jack and Sara (his ex-wife) are still in love. He believes he can exploit that relationship to his benefit. Shortly afterwards, Howards calls Sara to his office, where he offers her a free Freezer contract, if she can get Jack to agree to the bribe. Sara is appalled by this. As part of the Social Justice Coalition (SJC), she despises Benedict Howards, but suddenly considers that it might work in her favor. Her plan is to tell Jack that Howards coerced her into service. That fact would infuriate Jack enough to destroy Howards, and allow them to rekindle their relationship. Back together, Sara dreams about being frozen together with Jack, and being revived together after an immortality treatment has been discovered. Upon waking up the next morning, Jack Barron receives a call from the Governor of California, Gregory Morris. To Jack's utter surprise, Morris suggests that Jack consider running as the next President of the United States. By having Jack as a candidate, Morris hopes to unify the SJC and the Republican party on a single political platform. He feels this is the only way to win against the Democratic party, even though he personally finds Jack and the SJC repulsive. Jack turns down the offer, in a derogatory manner. Even though Jack and Morris trade insults, Morris tells Jack to consider the offer. After the call, Jack immediately contacts his friend Lukas, and "blips" to him (that is, transmits to him as a digitally compressed file) a recording of his conversation with Morris. To Jack’s horror, Lukas actually likes the idea because he too sees the goal envisioned by Morris, and thinks Jack will be more than just a figurehead President. Jack then gets a call from Sara. She begs him to forgive her. He is shocked to hear this at first, but soon agrees to visit her, leaving his current girlfriend (who had been with him all night) in tears. Once he arrives at Sara’s apartment in the East Village, the two argue about why they broke up. But they soon reconcile, and Sara enthusiastically draws Jack into love-making. Together again, they return to his penthouse apartment, where Jack hopes to impress her. To some degree, Sara is an idealist (still like the girl she was in college) and is not impressed with the wealth that Jack has amassed as a celebrity. However, her plan to be reunited for eternity with Jack makes her tolerate the situation. They make love a second time. During his next show, Jack interviews Ms. Dolores Pulaski, a woman distraught because her father is dying of terminal cancer. She begs Jack to get her father into a Freezer so that he'll have a chance to be cured some day, and possibly receive an immortality treatment as well. Jack immediately makes an on-air call Benedict Howards, who ends up appearing insensitive during the ensuing conversation. During the commercial break, Howards is furious, but concedes to Jack’s previous demands, as long as Jack allows him to save face. They agree to discuss things later in private. The next day, Howards visits Jack's office and demands that Jack support the Utility Freezer Bill in exchange for a Freezer contract. But Jack doesn’t trust Howards, and gets him to admit that his foundation has already discovered an immortality treatment. Howards then agrees to give the same treatment to Jack and Sara, but Jack thinks Howards is still hiding something. He asks to know more about the treatment, but Howards refuses. In the end, Jack won’t sign, but Howards says he'll give Jack another twenty-four hours to reconsider. While Jack is on his way home, Sara receives a call from Howards. He reminds her that she must convince Jack to sign. This angers Sara, and makes her feel guilty about keeping secrets. When Jack returns home, she admits about being coerced, but asks to be forgiven. With a mutual confession of love, Jack and Sara commit themselves to ruining Howards together. The next day, Howards visits Jack again with new contracts for both Jack and Sara to sign. The new contracts not only guarantee being frozen, but also the treatment immortality. Howards gloats to himself about finally trapping Jack and Sara. Jack cannot see any drawback in the contract, and he and Sara agree to sign. Howards then desperately attempts to get Jack and Sara to receive their treatment immediately, but Jack puts him off, saying he prefers to wait for some time, although Sara cannot understand why they should wait. Early the next morning, Jack receives a call from Madge Hennering, the wife of the Senator who supported Howards. Senator Hennering had died since his last conversation with Jack, and his widow, very distraught, tells Jack that her husband had a bitter fight with Howards just prior to his death. She is convinced that her husband found out something terrible about the Foundation, and was killed by Howards to stop him from telling anyone. She begs Jack to help, but he refuses to believe her story. On the next broadcast of “Bug Jack Barron”, a man named Henry George Franklin calls in and complains that he sold his young daughter to some wealthy men for $500,000. Even though the men promised to provide his daughter with a better life, Henry claims he was duped, and wants Jack to help him get his daughter back. Jack finds Mr. Franklin’s plea contemptible, and quickly cuts him off. After the show, Jack feels that that episode wasn’t very good, but changes his mind after a call soon arrives from Howards. Howards is furious that Franklin was on the show, and threateningly tells Jack to abandon the story altogether. Jack can’t understand how Henry George Franklin can be a threat to Howards, and angrily tells Howards to back off. Intrigued by Howards' reaction, Jack flies to Evers, Mississippi, hoping to meet Franklin and speak with him. Jack was hoping to go alone and keep a low profile, but his plans are ruined by Lukas Greene, who stages a political rally at the airport as a prelude to Jack’s presidential run. Jack is upset, but leaves the airport with Lukas by limo, where Jack accuses Greene of selling out. Greene doesn’t listen, and says again that Jack is a good man, and can help the country by running for President. Unwilling to meet Franklin at the Governor’s mansion, Jack goes to see him in a restaurant located in a low-income neighborhood. Franklin is happy to see Jack, but Jack finds Franklin just as contemptible in person. Still, there is a mystery about the whole incident, and Barron agrees to help somehow. They start by walking to the Governor’s mansion, when a sniper kills Franklin. The sniper attempts to shoot Jack as well, be escapes unharmed due to the help of the local police. Jack tells the police he doesn’t know who tried to kill him, but quickly deduces that Benedict Howards must have been behind the shooting. With that assumption, Jack realizes that the Foundation must also be responsible for buying Franklin’s daughter. Jack later confirms his suspicion by using computer records to search for other children who are now missing. Upon his return home, Jack shares all his suspicions with Sara. They both assume Howards is responsible for the deaths of Hennering and Franklin. In addition, Jack believes the Foundation is buying young black children for some reason. To get to the bottom of the mystery, Jack unveils a plan. He and Sara will receive their immortality treatment, and make Howards think he really has them trapped. Then when Howards admits to all his crimes, Jack will use a concealed very small portable telephone to record the confession. Sara agrees, and is impressed by Jack risk-taking attitude. The two celebrate by having oral sex. |
Boxing For Cuba | null | null | The book begins with Vidal detailing his early childhood. Vidal discusses the turbulent marriage of his parents as well as the political turmoil when Castro overthrew Batista. He details his close relationship with his two brothers, Roberto and Juan Antonio, and the family’s relatively comfortable life in Camaguey in the 1950s. In the early sections of the book Vidal also takes the reader through the early life of his parents and the beginnings of a turbulent marriage, detailing his mother’s depression and destructive behavior as well as his father’s excessive desire for success. Vidal remembers the first days of Castro’s regime: watching Castro ride through the streets of a nearby town on a tank and being lifted by his parents to touch Castro’s hand. After those early days though, Vidal recounts how his life drastically changed. He narrates how soon people began to live in fear of Castro’s army and his spies, some of whom where neighbors or close friends of the Vidal’s. In September 1961, Marta and Roberto took their three boys to Havana, Cuba, in order to send their sons to the United States for safety. The Vidal boys left communist Cuba on September 29, 1961 with other Cuban children seeking exile through Operation Pedro Pan. Upon arrival in Miami, the Vidal boys expected to be picked up by family members who had already escaped Cuba and were living in Miami, but when no one arrived the three were taken to a temporary housing camp. Eventually the boys were moved to Sacred Heart Orphanage in Pueblo, Colorado. En route to Colorado the boys met Robert F. Kennedy, U.S. Attorney General at the time. In the span of two years, 10-year old Vidal had met two of the most influential men of the time. Vidal’s life at Sacred Heart Orphanage was plagued with fear of the harsh treatment of its caretaker and older boys, as well as the challenges of learning English and adjusting to the oddities of American culture. In their three years at Sacred Heart, the Vidal boys seemed to completely shed their Cuban heritage and become “real” Americans, even adopting the very American names “Bill,” “John,” and “Bob.” Not knowing when, if at all, their parents would ever escape Cuba to retrieve them, the boys adjusted as best they could to their new life in Pueblo. On April 11, 1964 the Vidal family was reunited after Marta and Roberto emigrated to Mexico and eventually the United States. The family relocated to Littleton, Colorado and then later moved into the city of Denver. Though free from the oppression and fear of Castro’s regime, the Vidal family faced innumerable challenges in their new lives in America. The family struggled financially and they were often the victims of hate and discrimination. Moreover, Marta and Roberto's marriage had greatly deteriorated adding to their erratic behavior. Vidal recounts his adolescence as an extremely turbulent time. Despite domestic hardship the Vidal family was successful – each member of the family took classes at the University of Colorado at Denver. After receiving his degree in engineering Bill went on to work for the Colorado Department of Transportation. He married his high school sweetheart, Christine, and together they had a boy and adopted two girls. Though he flourished professionally Vidal continued to struggle with his relationship with his parents and eventually in his marriage as well. Eventually Bill and Christine divorced. Years later Vidal remarried Gabriela, a Chilean immigrant also working for CDOT. Vidal credits Gabriela with inspiring him to reconnect with his family and his heritage. It is she who encourages him to return to Cuba in 2001 to try to face and understand his past. The book ends with Vidal returning to his childhood home to try to make sense of his life, and how very different it would be if he had not left as a 10-year old boy. |
Virtual World | Chris Westwood | 1,996 | Silicon Sphere is the new game with everything: dazzling super-real graphics, atmospheric sounds... but it also has a secret. Those who play it, like games freak Jack North, become so absorbed that it is as if they are hidden inside the game. Stranger still, elements from Silicon Sphere are starting to reproduce themselves in the real world. Jack thinks he is imagining it until other players start to disappear. By the time he realizes that this is no game, it is too late to make his way back. |
The Autobiography of Malcolm X | Malcolm X | 1,965 | The Autobiography of Malcolm X is an account of the life of human rights activist Malcolm X, born Malcolm Little (1925–1965). It begins during his mother's pregnancy and describes his childhood in Michigan, the death of his father under questionable circumstances, and his mother's deteriorating mental health that resulted in her commitment to a psychiatric hospital. Little's young adulthood in Boston and New York City is covered, as is his involvement in organized crime that led to his arrest and subsequent eight- to ten-year prison sentence, of which he served six-and-a-half years (1946–1952). The book addresses his ministry with Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam (1952–1963) and his emergence as the organization's national spokesman. It then documents his subsequent disillusionment with and departure from the Nation of Islam in March 1964, his conversion to orthodox Sunni Islam, his pilgrimage to Mecca, and his travels in Africa. After Malcolm X was assassinated in New York's Audubon Ballroom in February 1965, the book's coauthor, journalist Alex Haley, summarizes the last days of Malcolm X's life, and describes in detail their working agreement, including Haley's personal views on his subject, in the Autobiography's epilogue. |
Becoming Julia | Chris Westwood | null | Maggie resembles Julia, a girl who disappeared, so the police ask Maggie to play Julia in a television reconstruction of the day she went missing. |
Feathered Dinosaurs of China | null | null | The book tells a day in the life of most fauna of Early Cretaceous Liaoning in China, 124 million BC. *Unidentified Salamanders (mentioned at the beginning) *Callobatrachus *Unidentified Dragonflies *Jinzhousaurus *Unidentified Beetles (seen being kicked up by the Jinzhousaurus herd members) *Eomaia *Sinornithosaurus *Eosipterus *Dendrorhynchoides *Unidentified Striped Fish (seen dead and being squabbled over by the 2 Pterosaurs) *Confuciusornis *Caudipteryx *Manchurosuchus *Manchurochelys *Unidentified Freshwater Clams (seen on the lake bottom) *Unidentified Snails (mentioned in the lake description) *Unidentified Worms (listed in the Dragonfly nymph prey list) *Unidentified Freshwater Crustaceans (listed in the Dragonfly nymph prey list) *Unidentified Mayfly (nymph) *Unidentified Predatory Fish (seen in the distance, hidden under some Water Lilies) *Protosephurus *Lycoptera *Hyphalosaurus *Unidentified Cicadas (seen on page 20) *Beipiaosaurus *Sinosauropteryx *Unidentified Lizards *Unidentified Striped Moth (mentioned on page 23) *Microraptor *Psittacosaurus (dead) *Protopteryx *Protarchaeopteryx |
Giant Dinosaurs of the Jurassic | null | null | The book tells a day in the life of most Fauna of Late Jurassic Morrison Formation in Colorado, USA, 150 million BC. *Unidentified Frogs (seen in the beginning) *Unidentified Large Turtles *Comodactylus *Unidentified Small Fish (mentioned on page 6) *Goniopholis *Othnielia *Ornitholestes *Camarasaurus *Unidentified Docodont (possibly Docodon) *Unidentified Carrion Insect (mentioned on page 8) *Stegosaurus *Camptosaurus *Brachiosaurus *Ceratosaurus *Dryosaurus *Fruitachampsa *Apatosaurus *Mesadactylus *Unidentified Biting Insects (mentioned on page 20) *Allosaurus *Mymoorapelta *Barosaurus *Diplodocus |
The Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ—Against the Fanatics | Martin Luther | null | The Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ opens with a two part exposition of the Christian faith as applied to the Lord's Supper. First, one must consider the object of faith, "what one should believe". Then, one may consider how one may make use of this object, which in this case refers to how one should use the sacrament. A large portion of this opening section is devoted to logical refutations of logical arguments built up by Zwingli and those who agreed with him. These rational arguments are not intended to persuade his opponents, who in Luther's view do not accept God's Word and therefore may believe as they please apart from the church, but instead to help the "reasonable souls" who are still willing to "concern themselves" with God's Word. What one must believe is explained by "the clear text and the plain words of Christ" in the Words of Institution. Whoever does not believe these words has fallen into a mind trick devised by the devil and has a perspective distorted by "colored glass". The word "is" means "is" in the literal way that one uses for common speaking at the dinner table. Christ distributes his body and blood in the sacrament in a way similar to how he distributes himself across the entire world. To those who claim that there must be a location for Christ's body to be present under the bread, Luther responds that the soul is also illocal, yet is still really present throughout the body. Lest anyone think that the real presence is too great a miracle to be present in all the churches all the time, Luther cites the sprouting of seeds and the power of words to persuade as common, great, proliferating miracles. When objectors cite the incompatibility of non-living objects with Christ, Luther reminds them that the presence of Christ in the hearts of faithful is an even a greater miracle. Against the lack of an entry site for Christ's body to enter the bread, Luther notes that the Christ entered into the Virgin Mary solely through the power of the Word, without any noticeable physical entry. Luther noticed an inherent danger in his appeal to Christ's ubiquity to assert his real presence. If Christ is in all things, then perhaps he can be found in all things, similar to pantheism. Luther prevents pantheism from joining the discussion table by limiting the search for Christ to what God's Word alone has authorized. Any searching for Christ apart from the Word is idolatry. This second of the three sermons is less controversial than the first. In it, Luther rejects the papal use of the sacraments as good works that humans could perform to merit salvation or as a means of raising money. Although he rejects the symbolical interpretation of the Lord's Supper, he advocates that the sacrament be conducted along with general preaching and proclamation in the lives of ordinary Christians. In this way, Christians would be blessed so that "their number may increase". Part of this proclamation consisted in resistance to the demands of the Pope. By rejecting the Pope's command's regarding the sacrament, they bore witness to the Gospel, showing that the believer, in Christ, was "free from death, devil, and hell…a son of God, a lord of heaven and earth". The Lord's Supper is a possession of ordinary Christians that gives the great comfort to those individually given the assurance of salvation. Through the sacrament Christians may "strengthen [their] faith and make [their] consciences secure". But this building up in the faith was not an end in itself. Instead, it in turn led to the proclamation of the Gospel by all the Christians edified through it. Faith and love, states Luther, are the two principles of Christian doctrine. Justification through faith is taught by the Word. In God's Word, it is easy to see Christ's work on the cross, which was a single payment for sin that lasts for all eternity. In contrast to this faith in Christ, which is formed at once from the word, the second principle of Christian doctrine can be learned for an entire lifetime without completely mastering it. This second principle is love, or sanctification in the narrow sense. From Christ's sacrifice proclaimed in the Lord's Supper, Christians learn the ultimate expression of love. Another aspect of this second principle is the proclamation of communion within the church. Both the individual grains and the individual grapes lose their identity to become one in the products of bread and wine. They mystically reflect the gathering together of Christians as one in the church. Indeed, this application is so rich in meaning that, along with faith, love, and patience, it provides so much for a Christian to strive for that there is no need to indulge in obscure studies to prove academic greatness. Love is greater than knowledge and is above petty academic competition. Instead of lending superiority to a select few, this sacrament teaches a lesson that can be learned during one's entire live without ever finishing it. Luther distinguishes between three kinds of confession in this last of the three sermons that make up this book. The first is confession before God, the second is confession before one's neighbor, and the third is private confession with one's priest. Before the Reformation, the devil confused people about confession by making it a burden and a requirement instead of a gift and opportunity. The purpose of these distinctions is to do away with the confusion that existed when confession was placed as a burden upon the people. Confession is useful in drawing attention to the social responsibilities Christians have toward their fellow brothers in need. Private confession is not to be eliminated, because it retained its value through the giving of individual comfort to troubled souls and the providing of an opportunity for spiritual growth. Confession afforded an opportunity both to teach otherwise ignorant laypeople the right path to follow and for them to seek advice when they desired it. However, it was not obligatory for those who already confessed their sins before God and were reconciled with their neighbor. Private confession, instead of being instituted by God as a requirement in the Bible, was only historically derived from the other two forms of confession. These two forms of confession alone sufficed as a means for the forgiveness of sins without private confession. |
Real Murders | Charlaine Harris | 1,990 | Local crime buffs meet monthly in the small town of Lawrenceton, Georgia to analyze famous murder cases, and in Real Murders they get all too close a look as one of their members is bludgeoned in exactly the same manner as the crime to be discussed that night. Aurora "Roe" Teagarden, the 4'11" librarian, is not only a member of the club, a suspect in the murder but also a potential victim as other murders follow - each mimicking a famous crime. Roe must work quickly to discover which of her fellow sleuths is the killer. Could it be the police detective whose sudden romantic interest in Roe leaves her skin tingling, the new mystery writer in town who says he's bored with just writing or one of the other 12 members of the Real Murders Club? |
A Change of Climate | Hilary Mantel | null | A Change of Climate is set in Norfolk in 1980, and concerns Ralph and Anna Eldred, parents of four children, whose family life threatens to disintegrate in the course of one summer, when memories which they have repressed fiercely for twenty years resurface to disrupt the purposive and peaceful lives they have tried to lead since a catastrophic event overtook them early in their married life. The action of the novel moves back to the late 1950s, when they worked for a missionary society in a dangerous and crowded South African township, and then follows the couple to Bechuanaland, where in the loneliness of a remote mission station an unspeakable loss occurs. The novel is about the possibility or impossibility of forgiveness, the clash of ideals and brutality, and the need to acknowledge that lives are broken before they can begin to be mended. |
Letters from the Inside | John Marsden | 1,991 | The story is told in the form of letters exchanged between fifteen-year-old girls, Mandy and Tracey. They begin writing after Tracey places an ad in fictional magazine GDY. The two girls share information about their lives from school, to family, to relationships. Mandy reveals that her brother is abusive and violent, information which Tracey tries to ignore. It appears to Mandy that Tracey's life is perfect, as she has a wonderful boyfriend, rich and caring parents, and she is close to her siblings. However, inconsistencies start appearing in Tracey's letters, and when Mandy questions her on them, Tracey stops writing. Mandy refuses to give up, and finally Tracey replies with the information that she is in fact in a juvenile detention center, and will be there for a long time. Tracey expects Mandy to no longer want to write to her, but Mandy continues to do so. Their relationship becomes even deeper now that they are completely honest with each other. Mandy, however, occasionally frustrates Tracey with her naivete as Tracey claims she is not as "nice" as Mandy claims, and becomes angry when Mandy makes a joke about tunneling into her cell and staying with her. Throughout their letter writing, Tracey seems to get in touch with her "softer" side, which includes writing an essay about her Nanna. She wins an award for the story, and asks Mandy to celebrate for her. Towards the end of the book, Tracey finally confesses the truth about her family and gives her reason for not wanting to hear about Mandy's brother. Mandy never replies to the letter and never writes again. Tracey continuously writes, getting increasingly worried, especially when her letters are sent back to her with "Return To Sender" on them, not in Mandy's hand writing. |
Metro 2033 | Dmitry Glukhovsky | 2,002 | The protagonist of the novel is a young 20-year old man named Artyom who was born before the nuclear holocaust that occurred in 2013. When he was a baby he was saved from a horde of carnivorous rats by Sukhoi, a military officer. The rats killed Artyom's mother and most of the survivors with her. He has since been raised by Sukhoi, his adoptive father who is one of the authorities of VDNKh, one of the many shelter stations in the russian metro. He grew up and become one of the security guards in the VDNKh. In late 2033, Artyom is completing his shift with his fellow colleagues. When his shift ends he meets a mysterious man who calls himself Hunter. Hunter asks him to tell Sukhoi that he was looking for him. The three gather together and discuss the situation at VDNKh. While Hunter believes that they should keep fighting these threats, Sukhoi has obviously lost all hope, and for good reason. While Hunter is leaving he asks Artyom for a word outside. He blackmails Artyom by managing to make him spill out his secret of Artyom's lone expedition into the Botanical Gardens, as a child. Hunter makes him promise to travel to Polis in case he does not return, as Hunter is going on an expedition to stop the dark ones who have been attacking the station. After escorting a caravan to a member of the VDNKh Commonwealth, Artyom meets Bourbon. In exchange for a large number of cartridges, Artyom promises to help Bourbon through several tunnels but the journey comes to a tragic end, when Bourbon seemingly slips into insanity, and dies. Luckily for Artyom, a mysterious stranger arrives; Khan who helps him retrieve Bourbon's equipment. Artyom discovers that Bourbon actually planned on killing and looting him. After this, both plan a route to Polis. They decide to gather force to travel through a strange tunnel and fend off the monsters inside. Both reach Kitai-Gorod station where they split after it is attacked by the Fourth Reich. While fleeing the station, Artyom comes across an old man and helps him, who in turn helps him get to his next destination, Kuznetsky Most where he runs into the Reich again and is apprehended for murdering a station guard. As he is about to be executed, he is rescued by the Revolutionaries. Artyom is eventually dropped off at Paveletskaya, and befriends a man named Mark who bets against the station chief in a rat race to win visas to travel through Hanseatic League that occupied Koltsevaya Line. If they lose, which they do, they will shovel manure for a year on the Paveletskaya-Koltsevaya but Artyom eventually escapes and travels through an unfinished tunnel. There he meets a Brother Timothy who takes him to the Watchtower which seems to be a monastery of sorts and offers Artyom shelter. Artyom eventually tires of the fundamentalist teachings about God, escapes the station and continues his journey. He then goes to Serpukhovskaya and briefly checks his direction. Arriving at Polyanka he overhears a discussion about Metro-2, a mysterious subway system meant to connect major government buildings in the case of disaster. He talks with the people there and gets inspired by their thoughtful speech. He finally arrives at Polis. He is welcomed by the guard's commander, and informs the man that he has a message for Melnik and to wait a day. During this time, he meets a young man and local 'Brahmin', Daniel who is well informed of Polis affairs, and even has information on Artyom's next destination, the Library. Brahmins are the important scientists who were especially protected by the government from the nuclear holocaust and given many supplies and advanced weaponry to survive. Next day Melnik meets Artyom, who informs him there is a council meeting that day, to discuss the situation outside of Polis. During the meeting Artyom explains the situation at VDNKh to them. At first they decline to help, but later a sect of the council offers him help and tells him to go the Great Library with Melnik, Daniel and another person. They want him to receive a very old and extremely powerful book. After getting there, things soon go to hell as creatures called Librarians attack them. Melnik and his partner stay behind while Artyom and Daniel progress farther into the library. Daniel is killed and Artyom returns to Melnik with one thing; a map to a location named D-6 who tells him to go to Smolenskaya via the surface alone, since his partner has been wounded. Artyom somehow makes his way to the station despite all the odds. There he is rescued by Melnik from monsters. Artyom and Melnik make a plan to help VDNKh, by going to D-6 and launching pre-war missiles to the Dark Ones lair. They begin their journey by traveling to Kievskaya. Here Melnik inquires about a certain Tretyak and goes on a patrol with the security commander, Anton. They discuss several things, namely the disappearances of the station's residents, and the conditions of the adjacent station, Park Pobedy but there is no way in or out of the station. They return to the station and meet Treytak. As Artyom has no passport, Melnik and Tretyak venture to Mayakovskaya to look for an entrance to D-6. After one night, Artyom receives a message from Melnik telling him that Tretyak had been killed and that he would be back to the station in a day. Oleg, Anton's child, disappears. Artyom finds the child's music-maker outside a previously unseen entrance, and the duo take it to what seems to be Park Pobedy. They are both knocked unconscious by Savage Cannibals of the Great Worm cult and taken hostage. There, the cannibals are about to feast on the duo and Oleg but are rescued by Melnik and a team of stalkers. They then begin their journey to D-6 via Metro-2 with the duo, Oleg and two Savage Cannibals who are taken hostages. The team eventually finds an entrance to Metro-2. They travel through the metro and pass under the Kremlin, whose metro-station contains a mutated bio-weapon, (a remnant of the war) that hypnotizes humans and consumes them. Oleg and two stalkers are killed by it. The group throws a flamethrower gas canister towards it and shoots it, which injures the monster and forces it to retreat, allowing the party to escape. Melnik then decides that Ulman, another stalker, and Artyom need to find a high point to direct the missiles while Melnik and the remaining stalkers will find the missile control room. Artyom and Ulman will give them coordinates to fire the missiles at the dark ones from Ostankino Tower. On the way there, they stop at VDNKh which is not doing well because since Artyom left half the people are gone, and sometimes the dark ones break through the guard posts and make their way to the living quarters. Once they make their way to the top of the Ostankino Tower they transmit the coordinates. At that very moment, Artyom has a vision from the dark ones who tell him that they just wanted to cooperate with humans and the killing was just an attempt to communicate with them. But when Artyom regains self-control, the Botanical Gardens are already destroyed by the missiles. Realising that the Dark Ones were killed in vain, Artyom tears his mask in agony for what he has done and heads back home. |
The House of Seven Colors | null | null | Count von Count and other Muppets are returning from a country drive in the Countmobile. But, in classic suspense/horror movie fashion, the bridge is out, so the group has to spend the night at a spooky old house. A giant monster butler escorts each character to a room, decorated entirely in one of the seven colors of the rainbow. No one is especially gruntled by their accommodations: Cookie Monster longs for a green cookie to go well with his green room, while the Count von Count does not like his red room (not one little bit of it), Ernie is not too thrilled with his purple room, Oscar the Grouch finds himself trapped in a bright pink room, filled with flowers and hearts, while Bert longs for a beige room over an orange one, Betty Lou is blinded by yellow, and even Grover finds himself depressed by his matching blue room. The group rapidly depart the next morning, happy to leave the weird house and return. The Sesame Street residents are unaware that the House of Seven Colors is in fact a tourist attraction, frequented by vast car and busloads of monsters who feel right at home in rooms that match their fur. |
On Parole | null | null | Shiro Kikutani, a teacher, is sent to prison for the murder of his unfaithful wife, the stabbing of her lover, as well as an act of arson carried out against the man's family home which resulted in the death of his mother. While incarcerated, he works in the prison's print shop, behaves well, and generally keeps to himself. After a span of fifteen years, he is granted parole and moves into a halfway house. His parole officer, Kiyoura, takes some basic steps to reintroduce Kikutani into society; Kikutani is unaccustomed to his newfound freedom, and has difficulty doing basic things such as going to the bathroom without asking permission or walking normally without marching in the way that he and his fellow prisoners were required to do. Kiyoura finds Kikutani a position working at a chicken farm, and tells him that he must soon find an apartment of his own and leave the halfway-house. Because the chicken farm where he will work is far away from the halfway house in the city, Kikutani is encouraged to find an apartment close to his workplace. Kikutani is hesitant to move too far away from the city and his parole officer because he feels a certain degree of security being close to the halfway house, so he instead finds an apartment that is close by even though this will necessitate a long daily commute to work. Kikutani settles into his new life, and is content to go about his unremarkable daily routine. In particular, he is pleased at having little or no contact with other people apart from his monthly visit to his parole officer. One day, by chance, Kikutani passes a woman in the street who closely resembles his wife. This encounter leads Kikutani to travel back to the scene of his crime, his old home town of Sakura, late at night so as not to be noticed. He brings some incense with him to burn at the grave of the old woman who died in the fire, but when he arrives at the cemetery, he realizes that he feels no remorse for his crimes, and simply leaves. He does not tell his newly assigned parole officer, Takebayashi, of his trip and nothing more comes of the matter. Kikutani forms one, rather distant, friendship with one of his co-workers at the chicken farm, and he also receives a letter from someone who has recognized him as an ex-prisoner, and confesses that he too is a former convict. The two begin a correspondence, but when they decide to meet, the other man loses his nerve and the relationship is abruptly broken off. During one of Kikutani's subsequent parole meetings, Takebayashi, rather surprisingly, raises the prospect of marriage, and explains that he and his wife know an older woman who they have told about his past and nonetheless is willing to meet him and consider getting married. Kikutani is surprised at the suggestion and mulls over the idea, but is not particularly open to getting remarried. But after Takebayashi dies Kikutani reconsiders because he feels that this is what others want of him. He marries the woman, Toyoko, and the two briefly settle into a contented relationship in Kikutani's apartment. Apparently, however, though Toyoko was told of Kikutan's past, she was not told that he would be on parole for the rest of his life. This realization troubles her, and she begins pushing Kikutani to start openly showing grief for his crimes in the hopes of being granted a pardon. One day, Kikutani returns home to find that Toyoko had set up two small altars to his victims. He becomes enraged, loses control of himself, and flings Toyoko down the stairs and kills her. In the final scene, Kikutani helplessly walks back to the halfway house, prepared to confess to Kiyoura what he has done. |
The Roar | Emma Clayton | 2,008 | The story follows twins Mika and Ellie who live in England. Mika and Ellie live with their parents in the poverty stricken area behind The Wall on the first level in a fold out apartment located in Barford North. Ellie has been kidnapped and is being held by the leader of the Youth Development Foundation, Mal Gorman. Although everyone says that Ellie is dead, Mika refuses to believe that she is. Even a year after Ellie's "death", Mika still believes his sister is alive. His parents seek help from an old lady named Helen who always seems to know more than she says. In the beginning of the book, Ellie is flying a Pod Fighter, along with a Capuchin monkey named Puck that Mal Gorman gave to her. They are flying over the Atlantic Ocean, and she flies toward her home, Barford North. There, Mal's forces try to kill her. Soon, her Pod Fighter is shot down, and she is forced into flood-waters. Mal Gorman captures her, and in her anger she nearly kills him with her mutant powers. She was outnumbered, captured, and taken to the Lab to be examined with Puck, for they were both clearly underestimated. Back home, Mika does not believe Ellie is dead. He still grieves at her absence. He sleeps in her bed, and does not move. Eventually, his parents send him to school. At his school, he meets a new person - a boy named Kobi who came from the shadows. During the day, a nurse comes from the Youth Development Foundation. She tells all the children that they will have to drink a product called "Fit Mix". Mika refuses to drink it because of the fact that she reminded him of a "tellyhead", and is punished with a 100 credit fine and a week long suspension. During his suspension, he has strange dreams. Once, he has a dream of a dog he calls Awen, who reappears in his conscious states and acts as his guide in the book. His nightmares consist of people with televisions for heads who he calls the "Telly Heads". When his suspension is finished, all the kids seem to be obsessed with a new arcade game called Pod Fighter. Helen told him that she now has to leave so she said "if you play pod fighter you will most probably find your sister Ellie". Soon, he learns that there will be a competition with prizes of a new companion, which is a futuristic cell-phone like device that has an artificial intelligence that emulates the personality of a human, a hover car, and a new house in the Golden Turrets in London. The Golden Turrets are a set of large fancy towers that are painted gold and made up of enclosed apartments for the very wealthiest people in London. At school, the kids take "Fit Camp". While taking the camp, the instructor pushes them to the limit. He makes them exercise when they are out of breath, and they do unimaginable exercises until their feet bleed. But none of them know that they are being prepared for something else. Later, Mika makes his way up the Pod Fighter chart and moves to the second round after winning the first round of a Pod Fighter competition, with his faithful gunner, Audrey, a new girl with Borg eyes. Audrey also seems to be a love interest for Mika. Mika, Audrey and one hundred other kids are selected to do further training at a fake island. They are taken to the fake resort that resembles the Caribbean Islands. While their parents relax, they are given numerous physical challenges. They give the children a new challenge with harpoons; shooting Borg fish. Mika is accidentally hit but is quickly healed. Before he moves on to the next round they do strange experiments on him and teach him to move things with his mind. In his first test, he is paired up with a boy named Ruben, his arch-enemy. They both lift up a red ball with their mind, and accidentally set it on fire. While the room is being cleared out, they nearly kill each other. After some of the special children with slight mutations (including Mika and Audrey) are given extreme tests, like meeting Borg wolves, while in a cage to see how the Borg wolves will react to them, he is taken to a military base in Scotland called Cape Wrath. There he has more tests done to him. After staying for a while, they have a dinner where they announce the winners. He meets Mal Gorman, who to Mika resembles one of the Telly Heads from his dream, and the rest of the Youth Development board. Mika is announced the winner. Mr Gorman tells Mika he can have his sister. He needs to know he can trust him so he tells Mika he has to stay in his apartment and come back to Cape Wrath the next day. When Mika goes to his new home in the Golden Turrets, there is an uproar: the government has taken all the children from The Shadows for a war no one knows about. Mika and Audrey escape to get away from the horde of people in a pod fighter. They go over the wall and see that there is a forest with animals and people. They are outraged and fly back to the military to find Mal and ask him why he has been lied to. Mal tells him that 30 years ago the plague was faked by a group of people who wanted the world for themselves. Mal was trying to make an army of children to fight off the people in the southern hemispheric. And he says that he overworked the children in fit camp to prepare them for war. After he lets Mika see Ellie for the first time in a year, and they finally embrace each other. After meeting with Ellie, they fly a Pod Fighter back towards Barford North, hoping to tell their family of the good news. |
A Beautiful Blue Death | Charles Finch | 2,007 | The novel, set in 1865 London, follows Charles Lenox as he seeks to solve a murder. Lenox is an independently wealthy gentleman who enjoys solving crimes as a hobby, though he generally prefers to pass the cold winter days in his library with a cup of tea, a roaring fire and a good book. He is drawn into a new case when his lifelong friend Lady Jane Grey makes a special request for his help. Prudence Smith, Grey's former housemaid, is dead in an apparent suicide. But Lenox immediately suspects foul play: murder by a rare and deadly poison. Smith lived and worked in the patrician house of George Barnard, a place full of suspects. While Smith played with more than a few hearts, the motive behind her death proves elusive. When another body turns up during the season's most fashionable ball, Lenox must untangle the web of loyalties and animosities surrounding Barnard’s mansion. Lenox receives help with the task both from his faithful valet, Graham, and his friend, Dr. Thomas McConnell. Throughout the story, Lenox’s efforts are intermittently enabled or hampered by Scotland Yard Inspector James Exeter, who requires Lenox’s help with the case but wants always to appear in total control. The subplots of the novel focus on Lenox's evolving personal relationship with Grey and McConnell's strained marriage to Lady Victoria "Toto" Phillips, all recurring characters in Finch's books. |
Tara of the Twilight | Lin Carter | null | Tara, a foundling, has been raised as the ward of Chanthu the sorcerer to be a War Maid, a member of an order of virgin swordswomen. At sixteen she is sent on a quest into the Twilight, a dim, dangerous and mysterious realm full of violence and magic, to discover the mystery of her origins. Her friend and protector Khaldur, a highly intelligent lion-like carnivore, accompanies her. Unfortunately for Tara (the goddess of her order being quite strict on the virginity requirement), the Twilight proves to be a hotbed of decadence and perversion. Her quest devolves a series of captivities and escapes, in which she is in turn separated from and reunited with her feline guardian. She is successively enslaved by lecherous inhabitants of the city of Paltossa, the Northern Barbarians, the sorceresses of the Witch Wood, and the sorcerer Sarkon and his three Womanthing minions. During the course of her adventures she picks up additional companions, including the bisexual girl Evalla, the Lion Warrior Thund, and the teenage boy Zorak, all of whom provide opportunities for sex play between adventures. Throughout all, she somehow manages to maintain a technical virginity, primarily because her various antagonists seem too depraved to consider ordinary intercourse, while her male companions are either too honorable, too inhibited, or too distracted by Evalla. The novel ends with the quest unfinished and the mysteries of Tara's heritage and destiny unresolved, with the travelers flying onward to new adventures in their magical air-gondola. |
Dominant Species | Michael E. Marks | 2,009 | The protagonist is Major Dan Ridgeway, the leader of a USMC Rapid Assault Team, or RAT squad. Ridgeway carries a heavy personal burden from a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" decision that won him official acclaim early in his military career. Ridgeway's squad is deployed to a distant planet where workers at a lucrative and strategically critical mining operation have seceded and aligned with an opposing government. The key to reclaiming the facility intact lies in a surgical strike against a deep-underground reactor that powers the ground-based defense systems. Employing an unorthodox means of infiltrating the outer defenses, the RAT squad's powered armor allows them to carve a straight line to the reactor and affix explosives to its hull. Their egress is impeded by stiff resistance and as time runs out, Ridgeway opts for a last-ditch means of survival in the face of the reactor's imminent detonation. The avenue of escape leaves the Marines stranded in an even deeper series of frozen caverns below the reactor level. Searching for a means of escape and a safe environment to deal with injuries, they discover two things: that one member of the opposing military force, a lowly truck driver, has inadvertently fallen along with the Marines, and of far greater impact that an immense starship pitched on her side kilometers below the planet's surface. Despite the immediately obvious mystery, Ridgeway maintains a firm "not our job to solve mysteries" focus and views the ship only as a means to address his team's survival. Viewing the driver as a potential source of information, they bring him along and enter the ship to grapple with extracting the means to repair, refit and escape. After considerable effort and several life-threatening encounters created entirely by the hazardous environment, the Marines restore limited power within the ship and in so doing begin to unravel pieces of her history and a remarkable technology that saves the life of the driver, Jenner, and Darcy, a member of Ridgeway's team. But it quickly becomes obvious that more than just the power has re-awakened on the ship. While pursuing a means of reaching the surface, the Marines are with increasing frequency and intensity engaged in ways that stress them to the breaking point. Discovering evidence of what appears to be a horrific atrocity against the ship's original crew, the weight of Ridgeway's longstanding internal burden and the need to save his team come into alignment on a path that cuts directly through the alien species. What remains is a series of blistering firefights, personal sacrifices and displays of both loyalty and frailty that lead to the book's ultimate conclusion. The book challenges traditional definitions of humanity and the way we perceive one another. |
Hate That Cat | Sharon Creech | 2,008 | This is the second book about Jack, the first being Love That Dog. Jack is being terrorized by a black cat and he writes poetry about how much he dislikes the cat. The story follows him through learning to like both cats and poetry. |
The Pitcher Shower | Donald Harington | 2,005 | Landon "Hoppy" Boyd shows two Western movies (made in 1937) in a small town. After he leaves, he finds that a teenager named Carl has stowed away in his truck. Hoppy takes a liking to Carl and breaks his usual rule of returning stowaways to their homes. Carl is a helpful partner on the trip and in the next town (and a skilled barber), despite his habit of wandering at night in the woods, where he converses with fairies. He proves to be a seventeen-year-old girl, Sharline Whitlow. In the following town, Hoppy and Sharline meet Emmett Binns, an itinerant evangelist who had once tried to molest Sharline. Sharline and Hoppy begin a sexual relationship. Despite tension with Binns, Hoppy treats him to some moonshine whiskey and shows Binns his pornographic movie, and later that night Binns is arrested for assaulting an underage girl. In the next town, Hoppy finds that his movies are missing. He blames Binns and starts a search with the cooperation of his handsome and charming friend Arlis Faught. Hoppy buys the only movie he can: the 1935 version of A Midsummer Night's Dream. The film fascinates Arlis and Sharline. The next day Hoppy happens to see Arlis and Sharline having sex in the woods. Later, while Arlis and Sharline are together, Arlis's frustrated girlfriend Helen Milsap visits Hoppy. They share moonshine that Hoppy got from a "puckish" man named Goodfeller. They fall for each other but are interrupted during fellatio by Arlis and Sharline. As the projector's sound is broken, that night the four show A Midsummer Night's Dream reading the parts themselves. Having recognized the parallels to their situation, Hoppy plays Lysander (and Bottom), Arlis plays Demetrius, Sharline plays Hermia, and Helen plays Helena, in addition to other roles for each. The fairies Sharline sees now appear to the four "voice actors" and the audience. At midnight, after the movie, they hear that Binns has been sighted. Hoppy chases his car but cannot find him. The next day Arlis and Helen leave for California. Hoppy and Sharline find Binns's car in a ravine. Sharline climbs down to it; Binns is not in it, and she recovers the missing films and a good deal of money. An epilogue describes what happens to the characters during the next few decades, with reference to Harington's previous and planned novels (referred to as "movies"). Hoppy and Sharline buy a movie theater and Sharline opens a barbershop; their son (possibly Arlis's) grows up in both places. |
Perchance to Dream | Robert B. Parker | null | Set a few years after the events of The Big Sleep, the new novel begins with long passages of text lifted from the original to set the scene, establish the characters, and remind readers of the events of the first book. The story is set in motion by the death of family patriarch General Sternwood. Marlowe is called to the Sternwood mansion in the hills of Los Angeles by Norris, the butler. He finds older daughter Vivian still in residence and still dating gangster Eddie Mars but her younger sister Carmen, still tormented by the events of the original story, has been sent off to live at Resthaven, a luxurious psychiatric rehabilitation facility. When Carmen disappears from the rest home, Norris hires Marlowe to find her. |
The Mars Project | Wernher von Braun | 1,952 | The Mars Project is a technical specification for a manned mission to Mars that von Braun wrote in 1948. The expected launch date was 1965. He envisioned an "enormous scientific expedition" involving a fleet of ten spacecraft with 70 crew members that would spend 443 days on the surface of Mars before returning to Earth. The spacecraft, seven passenger ships and three cargo ships, would be assembled in Earth orbit using materials supplied by reusable space shuttles. The fleet would use a nitric acid/hydrazine propellant that, although corrosive and toxic, could be stored without refrigeration during the three-year round-trip to Mars. He calculated the size and weight of each ship, and how much fuel they would require for the round trip (5,320,000 metric tons). Hohmann trajectories would be used to move from Earth- to Mars-orbit, and von Braun computed each rocket burn necessary to effect the required manoeuvres. Once in Mars orbit, the crew would use telescopes to find a suitable site for their base camp near the equator. A manned winged craft would detach itself from one of the orbiting ships and glide down to one of Mars' poles and use skis to land on the ice. The crew would then travel 6,500 km overland using crawlers to the identified base camp site and build a landing strip. The rest of the ground crew would descend from orbit to the landing strip in wheeled gliders. A skeleton crew would remain behind in the orbiting ships. The gliders would also serve as ascent craft to return the crew to the mother ships at the end of the ground mission. Von Braun based his Mars Project on the large Antarctic expeditions of the day. For example, Operation Highjump (1946–1947) was a United States Navy program that included 4,700 men, 13 ships and 23 aircraft. At the time, Antarctic explorers were cut off from the rest of the world and the necessary skills had to be on hand to deal with any problem that arose. Von Braun expected the Martian explorers to face similar problems and included a large multi-disciplined crew in his mission, and multiple ships and landers for redundancy to reduce risk to personnel. |
Women of the apocalypse | null | 2,009 | Four archangels discuss how a simple assignment went so terribly wrong. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are coming and so the Archangels found the perfect champions to save the world: fighters, warriors, and soldiers. These chosen champions must drink a shooter that will imbue them with divine powers to battle the Four Horsemen. A mistake is made when four random women drink the divine concoction. Alexandra Carlton, Julia Wolfe, Emily Keller and Dinah Medrano must all take up the mantles of champions. Alexandra Carlton, a waitress at a sports bar, inadvertently becomes the champion destined to take on the First Horseman of the Apocalypse by drinking a shooter given to her as a tip. Shortly thereafter, she meets the Archangel Raphael, who has been charged with preparing Alexandra for her quest. The story focuses on Alexandra's attempts to learn “the ways of the Horseman” in order to stop him, as increasingly erotic visions of that Horseman and Raphael's apparent reluctance to give her any useful information thwart her. A refugee lawyer, Dinah Medrano, is approached by the Archangel Michael to be a champion to defend the Earth from the Apocalypse, specifically the Horseman of War. At first, Dinah is resistant to the presented challenge because she is convinced that Michael is not sane. However, when she realizes she has been gifted with powers to manipulate water and heal people, Dinah accepts Archangel Michael’s challenge in order to save her sister, Fatima, who is suffering from cancer. The story focuses on Dinah’s attempts to cease the progress of the Horseman of War, despite the complications that arise when she discovers the Horseman of War is a former angel. After missing a day of work because of a severe hangover, Emily Keller returns to find an elderly man assigned as a trainee to the concrete truck she drives for her father’s company. Arthur Capella is the name adopted by Urial, the Archangel of Music, who is tasked with persuading Emily that she is the champion who must confront and defeat the Apocalyptic Horseman, Famine. Emily, a modern young woman, living in a world of online social networking, is not easily persuaded, until she finds out that her good friend Donald, not only is the Horseman Famine, he is also responsible for killing both her mother and her mentor, Twinkie. Famine, in this story, seeks to destroy the populations of the developed world by a devious kind of starvation caused by the dwindling nutrition in refined and convenience food. Julia Wolfe is a particle scientist involved in a secret fusion project located two miles beneath the surface. The project, dubbed Eden by the members of the scientific team, is working on achieving positive fusion, a goal that could spell the end of the world's energy problems. As the project nears completion, Julia finds her personal life unraveling. From troubling dreams to dissatisfaction with her marriage, she begins question her place within Eden and wonders if she needs to leave. However, when the fusion reactor malfunctions throwing Eden into darkness and chaos, Julia realizes they are not alone in the deep. It is up to Julia to protect them against the horsemen Death. More than their lives hang in the balance. If she fails, Death will escape from Eden and wash over the surface world. |
La Croix du Sanguine Rouge | null | null | It's about a young French girl named Anne, in Germany during the start of World War II. She is courted by a young man in the Nazi Youth, named Daniel, opposed to the actions of Germany. As the war intensifies, she becomes unable to leave the country, and is presumed by her family to be dead. Near the end of the war, the couple is able to flee to France, Anne under the guise of a German nurse. Upon arrival, she is shocked to find that her father and older brother were killed, and her mother and younger brother are missing in the French countryside. She never finds them again. The story ends with the marriage of Anne and Daniel, and the book is found to be a narrative by Anne to her children, after Daniel's death. |
The Better Man | null | null | Mukundan, retired from government service, returns to the village of Kaikurussi where he was born. He is upset, viewing his life as a failure. He meets "One-screw-loose-Bhasi", a local eccentric, a housepainter and an inverter of an odd system of alternative medicine. He helps Mukundan transform himself. Then Power House Ramakrishnan, a locally important man, decides to build a Community hall, and selects Bhasi's land. He threatens to destroy Bhasi's business if he refuses to sell the land. Mukundan intends to save Bhasi's land but is flattered into accepting membership on the project committee. Then Mukundan's father dies, and he undergoes a deeper transformation. |
The Emperor's Code | Gordon Korman | 2,010 | After an argument with his sister in Beijing's Forbidden City, Dan Cahill is kidnapped by Ian and Natalie Kabra. He is dumped in Jonah Wizard's lollipop factory where Jonah treats him nicely and gives out his own suite, taking him to a concert, and letting him fly first class. Meanwhile, Amy Cahill and Nellie are searching for him, and head to Alistair Oh to get help in finding Dan. Alistair translates a Chinese newspaper saying that Jonah is going to the Great Wall of China. However, Jonah cancels his flight to the Great Wall, knowing that Amy and Nellie are going there; he then goes to a Wushu City, where Dan takes Wushu lessons. Later, while Dan explores a tunnel he finds lab equipment from Gideon Cahill's lab and a picture of Madeleine Cahill that belonged to the notorious Anne Bonny. The Wizards get a mysterious message that gives coordinates saying to go to a specific spot at the Terra Cotta Warrior's resting place. Meanwhile, Amy and Nellie look for Dan at the Great Wall and find a secret door. Nellie picks the lock and they come into a room. After Amy's Feng Shui style organizing, a light shines in showing Mt. Everest. While they were searching the Great Wall, Jonah and Dan checked out the Warriors. Jonah meant to send Dan in alone in case it was a trap, and it was. They were put in jail. Jonah's Dad gets them out and Jonah decides to quit the hunt. Cora Wizard, his mother, is disgusted and slaps Jonah telling Dan that they have discovered his branch is Janus. Dan tells them he is a Madrigal and leaves the shocked Wizards. After he leaves, he sees the Holts climbing Mt. Everest on television. Grace had stored an advanced helicopter, the A-Star, in rural China and told Amy and Dan about it knowing they would need it in the future eventually. Dan, knowing the location of the A-Star, travels to it. When Amy and Nellie get the A-Star ready, Dan meets up with them. Dan and Amy head up to Mt. Everest in the A-Star where they found a serum embedded in Mt. Everest. They lose the serum when Ian falls off the edge of a cliff. He hangs on to the edge and Amy saves him letting the serum plunge miles below, with Amy knowing that they already had another form of the clue with them- the piece of silk. Amy then explains that the serum was silk in its liquid form. After Amy finds the inscription indicating it was Anne Bonny's, they then head to the Caribbean to search for their next clue that Anne Bonny may have left there. The secret message throughout the book was "Madrigals are behind everything. They lay out the path, the others will walk. The end is coming." This code is circled throughout the book. The code on the cover, the message of animal codes on the emperor's crown, reads "Tenzing knew too." The crown also has the words "Because it's there", which is one of the quotes by a person in the book. |
The Cruelest Month | Louise Penny | 2,008 | The novel, set in the small Canadian town of Three Pines, takes place around the Easter season. A group of friends visits a haunted house, hoping to rid it of the evil spirits that have haunted it, and the village, for decades. One of them ends up dead, apparently of fright. Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his team from the Sûreté du Québec investigate the old house and the villagers of Three Pines. |
The Beginnings – Malayalam | null | 2,007 | The semi-autobiographical story is set in a small rural town in Kerala, India. When the story begins, the author is preparing to start his journey from Kollam to join a newly created Engineering college, Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Technology, Kottayam. The author takes us through his experience in the new college, which had no facilities whatsoever, and then goes on to talk about the social and political climate in Kerala during that time. Soon, he introduces us to a girl with whom he later falls in love. The story then takes us through the girl's experience where she is a witness to the murder of a nun - a case very similar to the infamous Sister Abhaya murder case that rocked the state during the same time period as the story's timeline. |
Freddy Plays Football | null | null | When Mrs. Bean’s long lost brother, Aaron Doty, appears, he and his storytelling are warmly received. Soon the animals realize the stories of his accomplishments are lies, and Freddy begins to wonder if he is who he claims. Since taking his share of Mrs. Bean’s inheritance would force the Beans to sell the farm, Freddy urgently investigates. Evidence mounts, including a conversation overheard between Doty and the Bean animals’ old enemy Mr. Garble. The animals hold a rally, determining that Doty is a fake. Mrs. Bean however is unconvinced. By chance Freddy is drawn into a high school football game. He cannot pass or catch, but his offensive rushing is unstoppable. With the agreement that he attend high school classes, Freddy joins the team. Since it is not possible for Freddy to attend school regularly, his cousin Weedly doubles for him, causing them both to be “half-educated”. Freddy’s first game is a success. Mrs. Bean decides to pay Doty $5000, which she is forced to borrow. Freddy convinces the bank to give the money to him, and promptly disappears with it. The Beans are furious, and the sheriff has no option but to search for Freddy and arrest him. Freddy narrowly escapes being shot by Mr. Garble — but the sheriff has thoughtfully loaded Garble's gun with blanks. At first the money is hidden in the forest, but when Freddy is jailed it winds up being baked in a pie made accidentally of plaster of paris. Finally the animals trick Doty into revealing his real name, and he leaves the farm. Out on bail, Freddy continues playing football. Old Whibley the Owl defends Freddy in court, pointing out that neither of the key witnesses has reliable vision, and therefore could not positively identify Freddy as the thief. The judge lets Freddy off with a warning. Freddy is in good form for the important football game with a neighboring rival town, who have brought their own animals to match Freddy. The Centerboro team adds more animals, ultimately winning. |
The Running Man | Stephen King | null | The story's protagonist, Ben Richards, is a citizen of Co-Op City (not to be confused with the real Co-Op City), a suburb of the fictional Harding, which is located somewhere in the Midwest, west of Detroit in the year 2025. The world's economy is in a shambles, and America has become a totalitarian dystopia. Richards is unable to find work, having been blacklisted from his trade, and he needs money to get medicine for his gravely ill daughter Cathy. His wife Sheila has resorted to prostitution to bring in money for the family. In desperation, Richards turns to the Games Network, a government-operated television station that runs violent game shows. After rigorous physical and mental testing, Richards is selected to appear on The Running Man, the Games Network's most popular, lucrative, and dangerous program. Richards meets with Network producer Dan Killian and Running Man host Bobby Thompson. The men proceed to discuss Richards' contract for appearing on the show, as well as the challenges he is expected to face when the game starts. The contestant is declared an enemy of the state and released with a 12-hour head start before the Hunters, an elite team of Games Network-employed hitmen, are sent out to kill him. The contestant earns $100 per hour that he stays alive and avoids capture, an additional $100 for each law enforcement officer or Hunter he kills, and one billion "New Dollars" if he survives for 30 days. Viewers can receive cash rewards for informing the Games Network of the runner's whereabouts. The record time for survival is eight days and five hours — a mark that Richards eventually surpasses. The runner is given $4,800 and a pocket video camera before he leaves the studio. He can travel anywhere in the world, and each day he must videotape two messages and mail them back to the studio for broadcasting. If he neglects to send the messages, he will be held in default of his Games contract and will lose the prize money, but will continue to be hunted indefinitely. As the game begins, Richards obtains a disguise and false identification records, traveling first to New York City and then Boston. In Boston, he is tracked down by the Hunters and only manages to escape by setting off an explosion in the basement of a YMCA building that kills five police officers. He narrowly escapes through a sewer pipe and emerges in the city's impoverished ghetto, where he takes shelter with gang member Bradley Throckmorton and his family. Richards learns from Bradley that the air is severely polluted and that the poor are kept down as a permanent underclass. Bradley also says that the Games Network exists only as a propaganda machine to pacify and distract the public. Richards tries to incorporate this information into his video messages, but finds that the Network dubs over his voice with obscenities and threats during the broadcast. Bradley smuggles Richards past a government checkpoint to Manchester, New Hampshire, where he disguises himself as a half-blind priest. In addition, Bradley provides Richards with re-mailing labels so that the Network will not be able to track him by the postmark on his videotapes. Richards spends a few days in Manchester, but he dreams that Bradley has betrayed him after being tortured. He travels to a safe house owned by a friend of Bradley in Portland, Maine, but he is reported by the owner's mother. As the police and the Hunters close in on the safe house, Richards is wounded, but he manages to escape. The next morning, after arranging to mail his videotapes, Richards carjacks a woman named Amelia Williams, holds her hostage, and makes his way to an airport in Derry, Maine, passing through the towns of Rockland, Camden, and Winterport along the way. Richards has a standoff at the airport and manages to bluff his way past Evan McCone, the lead Hunter, onto a plane by pretending he is carrying "Black Irish" a form of plastic explosives of almost nuclear explosive force. Richards takes both Amelia and McCone as prisoners. He has the plane fly low over populated areas to avoid being shot down by a surface-to-air missile. However, he is confronted by Killian on a video call, who states that he knows Richards does not have any explosives, as the plane's security system would have detected if he did. To Richards' surprise, Killian offers him the job of lead Hunter. Richards is hesitant to take the offer, worried that his family will become a target. Killian then informs him that Sheila and Cathy were brutally murdered over ten days earlier, even before Richards first appeared on the show. He gives Richards some time to make his decision. Richards falls asleep and dreams of his murdered family and a gruesome crime scene. With nothing left to lose, he calls Killian back and accepts the offer. He overpowers the flight crew and kills McCone, who mortally wounds him. After allowing Amelia to parachute to safety, Richards uses his last strength to override the plane's autopilot and fly the plane toward the skyscraper housing the Games Network. The book ends with the plane crashing into the tower, resulting in the deaths of Richards and Killian. The novel comes to a close with the description, "...and it rained fire twenty blocks away." |
Fox at the Front | Michael Dobson | null | The story picks up on December 27, 1944, just minutes after the climax to Fox on the Rhine, where Field Marshal Erwin Rommel has introduced himself to George Patton and offers to surrender Army Group B to him. Both generals agree that the threat of the Soviet Union was greater than all German forces under Heinrich Himmler, who has considered him a traitor. Rommel instructs Hasso von Manteuffel's Fifth Panzer Army and Heinz Guderian at the Sixth Panzer Army to surrender their units at the first Allied unit they encounter. However, given the large concentration of Waffen-SS forces in the Sixth, Himmler orders Jochen Peiper to take over the unit at its headquarters in Namur and counterattack against the Allies, even it meant killing Guderian in the process. After a US infantry force sent to accept Guderian's surrender is ambushed, Peiper marshals a small kampfgruppe from the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler to attack Rommel's Dinant headquarters, but is forced to withdraw because of the heavy US and German resistance. He also collects wounded German forces along the way during the trip back to the Rhine. Patton's liberation of Bastogne and the cooperation of Rommel's forces allows Third Army to race to the Rhine faster than the rest of the Allied forces by early January 1945, capturing a bridge in Koblenz to try cutting off as many SS units as they can. Some SS forces, including Peiper, make it across the Rhine. After he arrives in Berlin, Himmler puts Peiper in charge of the Das Reich division. Rommel is also facing tension on the German side, as he is being eyed to head the government-in-exile of the so-called German Democratic Republic (GDR), but decides to stay firm and command the Wehrmacht survivors from Army Group B, who have been called the German Republican Army (GRA). Having crossed the Rhine, the GRA and Third Army keeps pushing deep into the interior. All the while, Himmler orders Field Marshal Model to randomly reassign all Wehrmacht officers to prevent any conspiracies to defect, especially after US forces coordinate with General Karl Student in overseeing the surrender of Army Group H in Frankfurt. Meanwhile, on the Eastern Front, the Soviet Union resumes its assault across Poland as Stalin assigns political officer Alexis Krigoff to keep tabs on the attack. The zampolit also reports to the NKVD about generals who are too cautious in their attacks. Das Reich and the Sixth Panzer Army are sent to the Eastwall (a copycat of the Westwall) to help in the defense of the front. On February 18, a reconnaissance team from the US 19th Armored Division ambushes a train going out of Ettersburg. Upon derailing the train, the group discovers thousands of corpses and few survivors whom they provide medical assistance. Rommel is alerted and goes down to Ettersburg to see it personally. He discovers that the train came from the Buchenwald concentration camp and organizes an assault under the cover of a snowstorm with German troops in the lead. The camp is liberated and the prisoners are taken care of by Allied medical units. Rommel is horrified at the depths the Nazi party have reached in Germany's name, nearly killing some camp guards in anger. Although he leads the way in the cleanup, the Allied and GDR leadership convinces Rommel to let the proper medical authorities handle the workload at Buchenwald and concentrate on capturing Berlin ahead of the Soviets, who have stumbled upon the Auschwitz camp as well. On March 13, while Sixth Panzer Army tries to blunt the Soviet advance, the Allies execute Operation Eclipse - an airborne drop and ground assault on Berlin, where Sepp Dietrich surrenders all German forces in the city. A US commando raid also captures Himmler as he tries to escape to Czechoslovakia in a convoy. Enraged at having been beaten to Berlin, Stalin orders Zhukov to encircle the capital by sending his forces to the Elbe and cut off Third Army and the GRA from the rest of the Allied forces still in the west. Zhukov also uses the opportunity to heavily cripple the GRA forces in the northern outskirts while the encirclement continues. The Allied troops in the city are ordered not to attack the Soviets lest they become provoked to unleash their firepower on Berlin. Peiper, who was cut off during the Das Reichs retreat from Kustrin, is captured and sent to a reeducation camp in Siberia. Over the next few months, the Allies carry out a massive airlift operation into Berlin, providing reinforcements and supplies while evacuating civilians. The Soviets also use the period to bring more ground forces into the blockade. The uneasy calm is broken on July 1 when a US transport crashing on the Soviet lines after a major dogfight is interpreted on the ground as an Allied attack. The Soviets attack at all points throughout the blockade with the main thrust directed against the 19th Armored Division at Potsdam. However, Zhukov discovers that Krigoff was behind the assumption, having convinced the commander of the 2nd Guards Tank Army to press the attack, with the intent of capturing Gatow and Tempelhof airports. While the attack bogs down short of the airports because of Allied airstrikes, Patton believes that the next Soviet attack will break through the US lines. The determined Soviet assault forces the Manhattan Project to bring the atomic bomb that was supposed to be used for the Trinity test for deployment in Berlin. On the morning of July 8, General Groves oversees the drop of the Fat Man bomb aboard the Enola Gay with the Soviet artillery and armored concentration in Potsdam as the target. Although doubts persisted about whether the bomb will work, the explosion erases them altogether as it obliterates Potsdam, where Zhukov and Marshal Konev's headquarters is located. The shock value from the event also forces the other Soviet attacks to stop. In the aftermath of the bombing, Stalin agrees to withdraw all Red Army forces to the Polish side of the Oder River, but leaves behind a small force on the German side to fortify the area. British spy Kim Philby, who spent the past few months digging for information on the atomic bomb, is killed by British Intelligence as he attempts to alert the Soviets that the Berlin bomb was the only working copy (having been tricked by a fake stockpile several days before). Krigoff, who was sent to Lubyanka prison after the siege, narrates his part of the story to Stalin before he is killed in his cell. The United Nations also convenes a war crimes tribunal to try all Nazis, but Himmler himself would not make it to the courtroom, as the US soldiers who discovered Buchenwald leave him to die in a camp with Jews and other inmates. Other subplots in Fox at the Front include the struggle of a B-24 Liberator crewmember who crashed in Fox on the Rhine and his stay in Buchenwald alongside Rommel's personal driver, a teenage Volksgrenadier soldier who is later fielded into the Hitlerjugend and Das Reich divisions, and the exploits of Fox on the Rhine character Gunther von Reinhardt as he negotiates for a peaceful solution with Himmler. Like in the previous novel, the fictional history book War's Final Fury by Professor Jared Gruenwald provides further insights into the events of the novel. |
Have a Little Faith | null | null | Albom (Mitchel David "Mitch" Albom) writes in the introduction to this book that the idea for it began with the request by Albert L. Lewis, his childhood rabbi, to write and deliver the eulogy when the time came for the rabbi's funeral. Albom agreed, contingent on an agreement that he could begin a series of interviews and conversations, in order to get to know Lewis as a man, not just as a rabbi. Albom writes that his conversations with Lewis -- whom he refers to as the Reb, an affectionate term drawn from the Yiddish word for rabbi -- eventually led to an increased interest on Albom's part in the power and meaning of faith in a larger sense. In his hometown of Detroit, he forged a link with Pastor Henry Covington, an African-American Protestant minister at the I Am My Brother's Keeper Church. Covington, a past drug-addict, dealer, and ex-convict, was ministering to the needs of his down-and-out parishioners, in an urban church serving a largely homeless congregation, in a church so poor that the roof leaked when it rained. The book alternates between his conversations with Lewis, and excerpts from some of his sermons; and Life of Henry, the title of the sections describing his conversations with Covington, and stories about him. From his relationships with these two very different men of faith, Albom writes about the difference faith can make in the world. As Albom writes: This is a story about believing in something and the two very different men who taught me how. It took a long time to write. It took me to churches and synagogues, to the suburbs and the city, to the "us" versus "them" that divides faith around the world. And finally, it took me home, to a sanctuary filled with people, to a casket made of pine,to a pulpit that was empty."In the beginning, there was a question. It became a last request. "Will you do my eulogy?" And, as is often the case with faith, I thought I was being asked a favor, when in fact I was being given one." Albom has told interviewers that he believes that the reason Lewis originally asked him to deliver the eulogy may actually have been a way to draw him back to the roots of his own faith, and "back to God a little bit." Albom included a number of Lewis's many stories, which were used as mini-sermons for his congregation, in the book. One example is this story, delivered in 1981: A soldier's little girl, whose father was being moved to a distant post, was sitting at the airport among her family's meager belongings. The girl was sleepy. She leaned against the packs and duffel bags. A lady came by, stopped, and patted her on the head. "Poor child," she said. "You haven't got a home." The child looked up in surprise. "But we do have a home," she said. "We just don't have a house to put it in." The book, both about individuals with faith and faith itself, concludes with the eulogy that Albom delivered at Lewis's funeral, on February 12, 2008. It included the words: I didn't want to eulogize you. I was afraid. I felt a congregant could never eulogize his leader. But I realize now that thousands of congregants will eulogize you today, in their car rides home, over the dinner table. A eulogy is no more than a summation of memories, and we will never forget you, because we cannot forget you, because we will miss you every day. To imagine a world without you in it is to imagine a world with a little less God in it, and yet , because God is not a diminishing resource, I cannot believe that. In addition to the eulogy, the book describes the fact that funeral attendees were surprised to hear a seven minute taped message from Lewis, which he specifically prepared to be played at the funeral. In it, he delivers his final teaching to his congregation, touching on questions about God and immortality; expressing his gratitude to friends and family for the privilege of knowing them; and ending with the words, Shalom Haverim -- Goodbye, Friends. |
The Right to Write | Julia Cameron | 1,999 | "The Right to Write" is a followup bestseller after Cameron's international bestseller entitled The Artist's Way. "The Right to Write" begins with an introduction and has 43 individual sections along with initiation tools at the end of each chapter. There are also suggested readings by the author listed after the final section. The author uses her own experiences and examples as details for the writing process while using metaphor and other figures of speech. The main focus of "The Right to Write" stated in the introduction is "to heal writers who are broken, initiate writers who are afraid, and entice writers who are standing at river's edge, wanting to put a toe in." Also stated in the introduction is the phrase, "This book is less than a "how to" book than a "why" book. |
Le miroir de Cassandre | Bernard Werber | 2,009 | ;"Il sera une fois" (There will be) Cassandra Katzenberg has the ability to see into the future, but cannot remember anything before the bomb attack in Egypt which killed both her parents. After running away from the school of the Hirondelles, she finds refuge in "Redemption", a village improvised by 4 refugees in a dump yard. ;"Il est une fois" (There is) ;"Il était une fois" (There has been) fr:Le Miroir de Cassandre ko:카산드라의 거울 |
The Seven Heroes and Five Gallants | null | null | In ancient China's Northern Song Dynasty, Bao Zheng rises from humble beginnings to high office at the imperial court, gathering around him a group of Robin Hood-type men to fight crime and corruption. Using their exceptional fighting talents, the seven heroes and five gallants rescue maidens in distress, succor the old and weak, kill evildoers, and bring corrupt officials before Justice Bao. When the Prince of Xiangyang plots rebellion, the brave men set out to foil his plans. |
Rosapenna | null | null | The focus in Rosapenna is the conflict in Northern Ireland, which "Jo Vendt" is covering as a journalist. Other central characters in the novel are the English soldier "Sammy Jenkins", who has a background as a poor boy from Whitechapel, and the poor IRA girl "Brigid Doherty". The novel is set in 1973. "Vendt" has been instructed to cover the conflict from a pro British point of view, and is prepared to satisfy the editor in this respect, and to write about James Joyce and Brendan Behan from the cultural side. He eventually gets in contact with IRA people in Ardoyne, an Irish Nationalist district of North Belfast, and move in with a family in the ghetto The Bone. From then on he is on a collision course with his newspaper editor. He becomes disgusted with the misrepresented reports delivered by the journalist corps, and tries to understand the underlying reasons for the conflict in Northern Ireland. |
Checkmate in Rio | null | null | The story takes place in January 1964. After the events described in "The China Doll", six AXE agents based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, have been found mutilated and murdered in a short space of time. Nick Carter (undercover as shady millionaire businessman Robert Milbank) accompanied by fellow agent Rosalind Adler (posing as Milbank’s mistress, Rosita Montez) are sent to investigate. Carter (as Milbank) uses his apparent wealth and influence to enter the higher social circles in Rio de Janeiro and quickly meets socialite Carla Langley – wife of one of the missing agents. Next, posing as American journalist, Michael Nolan, Carter interviews the wife of Joao de Santos, a local investigative reporter, and another of the missing agents. Meanwhile, Agent Adler investigates the background of missing agent Carlos Brenha, assistant curator at a local museum. As a result of their probing, a seedy nightclub quickly becomes the focus of attention. In the club’s basement, Carter discovers a cache of illegal weapons imported from China. Carter is knocked out and imprisoned in the club basement. The ringleader is revealed to be Carla Langley who is working for communist China to import illegal arms and execute minor spies in the hope that a special agent (i.e. Carter) would be sent to investigate and whom they intend to torture and kill to extract valuable information. Carter is tied to a rack and beaten but manages to escape. Rosalind Adler arrives in the nick of time and overpowers the guards with a non-lethal gas bomb (nicknamed Pepito). Carter executes the club owner and second-in-command (Luis Silveiro) and is about to do the same to Carla Langley when he discovers the gas bomb has rendered her an insane, gibbering wreck. He leaves her screaming in the night. |
Hearts Aflame | Johanna Lindsey | 1,987 | *Time/era of story - Vikings/Norse era *Abusive: - treated like a slave *Difficult/unusual lover? Yes *Captor, in love with Yes *If one lover chases another... - she chases after him - they alternate *Who's in charge? - he is *Abusive lover? Yes |
Ishmael and the Return of the Dugongs | Michael Gerard Bauer | 2,007 | The novel continues on from the end of Don't Call Me Ishmael. It is about a fifteen-year-old boy named Ishmael and his friends/debating team- James, Ignatius, Orazio and Bill. Ishmael tries to hook-up with a girl named Kelly Faulkner, at the same time as keeping away from the school bully, Barry Bagsley. Along with that, Ishmael's father's band, "The Dugongs" tries to reform. |
Quarry | Ally Kennen | 2,011 | Scrappy, a 15-year-old boy, lives in a breaker's yard next to the motorway and is being sent crazy anonymous dares. Once he gets caught up in them, he finds he can't stop, no matter how much he wants to, and the last challenges send him to the very edge. |
Sufferings in Africa: The Incredible True Story of a Shipwreck, Enslavement, and Survival on the Sahara | James Riley | 1,817 | Upon landing in the ship's leaky boat, Riley and his crew began to make repairs to return to the ship, rather than face a desert rescue. The repairs were incomplete when a native armed with a spear arrived, and helped himself to their meager supplies. After filling up his arms with what he could carry off he left and returned with two others also carrying spears. Riley stayed back to distract the Arabs and give his men a chance to escape in the loaded and unfinished boat. They made it, but without Riley, who offered his captors money in exchange for his life. With their agreement, crew member Antonio Michele swam to shore to pay them. At which point Riley ran out into the water to join his men. After Riley was safe in the boat all he could do was watch while an Arab stabbed Michele in the stomach and dragged his body away, which caused Riley tremendous feelings of guilt. As the ship, still aground, was unusable, unable to reach what are now the islands of Cape Verde, the crew decided to sail to the South while hoping for rescue, which did not come. After nine days, out of food and water, they returned to the shore at an isolated beach 200 miles further South, with the realization that they would probably be killed just as quickly as Michele. They reached the shore, which was surrounded by high cliffs. Riley told his men to begin digging for water. He climbed to the top of the cliffs, and found himself staring at the edge of a vast expanse of flat desert. His crew joined him, and together they started to walk inland hoping for rescue by a friendly tribe. But soon they were without hope, enduring 120 degree heat during the day, and freezing temperatures at night. Out of food and water, Riley resolved that they should either accept death, or offer themselves as slaves to the first tribe they encounter, which is exactly what happened. A large gathering of men and camels appeared on the horizon, and the crew approached them. The tribe started to fight among themselves, to determine who would become the slave-owners. The crew became separated when they were taken as slaves by different groups, which then went their own ways. Riley recounts in his memoirs the terrifying days spent in their servitude. After a while, he learned some of the language, and was able to communicate in a rudimentary way. One day during his captivity some Arabs arrived seeking a trade with his master. Riley asked two of them, Seti Hamet and his brother, if they would buy him and his fellow shipmates and bring them to the closest city which was Mogador (now Essaouira), hundreds of miles away to the North. Seti Hamet was moved by Riley's desire to save his friends and agreed to buy them if Riley would pay him cash and a gun when they arrived at the city. Riley promised that he had a friend there who would pay him upon their safe arrival, which was totally untrue, for Riley knew nobody. Hamet promised to slit his throat if he was lying. When the time came for Riley to write the note, he was terrified. How could he write a note to a perfect stranger, begging him for several hundred dollars? He had no choice. In the note he explained who he was and described his situation. Traveling through the desert caused all to suffer - master and slave alike. There was little food for the already starving American men, and little water for everyone. Amazingly, they traveled the distance to the city - several hundred miles, constantly in fear of marauding hunter tribes. They were especially in fear of a father-in-law of one of the brothers, who was out to settle a dispute. Eventually they arrived at the outskirts, and Hamet took the note into town, which was addressed to the town's consul. He met a young man in the city, who, it turns out, worked as an assistant to a British merchant who also acted as a kind of consul and agent. Hamet told this man about his "friend" and gave him the note. This consul, William Willshire, was impressed by the sincerity of the note, agreed to pay. They rode out in a group to meet the men as they waited outside the city and Willshire greeted Riley with hugs and tears. Riley sent his remaining men home to America, but stayed behind for just a few days. Seti Hamet, his former master, promised that he would return to the desert to look for the missing crew members. Riley went back to America, and was reunited with his wife and their five children in Connecticut. Two of the missing men were later returned to the States, and Riley heard of two Arabs who were stoned to death out in the desert by marauders. He was convinced that they were his former masters, trying to keep their word. |
Solar | Ian McEwan | null | Michael Beard is an eminent, Nobel Prize winning physicist whose own life is chaotic and complicated. The novel takes the reader chronologically through three significant periods in Beard's life: 2000, 2005 and 2009, interspersed with some recollections of his student days in Oxford. Beard heads a fictional research centre in the British town of Reading but has little faith in the project and sits primarily as a political mascot. He is unfaithful to his fifth wife, Patrice, just as he was to his previous four wives. Instead of recriminations and threats of leaving, Patrice embarks upon an affair with their builder. Beard decides he has found the perfect wife just as he is losing her, and falls into a deep depression. To counter this, he agrees on a trip to the Arctic, in order to research climate change. He turns out to be the only scientist on an expedition dominated by artists. On his return home Beard learns that his wife has also been having an affair with his junior colleague Tom Aldous. During a tense encounter with Beard, Aldous dies in a freak accident, and Beard inherits his secret research into techniques for artificial photosynthesis. Beard frames Patrice's builder boyfriend Tarpin, who is jailed for Aldous's death. Despite a history of humiliating media coverage, Beard manages to build a reputation as a champion of solar energy, in the process passing Aldous's research off as his own. He has been fired from his job in Reading, but is working on plans for an artificial photosynthesis plant. Beard continues to put on weight and his gastronomic indulgence is described in regular detail. He has a doting girlfriend Melissa who is desperate for a child. Time is running out for her, and so, taking matters into her own hands, she becomes pregnant. Beard is now fatter, and sixty-two years old. He is not in the best of health, and is worried about a suspicious-looking lesion on his wrist. His solar power plant is in the final stages of construction in Lordsburg, New Mexico, where he has acquired another girlfriend, Darlene, a waitress. Darlene wants to marry him, but he has a very comfortable set-up with Melissa and his three year old daughter, Catriona. All his problems culminate on the eve of the opening ceremony for his solar power plant. Tarpin is out of jail and turns up looking for work, Melissa flies to New Mexico with his daughter to try and win him over from Darlene, a patent lawyer arrives with proof that he stole his ideas from the now-dead Aldous, his doctor confirms the lesion on his hand is cancerous, his business partner abandons him to multi-million dollar debts, and then he learns that somebody (presumably Tarpin) has sabotaged his power plant by smashing the solar panels. In the final scene Beard gets an "unfamiliar, swelling sensation" in his heart which he interprets as love for his daughter, but may well be the onset of a heart attack. |
Palos of the Dog Star Pack | John Ulrich Giesy | 1,965 | Set on the planet Palos, the novel concerns Jason Croft, a wealthy American who has learned the art of astral projection from a Hindu teacher. Croft feels an unusual calling to Sirius, the Dog Star, and projects his consciousness there, eventually finding his way to the major planet of the solar system, Palos. Once there, Croft finds human life, and floats among them observing their lives. He falls in love at first sight with the princess Naia, and determines to win her love. He eventually finds a host body in the form of the "spiritually sick" Jasor of Nodhur. Within Jasor's body, Croft sets out to win the love of the princess, by introducing technological improvements to the rulers of her kingdom, Tamarizia. Because of the knowledge gained by astrally spying upon key figures and places on Palos, the people view him as an "angel" of sorts, sent by their deity Zitu. Croft uses this misunderstanding to explain his knowledge of advanced technology. |
Freddy and the Perilous Adventure | null | null | In a poetic mood, Freddy suggests ducks Alice and Emma repeat the feat of the first animals to fly in a balloon. But Mr. Golcher, a balloon owner who is in town, feels that Freddy giving a speech from the balloon would attract more customers. The balloon is released, but over the Bean farm they discover they cannot come down. By the time they float west over Syracuse, New York everyone is enjoying ride. During the cold night the wind changes direction. They are lost and out of food. A friendly eagle discovers them, takes a message to the Beans, and returns with a picnic basket. As the next night passes they ride along with a thunderstorm. In the morning the balloon is low enough for the grapnel dangling over the edge to catch on a house. It is home to villains from the first book, who recognize Freddy, and narrowly miss capturing the balloon. The animals learn, however, that they are wanted by the police. Freddy decided to leave the balloon, even if it means a dangerous jump. After landing, the pig disguises himself, but is soon found by his friend the sheriff. Pretending he does not recognize him, the sheriff updates Freddy, who dangerously decides to return to the Bean farm, which is staked out by police. At the farm Golcher threatens Mr. Bean, who agrees to pay $200 for what Golcher has lost so far. Freddy calculates how long this will take to repay: :”’If it takes two years to get seven dollars,’ he said to Mrs. Wiggins, ‘how long would it take to get two hundred?’ :’Seven hundred years,’ said Mrs. Wiggins. :Freddy didn’t think that was right….but Mrs. Wiggins stuck to seven hundred. ‘It’s only common sense,’ she said. ‘If you get seven dollars in two years, then in seven hundred you get two hundred.’” (p. 114) Freddy hides at the circus of his friend Mr. Boomschmidt, who agrees to let elephants tow the balloon to the circus to be returned to Golcher. In the meantime, back at the balloon, the ducks Alice and Emma have discovered their long lost Uncle Wesley, who is making a living selling shoddy goods to forest animals. Disillusioned, they nonetheless ask him to return to the Bean farm. Although his balloon is returned, Golcher proves quarrelsome, refusing to return Mr. Bean’s money. Freddy and the animals agree to do a free show for Golcher, but afterward, Golcher still is not satisfied. Freddy and Golcher decide to resolve their differences in a fight ring, and Golcher makes a remark about eating pork that Freddy finds “in rather bad taste”. Freddy is losing a fair fight, until his spider friends bite Golcher. Golcher is ready to admit his defeat, but Freddy stops him. :”’Do you like being honest?” he asked. :’Not exactly,’ said Freddy truthfully. :’Then why do you do it when you don’t have to?’ :’I don’t know. I suppose maybe because Mr. Bean thinks I’m honest. I sort of want him to be right.’ (p. 220) Golcher decides to be honest for once himself, and returns Mr. Bean’s money. |
State of War | Ninotchka Rosca | 1,988 | Hansen, Banyaga, and Villaverde went to an island known as the Island of K in the Philippines to participate in a festival. Villaverde got in touch with radicals planning to activate explosives during the festival in order to assassinate The Commander, a name used as an indirect reference to Ferdinand Marcos. The assassination attempt that would end Marcos’s presidency and dictatorship failed. |
Will Grayson, Will Grayson | David Levithan | null | The novel follows two boys who both go by the name Will Grayson. The first Will, whose name is always correctly capitalized, is described as trying to live his life without being noticed. This is complicated by the fact that his best friend, Tiny Cooper, described as "the world's largest person who is really, really gay" and "the world's gayest person who is really, really large", is not the type to go around unnoticed. Tiny is also, throughout the novel, trying to create an autobiographical musical, which further draws attention to himself and everyone around him. The other will grayson, whose name is never capitalized, goes through his life without anything good to hold onto besides an online friendship with someone who goes by the name Isaac. Intent on meeting up with Isaac, will grayson sets up an encounter one night in Chicago but eventually finds out that Isaac was invented by a girl named Maura. What ensues brings both characters together and changes both of their lives forever in ways they could never have guessed or imagined. |
The Monster in the Box | Ruth Rendell | null | Wexford has long suspected Eric Targo of being a serial killer. Decades later, he finally admits this to DI Mike Burden, his longtime colleague and friend. In an apparently unrelated matter, DS Hannah Goldsmith and Burden's second wife Jenny both approach Wexford with concerns about Tamima, one of Jenny Burden's students. As a young detective constable he investigated the murder of Elsie Carroll. Wexford suspects that while her husband purported to be a whist club, he was actually with his mistress when his wife was killed. George Carroll was acquitted of his wife's murder on a technicality, but was still shunned by Kingsmarkham residents; Wexford believes him innocent. In the weeks of and following the investigation into Elsie Carroll's death, Targo, a scarf covering his prominent birthmark, walks his dog past the young Wexford's rooming house to taunt him, or so it appears to Wexford. By the 1970s Targo has become a prosperous, businessman, several times married and divorced, living in the north of England. Targo reappears in Kingsmarkam. Wexford suspects that Targo has murdered the autistic son of a Myringham widow who wishes her son dead so she can marry her longtime partner. In the book's present Targo reappears again, still with his dogs, without the naevus, but with a private menagerie. |
The Summer of the Danes | Edith Pargeter | 1,991 | Brother Cadfael is a monk of Shrewsbury Abbey, where he tends the herb gardens and compounds medicines after enjoying many adventures in his early life. In the spring of 1144, he is pleasantly surprised to be asked to go on a journey into his native North Wales as interpreter to Brother Mark, his former assistant, who is now a deacon to Roger de Clinton, the Bishop of Coventry. Mark is taking gifts and greetings from Bishop de Clinton to Gilbert, the newly-enthroned Bishop of St Asaph, and to Meurig, the Welsh Bishop of Bangor. The situation in North Wales is complicated for several reasons. Bishop Gilbert is a doctrinaire Norman, rather than a Welshman, and he is mistrusted by many Welshmen, not least Owain Gwynedd, the ruler of Gwynedd. Within Gwynedd, Owain has recently dispossessed and exiled his brother Cadwaladr ap Gruffydd for his part in the murder of Anarawd ap Gruffydd, the ruler of Deheubarth in west Wales. At St. Asaph, Cadfael and Mark find Owain Gwynedd's household encamped near the Bishop's dwellings, where they are attended by Canon Meirion and his daughter Heledd. As a married (albeit widowed) priest, Meirion is in disfavour following the reassertion of clerical celibacy, and is under pressure to put away his daughter before he can expect promotion under Gilbert. Rather than be sent to a nunnery in England, Heledd has accepted Owain Gwynedd's suggestion of an arranged marriage to Ieuan ab Ifor, one of his tenants on Anglesey, but she resents her father for putting his career ahead of his daughter. At the feast, while Roger de Clinton's letter to Gilbert is read out, Cadfael talks to Cuhelyn, who lost his left hand defending Anarawd from Cadwaladr's assassins. A man named Bledri ap Rhys is admitted to the hall and makes a plea to Owain for Cadwaladr's lands to be restored, clearly with Bishop Gilbert's encouragement. Bledri's manner is haughty and Owain temporises, saying that Bledri's petition will be considered later at Owain's own court at Aber, near Bangor. After most people have gone to bed, Bledri flirts briefly with Heledd, and mocks Canon Meirion when he intervenes. The next day, Cadfael and Mark accompany Owain's retinue as they journey westwards. Heledd and Meirion go with them. Cadfael reveals to Mark the details of his childhood in Trefriw, among a villein community such as those they are passing, and the restlessness and curiosity which caused him to leave the community and wander the world for several years before he settled at Shrewsbury Abbey. When they arrive at Aber, Bledri is greeted warily by Gwion, the only Welsh noble who has not repudiated his former allegiance to the exiled Cadwaladr, and who remains confined to the court. After the evening meal, Cadfael and Mark go to the chapel to observe Compline. Cadfael sees first Bledri then Gwion leave the chapel as he and Mark enter. At midnight, a messenger arrives from Caernarfon and arouses the court with the news that a Danish fleet from the Kingdom of Dublin has been sighted west of Abermenai and that Cadwaladr is with them, having enlisted their aid in restoring him to his lands. As Owain Gwynedd dispatches couriers to muster levies, Bledri and a good horse and its saddle are found to be missing. Although it is assumed that Bledri has fled to join the Danes, Cadfael wonders how he could have left the enclosed court undetected and asks Gwion to show him Bledri's quarters. They find that Bledri has been murdered, apparently woken from his sleep by the murderer. A kitchen servant claims that he saw Cuhelyn openly leave Bledri's quarters late at night. Cuhelyn admits that he recognised Bledri as one of Prince Anarawd's murderers and intended to challenge him to mortal combat, but he found Bledri asleep and put off the matter to morning. The horse is not found and further enquiry reveals that Heledd is absent. Meirion is concerned for his daughter who is astray in a countryside threatened by Viking raiders. Mark and Cadfael continue their journey to Bangor to deliver Roger de Clinton's gift to Bishop Meurig. Although Meurig greets them warmly, he too is distracted by the news of the raiders. Mark suggests that he and Cadfael spend a couple of days searching for Heledd. They find that she had gone to the dwelling of Nonna, a solitary holy woman, but found it empty as Nonna had gone to Bangor for safety. They also see a Danish vessel in the Menai Straits and realise that some raiders must be nearby. They split up. Cadfael hears Heledd's horse neigh and finds her hiding place, but so too do the raiders, who seize them. The raiders' leader introduces himself as Turcaill. They take Cadfael, Heledd and some plundered food aboard the ship and row to Abermenai, where the main force of Danes are encamped. Mark sees this from a safe place, and reports it to Owain. Heledd tells Cadfael that she left Owain's court at Aber merely to refill a jug from a well, but found a horse saddled and tethered outside the enclosure and seized the chance to flee an unwelcome marriage. Overnight, Owain Gwynedd brings an army to within a mile of the Danes' encampment. Brother Mark is sent as envoy to Otir, the Danes' leader, and Cadwaladr, to say that Owain is prepared to meet with Cadwaladr and discuss their differences. Otir demands a hostage for Cadwaladr's safe return, and Mark offers himself. Cadwaladr goes to Owain, who coldly tells him that he may be restored to his lands only when the Danes have departed. Cadwaladr rides back to within hail of the Danish camp and imperiously tells the Danes to begone, as he and Owain have settled their differences. Furious at the falsehood, Owain himself rides into the Danish camp for a parley. He tells Otir that Cadwaladr's word is worthless, and that he himself will not pay Cadwaladr's promised fee for Otir's aid. He does offer to ransom Mark, Cadfael and Heledd, but Otir insists that Cadwaladr must pay the price for their release also. That night, Turcaill rows his ship close to Owain's camp. He and some of his men sneak inside and carry off Cadwaladr, without being detected. Some time later, Cuhelyn finds Gwion gagged and bound in Cadwaladr's tent and Cadwaladr missing. When Gwion is brought before Owain, he says that he took the body of Bledri ap Rhys to Ceredigion to be buried, but then broke his parole by gathering about a hundred of Cadwaladr's former adherents, assuming that Owain and Cadwaladr had settled their differences in the face of the Danes. Owain contemptuously dismisses him as another whose word is of no value. Wandering the camp, Gwion meets Ieuan ap Ifor, who is wondering how to recover Heledd, his betrothed, and they begin plotting a raid against the Danes. In the Danish camp, Cadwaladr agrees to pay two thousand marks for his release. Brother Mark carries the message, with Cadwaladr's seal as proof, to Owain. Owain in turn despatches Gwion, together with his own son Hywel ab Owain Gwynedd, to collect the ransom in silver and cattle from Rhodri Fychan, Cadwaladr's former bailiff, at Llanbadarn. Three days elapse while Cadwaladr's ransom is collected and the silver is delivered. Gwion tries to gather his men to thwart the payment of the rest of the ransom, but the able Hywel forestalls him by driving three hundred of Cadwaladr's cattle to Abermenai before Gwion is ready. At night, Ieuan ab Ifor's men launch an attack on a weak corner of the Danish camp. In the confusion, he seizes Heledd and drags her away as the Welsh retreat. Cadfael treats the half dozen Welsh and Danish wounded. The Danes bring their ships close inshore and line the beach, intending to sail off as soon as the full ransom for Cadwaladr is paid. As the cattle are being driven aboard, Gwion leads Cadwaladr's supporters in a last-minute attack. Owain Gwynedd personally intervenes to stop the fighting. In the last few moments before the Danes and Welsh draw apart, Otir mortally wounds Gwion. Gwion confesses to Cadfael and Owain that he murdered Bledri ap Rhys. Having charged Bledri with delivering messages to Cadwaladr and tethered the horse outside the palace at Aber for Bledri to ride to Abermenai, Gwion went to Bledri's quarters to find him in bed, clearly waiting on events before deciding whether to support or betray Cadwaladr. He struck him down and stabbed him as he lay stunned. Otir has already declared that Brother Cadfael is freed without ransom for his aid to the wounded. Heledd goes to the beach to watch the Danes leave. Turcaill's boat emerges from behind a headland, and Heledd willingly goes aboard with Turcaill. Cadfael considers that the outcome is as satisfactory as it could be. The Danes return to Dublin with their payment gained with little effort, Owain has prevented them raiding the coasts at no cost to himself, Cadwaladr is humbled and may be restored to some of his lands, Canon Meirion is free of his daughter and even Ieuan ab Ifor is spared a marriage to a resentful wife. Those who have committed murder have themselves met violent ends. In spite of the bewildering series of events, Mark and Cadfael are able to return a few days beyond the ten they promised Abbot Radulfus. Cadfael confesses to his friend Hugh Beringar, Sheriff of Shropshire, that he is always eager to wander for a while, but that he is content to be returning home, to Shrewsbury Abbey. |
On My Walk | Kari-Lynn Winters | 2,009 | Mothers and toddlers take a stroll through Vancouver streets and parks, hearing the sounds of animals around them, and find themselves caught in a summer rainstorm. |
Where the Rivers Flow North | null | null | Set in the late 1920s, its main characters Noel Lord and Bangor, a couple that live together in the wilderness of Vermont living off the land and using the trees in their numerous acreage as a way to make their money. A major company comes through and tries their best to take Noel's land from him through money and then finally trying to kill him in the end. In his books Mosher gives much detail of the wildlife as well as the culture of the times. |
A Fatal Grace | Louise Penny | 2,007 | Inspector Gamache investigates after CC de Poitiers, a sadistic socialite, is fatally electrocuted at a Christmas curling competition in the small Québécois town of Three Pines. CC, who had a “spiritual guidance” business based on eliminating emotion, was hated by seemingly everyone, including her husband, lover, and daughter. The crime links to a vagrant’s recent murder as well as to the pasts of several other villagers. |
Dark Princess | null | null | The plot follows a character named Matthew Towns, a college student in his junior year at the University of Manhattan studying to be an obstetrician. Early on in the novel, Towns is told that not only is he barred from pursuing his career aspirations; he is not allowed to finish his academic studies. His status as a black American does enough to disqualify him from transcendence into the public world of medicine and from gaining access to caring for white female patients. Towns is devastated until he makes the acquaintance of Princess Kautilya of Bwodpur, India, a beautiful black woman who reassures Towns of the importance of the history of black people in the world and the importance of their presence and impact of their beauty worldwide. The Princess takes him from his dreary world revolving around a stark color line between races and walks him through a vibrant world of prominent world leaders of color as well as those with negative impacts on the progress of blacks in America – evident by Du Bois’ illustration of Marcus Garvey through his character Perigua. Their relationship is culminated when they bear a child who by birthright is the Maharajah of Bwodpur, a direct connection to royalty which Matthew Towns had never dreamed achievable for a black American man. |
The Mouthpiece of Zitu | John Ulrich Giesy | 1,965 | The second novel in the Jason Croft series finds Jason once again relating his adventures on the world of Palos to Dr. George Murray via astral projection. Croft awakens to find that the high priest Zud has declared him the "Mouthpiece of Zitu", complicating matters with his engagement to Naia. Croft once again relies on using astral projection and his knowledge of earth technology to strengthen the nation of Tamarizia and once more win the heart of the princess. |
Jason, Son of Jason | John Ulrich Giesy | null | The third and final novel in the Jason Croft series once more brings Jason into contact with Dr. George Murray on Earth. This time, Jason brings Dr. Murray along via astral projection to Palos. Naia is suffering complications with her pregnancy, and Jason enlists the good doctor to help. After the birth, the child and mother are kidnapped by the Zollarians, and Croft once again uses his knowledge of earth technology to overcome the challenges he faces. |
The Rage Against God | Peter Hitchens | null | In Chapter 1 Hitchens describes abandoning religion in his youth, and promoting "cruel revolutionary rubbish" as a Trotskyist activist. He claims his generation had become intellectually aloof from religion, rebellious and disillusioned and in Chapter 2 explores further reasons for this disillusion, including the Suez Crisis and the Profumo Affair. In Chapter 3, Hitchens recounts how he embraced scientific inquiry and adopted liberal positions on issues such as marriage, abortion, homosexuality, and patriotism. Chapter 4 is a lament for the "noble austerity" of his childhood in Britain. Chapter 5 explores what Hitchens views as the pseudo-religion surrounding Churchill and World War II heroes – a "great cult of noble, patriotic death" whose only equivalent, he claims, was in the Soviet Union. Hitchens then asserts that, "The Christian Church has been powerfully damaged by letting itself be confused with love of country and the making of great wars". In Chapter 6 Hitchens recalls being a foreign correspondent in the Soviet Union and a trip to Mogadishu, and how these experiences convinced him that, "his own civilisation was infinitely precious and utterly vulnerable". In Chapter 7 Hitchens charts his return to Christianity, and makes particular reference to the experience of seeing the Rogier van der Weyden painting The Last Judgement: In Chapter 9, Hitchens contends that the claim that religion is a source of conflict is a "cruel factual misunderstanding", and that a number of conflicts, including The Troubles and the Arab–Israeli conflict, were not motivated by religion but tribal in nature and disputes over territory. Chapter 10 discusses whether morality can be determined without the concept of God. Hitchens asserts that atheists "have a fundamental inability to concede that to be effectively absolute, a moral code needs to be beyond human power to alter". He also describes as flawed his brother's assertion in God is Not Great that "the order to love thy neighbour 'as thyself' is too extreme and too strenuous to be obeyed". Hitchens ends the chapter by stating, "in all my experience in life, I have seldom seen a more powerful argument for the fallen nature of man, and his inability to achieve perfection, than those countries in which man sets himself up to replace God with the State". Hitchens begins Chapter 11 by asserting, "those who reject God's absolute authority, preferring their own, are far more ready to persecute than Christians have been ... Each revolutionary generation reliably repeats the savagery". He cites as examples the French revolutionary terror; the Bolshevik revolution; the Holodomor and the Soviet famine of 1932–33; the barbarity surrounding Joseph Stalin's five year plans, repeated in the Great Leap Forward in China; atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge; and human rights abuses in Cuba under Fidel Castro. Hitchens then quotes a number of prominent communist thinkers' pronouncements on morality, including George Lukacs stating, "Communist ethics make it the highest duty to accept the necessity of acting wickedly. This is the greatest sacrifice the revolution asks from us", and Leon Trotsky's claiming that "morality, more than any other form of ideology, has a class character". Hitchens writes "the biggest fake miracle staged in human history was the claim that the Soviet Union was a new civilisation of equality, peace, love, truth, science and progress. Everyone knows that it was a prison, a slum, a return to primitive barbarism, a kingdom of lies where scientists and doctors feared offending the secret police, and that its elite were corrupt and lived in secret luxury". He then cites Walter Duranty's denying the existence of the great Ukrainian famine, and Sidney and Beatrice Webb's acceptance that the 1937 Moscow show trials were "genuine criminal prosecutions". and then examines some consequences of this, including intolerance of religion, terror, and the persecution of priests and bishops at the Solovetsky concentration camp. Hitchens asserts that in the Soviet Union "the regime's institutional loathing for the teaching of religion, and its desire to eradicate it, survived every doctrinal detour and swerve". In the final chapter, Hitchens analyses a number of his brother's arguments, and contends that "the coincidence in instinct, taste, and thought between my brother and the Bolsheviks and their sympathisers is striking and undeniable". He then records how his brother nominated the "apostle of revolutionary terror" praised Trotsky for his "moral courage"; and declared that one of Lenin's great achievements was "to create a secular Russia". Hitchens speculates that his brother remains sympathetic towards Bolshevism and is still hostile towards the things it extirpated, including monarchy, tradition, and faith. He ends the chapter by claiming a form of militant secularism is becoming established in Britain, and that "The Rage Against God is loose". In the epilogue, Hitchens describes how after a 2008 debate with Christopher Hitchens "the longest quarrel of my life seemed to be unexpectedly over" and that he held no hope of converting his brother, who had "bricked himself up high in his atheist tower, with slits instead of windows from which to shoot arrows at the faithful". |
Night and Day | Robert B. Parker | 2,009 | Night and Day begins with the investigation of a middle school principal accused of molestation. Several girls accuse Principal Betsy Ingersoll of making them pull their dresses up so she can see their panties. The principal claims that she did this to ensure they were wearing proper attire for the school dance. She also claims that her job is not only to ensure they get a proper education, but that they also grow into proper ladies and do not become sluts. She sends several girls home for wearing slutty panties. Although there is no crime to charge her with, Jesse determines to make trouble for her until he can find something to charge her with as he is convinced the girls’ civil rights were violated. He begins interviewing the principal along with her high powered attorney husband, as well as the girls. Later one of the girls comes to see Jesse at his office. She tells him that her parents are swingers, and often host parties for that purpose at their home. She and her little brother hate it and she asks Jesse if he can help. With swinging not illegal, Jesse finds his hands tied, but decides to investigate anyway. He has Suit talk to two of the women, one of whom he knew in high school, to get more information on the swingers club. Suit discovers that the girl’s mother is not into it, but only does it because her husband wants to. Jesse has Spike threaten her husband about the swinging, and she later leaves him. The main plot of the novel involves the investigation of the Night Hawk. The Night Hawk starts as a peeping tom, and the Paradise police get several calls about him. Later the Night Hawk escalates his voyeuristic attacks by breaking into homes while women are home alone, forcing them to undress at gunpoint, and then taking nude photos of them. He then begins writing Jesse detailing his exploits, and includes the nude photos. He writes that he cannot stop himself; he must discover these women’s “secret.” He also writes that he does not know what he will do next and fears that he will escalate further. Jesse begins to combine his investigation of the swingers with his investigation of the Night Hawk. Since the Night Hawk never touches anyone, he questions the swingers to find out if there is anyone in their club that only likes to watch and never touch. The women in the club all identify Seth Ralston. Ralston is a professor of English at a nearby university. He is married to a young grad student who is working on her doctorate. Jesse discovers that Ralston's wife used to teach a Wednesday night class, which corresponds with all the peeping tom reports. He also discovers that the peeping tom reports stopped at the same time that Ralston’s wife quit her teaching job to begin doing her doctoral work full time. Jesse questions Ralston’s wife about the swinging to see if she will inadvertently reveal something about her husband that will confirm he is the Night Hawk, and even hints to her that her husband may be the Night Hawk. She responds by belittling Jesse for being a dumb cop, and singling them out for their lifestyle. Meanwhile Jesse continues to pressure Betsy Ingersoll, who then reports that she is a victim of the Night Hawk. Soon after Jesse receives a nude photo of Betsy, however he and Molly become convinced that she is posing in the photo and suspect the attack was staged. The local media request an interview concerning the attack, and Jesse uncharacteristically agrees. He gives details of the attack and later receives a letter from the Night Hawk who demands that he never attacked Betsy Ingersoll. Jesse believes that the Night Hawk is telling the truth, as he has never denied an attack before, but always been honest about his attacks. Jesse confronts Betsy with this and she admits that she staged the attack. She says that she did it to get some attention from her husband, but that he did not even care. She was acting out because her husband cheats on her constantly with young women, which also explains her obsession with teenage girls not growing up to be sluts. Jesse agrees not to charge her with any crimes if she agrees to see Sunny Randall’s shrink, Dr. Silverman (the long-term love interest of another Parker character Spenser), which she does. A few days later Seth Ralston’s wife comes to Jesse to report that her husband is missing. They begin searching for him, and soon after Jesse receives another letter from the Night Hawk blasting him for speaking with his wife, and ruining his life. He writes that he is going to leave town, but only after he discovers one more woman’s secret, as he calls it, and warns that this woman will be someone close to Jesse. Jesse thinks that he is trying to hint that the woman will be Betsy Ingersoll, but Jesse believes he is actually targeting Molly. They set a police unit in front of Betsy’s house as a decoy, but then stake out Molly’s house. Molly waits at home with a gun strapped to her thigh, and a wire so Jesse can hear her. The Night Hawk breaks in on her and forces her to begin stripping at gun point. Suit and Jesse then break in to arrest him. Surprised that they figured out he was after Molly, he raises his gun to shoot her, but Molly, Suit, and Jesse all shoot and kill Seth Ralston, putting an end to the Night Hawk. Suit is left with a moral dilemma that it was his shot that killed Ralston, but since all three fired, Jesse is able to disfuse the situation by convincing Suit that it could have been any one of the three. |
Sa mga Kuko ng Liwanag | null | 1,986 | Julio, a poor fisherman, goes to Manila to search for his betrothed named Ligaya. Sometime before Julio's trip, Ligaya had left with a lady named Mrs. Cruz in order to study and work in the city. Now in Manila, Julio becomes a victim to some of the city's scums. Julio experiences abuses while working in a construction site. He eventually loses his job and desperately looks for a decent place where he can sleep. Slowly, Julio develops a cynical demeanor as he gradually loses hope of ever finding Ligaya. All this is put on hold, however, when Julio finally reunites Ligaya, and learns from her that she is a victim of white slavery. Julio and Ligaya plan to escape. |
Divided Heaven | null | null | Rita and Manfred are an East German couple who live in Halle. Manfred left East Germany and Rita finds him in West Berlin. The short visit to the Western world convinces Rita to return to East Germany, a few days before the Berlin Wall is built. |
Split Image | Robert B. Parker | 2,010 | The novel begins with Chief Stone investigating the murder of a man Suit finds crammed into the trunk of an abandoned car. The man turns out to be Petrov Ognowski, a tough guy for local mob boss Reggie Galen. Jesse then goes to the Galen residence to interview him. While there he meets Galen’s beautiful and submissive wife, Rebecca Bangston. Envious of the life that Galen has with his wife, Jesse tailspins into a drinking binge, wondering why his wife couldn’t have been like that. Despite his increased drinking, he continues to investigate and discovers that Galen’s neighbor is another mob boss named Knocko Moynihan and is married to Rebecca’s twin sister, Roberta Bangston. Soon after the first murder, Knocko Moynihan is found murdered. Jesse begins to suspect the wives, leading Jesse and Suit to the Bangston’s hometown. There they discover that their mother is a widow, and that their father was involved in criminal activities with the girl’s husbands, who had met in prison twenty years earlier. While investigating they also discover the girls promiscuous past. Apparently they made a game of having sex with men and seeing if he could tell which one was which throughout. This activity got them the nickname “The Bang Bang Twins.” Jesse wonders if they have continued this behavior. During an interview with the twins later, they strip naked and try to seduce Jesse with their sex game, confirming his suspicions. He resists. Meanwhile, the father and widow of Ognowski come to Chief Stone demanding that he solve the murder. Jesse assures them he will do his best, however, the widow takes it upon herself to start sleeping with one of Galen’s bodyguards. The bodyguard admits that he killed both her husband and Knocko. The wives had been having sex with Petrov, and when Knocko found out about it he had the bodyguard kill Petrov. Later the twins decided they wanted Knocko killed, so they came to Reggie with a story about Knocko abusing Roberta. Furious that Knocko abused his wife’s sister, he has the same bodyguard kill Knocko. Jesse confronts the bodyguard with this information in his office along with Ognowski’s large mobster father, and presents him with two options. One, he can roll over on Reggie Galen, or two, he can leave and take his chances with the elder Ognowski. He chooses the former. Galen is arrested for the murders, and even though the wives were behind the whole thing, Jesse has nothing to charge them with. He leaves them to Ognowski. |
Richard Bolitho, Midshipman | Douglas Reeman | 1,975 | The book opens with Richard Bolitho arriving at an inn frequented by Midshipmen in Portsmouth. There he meets another midshipman Martyn Dancer. They are retrieved by a lieutenant from the Gorgon. The ship sails towards West Africa, where they encounter an empty Merchantman, the City of Athens. Dancer and Bolitho are sent aboard the ship, and discover that the ship has been pillaged and the crew killed. The officers soon deduce that the ship was raided by Pirates and Captain Conway announces that the Admiralty had dispatched them to investigate the disappearance of ships in the region. In company with the captured City of Athens, the Gorgon approaches a coastal fort surrounded by treacherous reefs and shoals. Upon approaching the fort, they see that two ships are in the nearby harbour, however the fort opens fire and destroys the City of Athens. The Gorgon withdraws and returns during the dark of the night to cut out the ship. Dancer and Bolitho are sent on the mission, commanded by the 4th lieutenant, Mr. Tregorren, who holds a grudge and mistreats Bolitho over Bolitho's prestigious heritage. They succeed at taking the ship, and also capture a Slave Dhow in the escape with the help of the Gorgon. The ships, under the guise at being members of the pilot fleet raid the castle from which the pirates had been using as a base. |
Light and Darkness | null | null | In the novel, protagonist O-Nobu suspects her husband, Tsuda, of loving another woman and tries to find the truth. Tsuda, who cannot forget his past lover, goes to a hospital for a minor operation. O-Nobu visits her and husband’s relatives in order to get some extra financial support since the couple are extravagant. Kobayashi, who is an unemployed former friend, visits and threatens Tsuda that if he does not treat him in a good manner, he will reveal Tsuda’s past to O-Nobu. He also visits O-Nobu but nothing happens. After Kobayashi leaves, Tsuda’s sister comes to visit him and tries to make him realize how he should act towards his parents as a son. After that, Mrs. Yoshikawa, the wife of Tsuda’s boss and a meddler, visits him and also trying to make him change his attitudes. She sends him away to a onsen where Tsuda finally meets his former lover, Kiyoko. She is now married to another man. ja:明暗 |
Shadrach in the Furnace | Robert Silverberg | 1,976 | The story begins on 14 May 2012 as Dr. Shadrach Mordecai, personal physician of the dictator Genghis II Mao IV, awakens. He checks the health of the dictator through a series of implants within his body that link to the general health of his client, allowing him to receive any information on the health of the dictator through codings of various twitches in his own body. Through a series of security checks, he enters into his office to prepare for a kidney transplant for his master. As he passes Surveillance Vector One, the eye on the world which gives committee members the ability to view all events happening on Earth, he meets Mangu, the prince of the world and viceroy of the committee, a charming man who earns the admiration of all his subjects. Mangu is concerned about the surgery, but Shadrach Mordecai assures the prince that Genghis Mao has grown used to surgeries. Here, Shadrach also reveals to the reader that Mangu was chosen as the subject for Project Avatar, where Genghis Mao will continue to reign in the body of his own son. He also feels sorry for Mangu, since he was tricked by his father into believing that he would inherit the throne. Once in his office, he contacts Nicholas Warhaftig, surgeon of the dictator. Warhaftig orders Shadrach to bring Genghis Mao to the Surgery by 0900. Soon, Genghis Mao himself contacts Shadrach to ask how his health is that day. As Shadrach tells the dictator of his health state, he also informs the dictator of the incoming surgery and its timing. Genghis Mao requests for Shadrach to enter his room and prepare him for the surgery at 0900. We also learn from this conversation that the surgery would give the dictator the fourth liver he is having. Afterwards, Shadrach looks up the leaders of the projects Talos, Phoenix and Avatar, for it is his responsibility as personal physician to the Khan to keep checks on the progress of such projects. First, he contacts Katya Lindman of Project Talos. She reports to Shadrach their progress in coding Genghis Mao's eyelid mannerisms and as Shadrach asks her to continue working on coding his mental processes, she has an apprehensive look but agrees. Next, he contacts Irayne Sarafrazi of Project Phoenix. She talks of her problems with brain cell deterioration and becomes worried as Shadrach presses for her to make further progress in the subject. Lastly, he contacts Nikki Crowfoot of Project Avatar, who is also Shadrach's lover. After she recounts her progress, she arranges a meeting with Shadrach for 0230. Shadrach reveals to the reader his belief that Project Avatar is far superior to the other two, since Project Talos could only create an automated Genghis Mao which could never live up to the ability of the original while Project Phoenix would constantly be confronted with the problem of brain cell regeneration. Afterwards, he leaves to take Genghis Mao to the Surgery. As Warhaftig and his team operate on the dictator, Shadrach, due to his implants, acts as a "computer" for the team, informing them of the health status of the dictator throughout the entire surgical process. During the operation, Shadrach also comments on the calmness and tranquility of the dictator and how he has grown accustomed to constant organ transplants. After the surgery, he prepares to leave with Crowfoot to Karakorum, the playground of the world's ruling class. As they enter Karakorum, Nikki Crowfoot muses about how Shadrach and Genghis Mao are like one entity and compares them to the sculptor and his sculptor, how the actions and health situation of Genghis Mao affect the actions of Shadrach. Nikki Crowfoot decides they ought to go to the transtemporallism tent, where supposedly religious rites are carried out using chemicals to transport a client into a dream-like state where he may witness famous scenes, usually related to Christianity. Shadrach is transported to the scene of the Cotopaxi eruption, where he helplessly watches the civilians die all around him. When he wakes up and leaves the tent, he sees many government members, who greet him. Among them is Roger Buckmaster, who claims that he has gained enlightenment from the transtemporallist experience. Buckmaster first recounts his dream of the Last Supper and the subsequent betrayal at Gethsemane, and how it taught him to hate evil. Then, he begins insulting Shadrach and blaming him for keeping Genghis Mao alive. Both Shadrach and Buckmaster have a lengthy moral argument, but soon Nikki Crowfoot leaves the tent and they leave the area, with Buckmaster shouting curses to Shadrach. Shadrach and Nikki book a room and sleep together, after which they encounter Bela Horthy and Donna Lambile, two members of the government. Mangu is giving a speech about the worldwide distribution of Rondevic's Andtidote against organ rot, to which Bela Horthy yells curses that Genghis Mao constantly lies about healing the world from the organ rot disease, despite the desperate urgings of Lambile. The next day, Shadrach awakes feeling tremendous vigorous twitches from the implants and immediately rushes to meet the Khan. There, he sees many government members surrounding the dictator. He learns from Ionigylakis, the Vice President, that Mangu was assassinated. He soon realises that the twitches were due to the shock from Genghis Mao when he received the news. He also learns that Bela Horthy was the one who witnesses Mangu falling from his window before he informed the Khan. Genghis Mao gives Avogadro, the security chief, orders for subsequent arrests and sentences against suspected individuals in order to invoke fear into the population. In Committee Vector One, Shadrach has a brief conversation with Avogadro, who states that no one, not even Bela Horthy, saw any assassins throw Mangu out of the window, thus many government members believe it was merely suicide, but Genghis Mao remains convinced that Mangu was killed. Shadrach then asks Bela Horthy about the exact recount he gave to Genghis Mao. At first, Horthy is apprehensive but soon replies that he merely stated that Mangu had died and nothing else. Shadrach also learns from Horthy that Buckmaster has become a prime suspect in the assassinatio case due to his words of folly at Karakorum the previous night. Shadrach asks Horthy about his own words at Karakorum, but Horthy insists that he was not at Karakorum at all. Meanwhile, the committee members are in chaos as General Gonchigdorge struggles anxiously to find possible suspects and Surveillance Vector One. As the general calls for Frank Ficifolia, Ficifolia reveals to Shadrach his opinion that the committee members have gone mad and that Mangu had probably committed suicide. Shadrach returns to his room, where he sees Nikki Crowfoot. He recounts to her the incidents that occurred and Crowfoot is immediately shocked since her project is affected by the death of the chosen subject. As she listens to the subsequent events, she comments that Bela Horthy probably intended for Genghis Mao to feel great shock due to his testimony and perish. Shadrach returns to his office where he receives a call from Katya Lindman, who requests that he review her progress on Project Talos. She shows the robot of Genghis Mao and all its actions and becomes angry when Shadrach does not seem impressed. As she continues to show Shadrach all her equipment, Shadrach begins to suspect that she has feelings for him. Later on, he receives a call from Avogadro to participate in his interrogation of Buckmaster. During the interrogation, Buckmaster constantly defends himself, saying that he was drugged from the transtemporallism. Avogadro is shocked that Shadrach also attempts to defend Buckmaster, but more passively. However, in the end, Buckmaster is arrested on the basis of a faulty "I'll destroy him" while he was arguing with Shadrach at Karakorum. Shadrach then argues with Avogadro, saying that it was justified to arrest a man he knew was innocent. However, Avogadro is apathetic to the plight of Buckmaster and even uses Shadrach's words at Karakorum against him that "guilt is a luxury we cannot afford". They both assume that he is being sent to the Organ Farms, where his organs would be used to support the dictator. The next day, Shadrach visits Genghis Mao, who speaks deliriously and even offers to make Shadrach pope in Rome. Shadrach infers that Genghis Mao has gone mad over the death of Mangu. That night, he goes to Karakorum with Katya Lindman, where they try dream-death, an experience where one is placed in a dream-like state and imagines death and the subsequent afterlife. Shadrach travels the afterlife realm with Katya in his dreams, and after enjoying themselves, to enters into a tranquil state before awaking. Katya reveals that she was having a different dream from him, one which was not as light-hearted as his. Then, they return home to rest, where Katya randomly and suddenly warns Shadrach to be careful. Nikki Crowfoot grows increasingly distant from him, and Shadrach is unable to discover why. He visits Genghis Mao and informs the dictator of an aneurysm he detected in the dictator's abdominal aorta. The news annoys Genghis Mao, since he is preparing a colossal funeral for Mangu which he refuses to delay. Shadrach has lunch with Katya, who reveals to him that, on the night before Mangu's death, she informed him that he was chosen as the Avatar subject. Katya tells Shadrach that she did so only out of sympathy for Mangu, but Shadrach suspects that she wanted to kill the Avatar subject so that her project could supersede Nikki's and hopefully destroy her relationship with Shadrach so she could have him too. However, he soon realises that his suspicions contradict Katya's decision to reveal this information to him. Shadrach hopes to visit Nikki and after learning that she had fallen ill, makes the decision to visit her in her room. There, he pretends to examine her but subsequently asks about her project, to which she responds angrily, ranting about the setbacks in her work. As Shadrach leaves, he also reveals to Nikki that a member of Project Talos informed Mangu that he had been chosen as the Avatar subject, but he disguises it as a rumour. However, Nikki believes it and instantly suspects Katya Lindman to be the culprit. Later, Shadrach confesses to Katya what he had revealed to Nikki. Katya is disturbed at first, but soon informs Shadrach that he had been chosen as the next Avatar subject. Shadrach soon realises that that had to be the reason Nikki had chosen to distance herself from him. Katya advises Shadrach to make a plan of escape and also tells him not to trust Nikki anymore, since she must have agreed to continue her work despite the fact that he was chosen. The day of the aorta transplant arrives. During the surgeries, Shadrach thinks to himself that if he killed Genghis Mao on the operating table, Project Avatar would be finished. He muses about plans such as jostling Warhaftig's elbow or feeding them misleading information, but resolves not to. In his office, Shadrach begins thinking about Genghis Mao's possible origins and begins crafting fake diary entries from the perspective of Genghis Mao in his mind. Soon, he decides to confront Nikki Crowfoot about him being the Avatar subject. Nikki is shocked and somewhat remorseful, but she defends herself, saying there was nothing she could do. Shadrach is distraught, but lets the matter rest. He resorts to carpentry to cope with the stress. On one of his adventures to the carpentry chapel, he meets Frank Ficifolia, who offers Shadrach the chance to escape from Ulan Bator and remain hidden. Ficifolia also reveals that members of the government helped to conceal Buckmaster, who is still alive, and offers to do the same for Shadrach. However, Shadrach is unsure and asks for time to think. Then, he is approached by Bela Horthy, who advises Shadrach to take the offer and flee from Ulan Bator, but Shadrach continues to refuse. He makes a visit to the Project Avatar laboratory to meet Nikki Crowfoot. After a tour of the laboratory, Nikki takes him to her office. She advises Shadrach to flee from Ulan Bator, even at the expense of her work. However, Shadrach still wants more time to think, to which Nikki responds that she loves him still. Soon, Shadrach decides to go on a vacation so that he would think better overseas. He informs Genghis Mao about his decision, who is slightly disappointed but agrees. Shadrach first goes to Nairobi, where he meets Bhishma Das, a merchant. Bhishma Das constantly asks him questions about the organ rot disease and the Roncevic's Antidote. As they continue their conversation, Shadrach begins speaking of utopian ideals that, after many years, the world will rebuild itself. Although he is unsure of this prophecy, under the encouragement of Bhishma Das, he becomes convinced that that will eventually happen. This gives him encouragement to deal with the problem of Project Avatar. He then leaves for Jerusalem, where he meets Meshach Yakov at the Wailing Wall. Shadrach is distressed about the widespread oragn rot and poverty amongst the people, including children, and he prays. Meshach takes Shadrach to his house, where he and his family chat with Shadrach about politics. He then goes to Istanbul, Rome and San Franscisco. In each place, he is constantly distressed by the suffering of the people but also begins to suspect that the Citpols, policemen of the Genghis Mao regime, are spying on him. At San Franscisco, he meets an old friend, Jim Ehrenreich, who is struck with organ rot and requests that Shadrach steal some of Rondevic's Antidote for him. However, Shadrach refuses, saying that the antidote only immunises and cannot cure. At first, Ehrenreich is angry but after a while, he accepts his fate. At Peking, Shadrach begins to feel strange twitches in his implants and after a series of checks begins to suspect clogging of cerebrospinal fluid. He rushes to the airport, hoping to get a quick flight back to Ulan Bator. At the airport, he meets Avogadro, who informs Shadrach of the multiple headaches suffered by Genghis Mao and that he requested for Shadrach's return to the capital. Shadrach returns to the capital and visits Genghis Mao, informing his master of the problem and suggests that it be cured by brain surgery: more specifically, to implant valved tubes to his skull to drain the excess fluid. Afterwards, Shadrach arranges a meeting with Frank Ficifolia, requesting to meet Buckmaster. Although Ficifolia is annoyed that Shadrach chose to return when he could have escaped the capital, Shadrach reassures him that he has a plan. Ficifolia agrees to arrange the meeting. Shadrach is taken to the transtemporallists in Karakorum, where Buckmaster has hidden himself as an ascetic, entering multiple dreams to witness the life of Jesus. Shadrach requests for Buckmaster to create a device that will allow him to control the valve that will be implanted into Genghis Mao, and after much persuasion, Buckmaster agrees. In Ulan Bator, he arranges a meeting with Katya Lindman. Both of them talk about the funeral of Mangu, which he missed while he was on holiday. He also informs her about his cure for the headaches of Genghis Mao, and despite the warnings of Katya, Shadrach states that he has a plan to save himself. Soon, Genghis Mao is operated on and the valved tubes transplanted. He then meets Nikki Crowfoot, who informs him of her progress in Project Avatar. She adds that she hopes her project will not be chosen, but Shadrach tells her not to worry about him but to focus on her work instead. To rest, he leaves again for Karakorum unaccompanied and visits the dream-death tent, where he enters the afterlife and heals numerous people in the dream. He is hailed as their Saviour but is soon interrupted by the scene of Katya informing him that he was chosen as the Avatar subject. Shocked, he awakens and returns to Ulaanbaatar. Already implanted with the device to control the valved tubes, Shadrach visits Genghis Mao and informs him of how he is able to control the tubes using the device implanted in his hand and whenever he clenches his fist, the tubes will reverse, quickly killing the dictator. Instead of begging or becoming angry, Genghis Mao is pleased and informs Shadrach that he was never going to become the Avatar subject in the first place. He also admires Shadrach's shrewdness in dealing with the situation. Shadrach demands to become a committee member in charge of public health to oversee the production and worldwide distribution of Roncevic's Antidote. Genghis Mao agrees and, confused about the dictator's reactions, Shadrach leaves the room to admire the outside world. |
The Wild Things | null | null | The story begins with Max going to his friend's house. His friend is not there, and Max only manages to find his friend's over-protective Mom, who attempts to walk him home. Max thinks she's crazy, and rides away quickly on his bike to the entrance of the woods. This shows the reader a bit of Max's problems. Later, Max builds a snow fort in his backyard complete with a flag and shelves containing snowballs. When Claire, Max's sister, and her friends go outside while the boys in the group chew tobacco, Max begins a great snowball fight. After throwing a few, he runs back into his snow fort, thinking he is safe. This is not true, and the boys find it easily because of his flag. One of the boys jumps on the fort causing it to collapse and suffocate Max. Max comes up crying, and his sister Claire does nothing to help him. Max is now filled with rage. Max goes upstairs to Claire's room and commences in dumping water all over it, breaking a few of her belongings as well. Later, his mom comes home from work to find Max hiding in his bed, feeling bad about what he's done. He then reluctantly shows her what he did to Claire's room. Exasperated but really too tired to be angry with him, they clean up the mess together. |
Listening for Lions | Gloria Whelan | 2,005 | Rachel Sheridan is the only child of British missionaries working among the Kikuyu and Maasai tribes of British East Africa (present-day Kenya). They work on a hospital in addition to church-work and teaching. Life goes haywire as influenza strikes when Rachel is 13, in 1919. The sickness is the cause of many deaths, and soon after her own mother dies, the dreaded Pritchards, planters in the area come with their daughter Valerie, who looks very much like Rachel. Valerie dies within hours, and later Rachel's father. Left an orphan, she is lured to the Pritchards' home and forced to impersonate their daughter, who was going to visit her dying grandfather in England, being told it would "save his life". Rachel considers telling people of the Pritchards' lies on the ship, but she soon arrives in England and begins to develop a close relationship with her "grandfather", who, like her, is very fond of birds. Just as things begin to get better, the Pritchards unveil their new plot, to take the grandfather's property when he dies. In scorn of his son, the Grandfather sends them away, but his trusty solicitor, Mr. Grumbloch, gives Rachel his address and tells her to come in an emergency. Rachel comes within the day, and he returns her to her grandfather, telling him the truth, which they have already suspected. There is an epilogue at the end of the novel, in which Rachel becomes his adopted daughter and attends school, later returning to her parent's hospital as a doctor. |
Hourglass | Claudia Gray | 2,010 | Bianca, Lucas and Raquel are now living in the New York Black Cross cell. Raquel and the rest of Lucas's Black Cross cell are currently unaware Bianca is a vampire. Mrs. Bethany later stages a break in to the Black Cross cell wanting to take Bianca back to her parents. Several members of Black Cross are killed including Lucas's stepfather Eduardo whose neck is broken by Mrs. Bethany. In the attack Balthazar is captured and tied up by Black Cross who begin to torture him to find out why Mrs. Bethany attacked Black Cross. Bianca and Lucas begin orchestrating Balthazar's escape and succeed without getting caught. After the break in by Mrs. Bethany, Bianca needs to feed so they go to a hospital to get blood for Bianca from the blood bank. They are interrupted by Raquel and Dana who realise that Bianca is a vampire as she is feeding. They both promise not to tell anyone but Bianca is woken in the night after someone told the Black Cross cell about Bianca's vampirism. She is tied up and burnt with holy water, and Lucas. who is also splashed, burns due to him feeding Bianca. Dana helps them escape and gives them some money but tells Black Cross they escaped. After Lucas realises there is a dangerous vampire in the city they are staying in he decides to hunt it. Lucas finds the rogue vampire but after following him to a hotel room realises that Charity, Balthazar's sister, is staying close by with her clan who the rogue vampire belongs to. He escapes and later he and Bianca tell Balthazar that Charity is near by. Bianca and Lucas begin to run out of money and go to their friend Vic for help. He allows them to stay in the basement. On Bianca's birthday Lucas takes her to the planetarium where they are attacked by wraiths. They both escape and later get jobs. While staying in Vic's house Bianca becomes increasingly weak and ill. Bianca realises that she must kill a human and become a full vampire otherwise she will die. Lucas offers to allow Bianca to kill him but she refuses as he would not agree to rise with her. She later dies and becomes a wraith. She is met by a wraith named Maxine who tells her that she is powerful due to her born status as a wraith. She is told she can form a body by holding objects she has bonded to in her life including her broche and her coral bracelet which were both made of once living material. Bianca appears to Lucas telling him about her becoming a wraith. Lucas with Ranulf and Vic who have returned from holiday agree to assist Balthazar in killing Charity. Vic waits outside after they track her down to a rundown cinema where they fight and kill several members of her clan. While Bianca is solid she is injured by Charity who throws a shard of iron at her which is weakening to wraiths, causing her to loses her solidity. Charity, Bianca and Lucas are alone and as Bianca is powerless she pins down Lucas before draining his blood killing him. Charity leaves and Balthazar and Ranulf arrive who tell Bianca of Lucas's fate. He will become a vampire. |
Moonlight Mile | Dennis Lehane | 2,010 | Amanda McCready was four years old when she vanished from a Boston neighborhood in 1997. Desperate pleas for help from the child’s aunt led savvy, tough-nosed investigators Kenzie and Gennaro to take on the case. The pair risked everything to find the young girl — only to orchestrate her return to a neglectful mother and a broken home. Now Amanda is 16 — and gone again. A stellar student, brilliant but aloof, she seemed destined to escape her upbringing. Amanda’s aunt is once again knocking at Patrick Kenzie’s door, fearing the worst for the little girl who has blossomed into a striking, bright young woman who hasn’t been seen in two weeks. Haunted by the past, Kenzie and Gennaro revisit the case that troubled them the most, following a 12-year trail of secrets and lies down the darkest alleys of Boston’s gritty, blue-collar streets. Assuring themselves that this time will be different, they vow to make good on their promise to find Amanda and see that she is safe. But their determination to do the right thing holds dark implications Kenzie and Gennaro aren’t prepared for ... consequences that could cost them not only Amanda’s life, but their own. Since "Prayers for Rain" Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro have married and had a child. |
Twilight: The Graphic Novel | null | null | The plot describes Bella Swan's move from Phoenix, Arizona to Forks, Washington to live with her father, Charlie, while her mother, Renée, travels with her new husband, Phil Dwyer, a minor league baseball player. Bella attracts much attention at her new school and is quickly befriended by several students. Much to her dismay, several boys compete for shy Bella's attention. She is immediately struck by the extreme beauty of the Cullens, who appear pale and different. When Bella is seated next to Edward Cullen in class on her first day of school, Edward seems utterly repulsed by her. He disappears for a few days, but warms up to Bella upon his return; their newfound relationship reaches a climax when Bella is nearly run over by a classmate's van in the school parking lot. Seemingly defying the laws of physics, Edward saves her life when he instantaneously appears next to her and stops the van with his bare hands. Bella becomes determined to find out how Edward saved her life, and constantly pesters him with questions. After a family friend, Jacob Black, tells her the local tribal legends, Bella concludes that Edward and his family are vampires who drink animal blood rather than human. Edward confesses that he initially avoided Bella because the scent of her blood was too desirable to him. However, he admits his true nature and when this doesn't scare away Bella, they begin a relationship. They begin questioning each other about their lives, and Edward decides to show Bella why he and his family can't be in the sun. They go hiking for a day, where Edward tries once more to show just how dangerous he really is, but it turns out that neither can stay away, culminating in a kiss. This first part of the novelization ends with Edward taking Bella home. Part 2 begins when Edward Cullen takes Bella Swan home from visiting his family at their house. All of the Cullens are very welcoming to Bella except for Rosalie, who is concerned that the relationship between Edward and Bella may end badly, implicating the entire family and forcing them to move again. However, Edward is very careful not to lose control when he is around Bella, and their relationship continues to grow. The relationship is disturbed when another vampire coven arrives in Forks. James, a tracker vampire who is intrigued by the Cullens' relationship with a human, wants to hunt Bella for sport. The Cullens attempt to distract the tracker by splitting up Bella and Edward, and Bella is sent to hide in a hotel in Phoenix. There, she receives a phone call from James, who claims to be holding her mother captive. When Bella surrenders herself, James attacks her. Before James can kill her, Edward, along with the other Cullens, rescues her and defeats James. Once they realize that James has bitten Bella's hand, Edward successfully sucks the poison from her bloodstream and prevents her from becoming a vampire, after which she is brought to a hospital. Upon returning to Forks, Bella and Edward attend their school prom and Bella expresses her desire to become a vampire, but Edward refuses. |
Hush, Hush | null | null | The book starts off with the protagonist, Nora Grey, who is a sophomore living in Coldwater, Maine, a very unpopular city. She sits with her best friend, Vee, in biology class, but when the seating plan is changed by her coach, she finds herself next to Patch Cipriano, a mysterious senior who has already failed the class twice. At first, Nora finds Patch intolerable and unsettling, as Patch is able to draw her in but also repel her with his behavior. In the library, Patch glances at Nora, making her suspect that he is stalking her. Later, Vee and Nora meet two guys named Elliot and Jules, and the four go to Delpic Amusement Park. Vee is desperately trying to set Nora and Elliot up as he is clearly attracted to Nora. Patch is later found by Vee and Elliot seems jealous but Nora assures all of them that there is nothing going on between her and Patch. She goes and says hello but he tries to persuade her into riding the Archangel with him. Since she is afraid of heights, she doesn't accept. However, desperate for answers, she makes up an excuse and wanders off to find Patch. Nora bumps into Patch again and she goes on the Archangel with him. After the ride, Nora tells Patch that she flew out of the ride when she went on it before. He ignores her and calms her down. Puzzled, Nora can't find Vee or her car anywhere. So Patch offers to take Nora home, but she is reluctant to do so. In her house, the two make tacos and Patch almost kisses her but is interrupted by her mobile ringing. At 2am, an angry Vee is demanding to know where Nora has gone. Vee later finds out that Nora and Patch kissed, a fact which Nora denies. In a turn of events, Nora becomes more connected with Patch, starting to change her mind about him. In this time she meets Patch's friend called Rixon in the pool hall. After time passes, Nora is so eager to find out about Elliot's past because he was involved in a murder case. In the evening, she meets a bag lady, asking for directions and pays by giving her coat to the bag lady. It starts to rain and Nora soon discovers a dead body; it is the bag lady. Scared for her life, Nora calls Patch for a lift home. While in the phone box, Patch lifts Nora to his Jeep. The car breaks down halfway and they stop at a shabby motel. In the motel room, she acknowledges his muscled body and touches the scars on his back. She falls into his memory about 8 months before she'd even met Patch. After being pulled out the memory, Patch forces her to the bed, demanding to know what Nora has seen. Gutted and frustrated, Nora asks Patch if he wanted to kill her, and he nods. Patch starts to kiss Nora when she is trying to escape. He then admits that he was going to kill her but he didn't go through with it. Her quest for answers lands her in several dangerous situations, finally leading to the stunning revelation that Patch, which is told in the memory, is in fact an angel who fell from Heaven, and who meant to kill her, explaining why he was in her school to begin with. Patch had found a way to become human through a text in the Book of Enoch. By killing Nora, he succeeds in killing his Nephilim vassal, Chauncey Langeais, making Patch a human. Dabria, Patch's fallen angel ex-girlfriend, wants Patch to save Nora's life, thus turning him into a guardian angel so that they can be together again. Patch insists on becoming human, following his original plan. But this plan goes nowhere because he falls in love with Nora. In a turn of events, Jules - a mutual friend of Nora's - is revealed to be Chauncey who wants revenge on Patch for tricking him into swearing an oath that will allow Patch to take over his body during the Hebrew month of Cheshvan. After leaving the motel, at her house Nora is confronted by Dabria, informing Nora that Patch wants to kill her so he can become human. Dabria plans to kill Nora herself so Patch is unable to. Nora isn't convinced that Patch still wants to kill her but loves her instead. Thoroughly denying that Patch doesn't love Nora, she begins to burn down the farmhouse. Nora is saved by Patch and he tells her to drive to Delphic, then he kisses Nora and seeks to find Dabria. Nora plans to meet Vee at the theatre but Patch arrives and ushers Nora in the girls' bathroom. Annoyed, she is still not sure on whether Patch will kill her or not. He admits to Nora that he couldn't go through with using Nora as a sacrifice. He also says that if he hadn't fallen, he wouldn't have met Nora. Convinced, she passionately kisses Patch, wrapping her legs around him but they are interrupted by Vee calling, saying that she wants Nora to come play hide-and-seek with Elliot and Jules. Then the call is taken over by Elliot, hinting threats at Nora that Vee won't be alive if Nora doesn't play. Patch then forces Nora to stay in the car, so he goes off and went to search for Vee. Elliot calls Nora again, threatening her more, she then disobeys Patch by going and looking for Vee. Nora ends up with Jules, explaining that he was Chauncey, and he did all those attacks towards Nora. Furthermore, Jules explains how he is getting revenge on Patch for making him swear an oath (which he did in the prologue) by killing Nora because he found Patch is in love with Nora. She then stabs him and runs for her life. Jules corners her, and she notices Patch behind him. Failing to distract Jules, he swings Nora around and holds a gun to her head in front of Patch. Intimidating Jules, Patch possesses Nora's body, fighting Jules. Patch then peels out of her and while unconscious, Nora then runs up the ladder in the school gym and comes face to face with Jules. Aiming the gun at her, Nora tells him that Jules will die if she takes her own life and Patch will become human. Having fallen in love with Nora, Patch chooses to save her rather than accepting the sacrifice to become human. By saving her, he becomes her guardian angel, but also effectively kills Chauncey, who had no soul to reanimate his dead body. At the farmhouse, Nora asks him why he didn't accept the sacrifice, he answers that he'd rather be a guardian angel. In the novel, he says, "What good is a body if I can't have you?" The last chapter ends with Patch and Nora sharing a passionate kiss. |
Darkness, Take My Hand | Dennis Lehane | 1,996 | From the back of the paperback: When Detectives Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro agree to protect the son of a prominent psychiatrist they soon find bodies are piling up around them. What's more, all the clues point to an unlikely suspect - a serial killer who has been in prison for twenty years, so he can't be killing again, can he? As the duo try to find out what kind of human being could perform such horrifying acts of mutilation, torture and dismemberment, they discover that the killer's motive is disturbingly rooted in their own past. In a series of heart-stopping climaxes that grow ever more bloody, ever more terrifying, the two detectives work frantically to capture the killer before they become victims themselves. es:Abrázame, oscuridad fr:Ténèbres, prenez-moi la main sv:Mörker, ta min hand |
The Art of Racing in the Rain | Garth Stein | 2,009 | The novel follows the story of Denny Swift, a race car driver living in Seattle, and his dog Enzo, who believes in the Mongolian legend that a dog who is prepared will be reincarnated in his next life as a human. Enzo sets out to prepare, with The Seattle Times calling his journey "a struggle to hone his humanness, to make sense of the good, the bad and the unthinkable." Enzo spends his days watching and learning from television, gleaning what he can about his owner's greatest passion, race car driving — and relating it to life. Enzo eventually plays a key role in Denny's child-custody battle with his in-laws, and distills his observations of the human condition in the mantra "that which you manifest is before you." |
The Child Thief | Gerald Brom | null | The novel follows several different characters in their adventures through Avalon. First following Nick from the slow charming attraction to the golden eyed boy, to the horrifying walk through the mist, pass the barghest and the flesh eaters, and into the safety of Deviltree, the story only begins to unravel. Brom makes liberal use of Celtic and Scottish mythology as, in a parallel storyline, he describes Peter's history from birth to Lord of Deviltree. Peter spends his time searching for new children to take back to Avalon. Always searching in the poorest of the poor neighborhoods, Peter only takes those children that are abused, forgotten, or, his personal favorite, runaways. He befriends these children before taking them - the mist would never allow him to take a child without the child's consent. I go willingly, the last words ever spoken by the children before leaving for the mist and Avalon. Many children die in the mist. Many more die fighting for their lives in Avalon, and Peter must go out seeking more... more blood for Deviltree. Avalon is an enchanted isle in its final death throes. Peter's Clan of human children is the final force between the Flesh Eaters and The Lady. The Lady's magic keeps Avalon alive and the mist up to keep out unwanted humans while, unfortunately, keeping the Flesh Eaters in. The Lady is trapped within the heart of Avalon, kept a prisoner in her own land by her nephew and Avalon's heir apparent, Lord Ulfger. The Flesh Eaters arrived on Avalon when the first refugees left the British Isles in search of a new home free of religious persecution. When they arrived, they were greeted by a glorious delegation of horned beasts, elves, satyrs, and faeries looking to secure peace among the newcomers. At the sight of monsters and devils, the humans fled back into their gates and a war begun. Termed the Flesh Eaters for eating any of the living things they killed, including the magical creatures, the humans holed up in their sanctuary and hid from the evil outside. Likewise, the magical creatures hid in their wood from the horrors coming out of the pilgrims' stronghold. The Lady released the mist so that no others might enter. Yet, thus, none were allowed to leave. The magic of Avalon twisted the grown humans into black scaly monsters and they became stuck in the war against The Lady - to kill her and release the mist so they might leave this island. The children at Deviltree are also affected by the magic of Avalon. However, being children, they were not twisted into malicious scaly creatures. Instead they grew strong, fast, and amazingly powerful. They were honed into warriors, fighting alongside Peter to save Avalon and The Lady and rid the land of the flesh eaters. The story reaches its climax with all of the forces meeting in a final unexpected clash that will shake the order of things in both worlds forever. |
Play Dead | Harlan Coben | 1,990 | No sooner had supermodel Laura Ayers and Celtics star David Baskin said "I do" than tragedy struck. While honeymooning on Australia's Great Barrier Reef, David went out for a swim-and never returned. Now widowed and grieving, Laura's search for the truth will draw her into a web of lies and deception. pl:Mistyfikacja (powieść Harlana Cobena) th:แกล้ง (ฮาร์ลาน โคเบน) |
Miracle Cure | Harlan Coben | null | The plot concerns a clinic that treats people with AIDS. Just as the scientists working there are on the brink of a breakthrough the create a cure for the disease, one of them dies. Initially it looks like suicide but after a journalist investigates, she finds that it is murder, and there is a killer targeting the patients of the clinic as well. pl:Klinika śmierci |
Gone for Good | Harlan Coben | 2,002 | Will's ex-girlfriend has been killed and his brother Ken, has disappeared. He was the prime suspect in the girl's murder. Will also has the demands of his job as a worker with the homeless of the New York City. When he finds out that his brother is alive after all and his current girlfriend disappears as well, Will is arrested by the FBI as the prime suspect to the murder of the girl. Will is at breaking point. Only his friend Squares and Will's determination to get justice, and find out what he needs to ensure that justice is served, keep him going during further mystery and danger. Will and Ken had some famous but bad people go to school with them, the gangster McGuane and the assassin known as Ghost, and the roots of the jeopardy Will finds himself in are in his school years. de:Kein Lebenszeichen he:הנעלמים pl:Bez pożegnania (Harlan Coben) pt:Gone for Good (livro) |
Symposium | Muriel Spark | 1,990 | It is the story of a dinner party and the events leading up to it involving the lives of the five couples attending: * Hurley Reed (an American painter) and Chris Donovan (a rich Australian widow), the party hosts * Lord and Lady Suzy, who have recently been burgled * Ernst and Ella Untzinger, an EU commissioner and his wife, a teacher * Margaret and William Damien, newlyweds just returned from a honeymoon in Venice * Annabel Treece and Roland Sykes, a TV producer and genealogist, cousins The story includes many flashbacks into the lives of the guests including a convent of Marxist nuns, a burglary ring preying on the guests, a mad Scottish uncle and several unexplained deaths. The dinner party itself ends with the murder of the mother of one of the guests... |
Toby Alone | Timothée de Fombelle | 2,009 | A 13-year boy named Toby Lolness, who is just one and a half millimeters tall, lives in a civilization nestled in an oak tree. On his seventh birthday, his father, a scientist named Sim, creates a black box that causes one of his toys to move around by harnessing the power of sap. However, when Sim refuses to tell people how he did it, he and his family are banished to the Lower Branches, where Toby meets his best friend Elisha Lee. When Toby is thirteen, his parents are arrested by the evil corporant tyrant Joe Mitch, who has a pathological obsession with hole-digging, and thrown into a prison on a mistletoe ball called Tumble. He desperately wants to learn how to use the sap for his biggest project, the Big Crater, a massive hole in the middle of the tree, and Toby finds himself on the run from his own people. He struggles to survive alone. He is betrayed by his old friend Leo Blue. Another friend, Nils Amen, betrays him as well, but redeems himself by pretending to be Toby, throwing the searchers off. Toby passes through the Big Crater, where his father's enemy, W. C. Rolok, finds him. He attempts to make him swallow a sap ball, which the weevils will rip his stomach open to reach. Toby spits the ball down Rolok's throat, takes his clothes, and gives him a whip to fight off the weevils. On the way out, he meets up with Mano Asseldor, who used to live on a farm in the Lower Branches, and the two escape together. Once they reach the Lower Branches, Mano is reunited with his parents and siblings, but he is forced to hide in a space behind the fireplace. Toby tries to get help from a miller and his wife, the Olmechs. They contact Joe Mitch's soldiers, but Toby manages to escape anyway. The Olmechs are thrown into prison for lying. Finally, Toby reaches the area where Elisha and her mother Isha live. He hides in a cave, and Elisha brings him food every day. When winter comes, Toby is snowed in for several months. He barely survives off Elisha's food and some mildew. In the spring, he and Elisha create an elaborate plan to rescue Toby s parents from prison. The night of the planned escape, Toby is trapped in a wax cast, pretending to be the jailor Gus Alzan's injured daughter Berenice. Elisha was supposed to break in and rescue him and his parents, but she was unable to get into the prison, causing Toby to think she'd betrayed him. He escapes when a fire weakens the cast. He releases all the water in the cistern, extinguishing the fire. On the way to find his parents, another prisoner tells him they've already been executed, and that Elisha crushed his hand with her foot. Not believing him, Toby goes to his parents' cell, only to find the Olmechs. Their son, Lex, is trying to rescue them. Toby gives Lex the key to his parents' chains and walks to the end of a mistletoe branch, planning to jump off. However, he hears a bird squawking, and decides to burrow into one of the berries and get eaten. He is carried away by the bird and loses consciousness. When he wakes up, he finds himself alive in the grass. He is taken in by a young boy named Moon Boy and his older sister Ilaya, who rename him Little Tree. Two years later, Pol Colleen, a neighbor from the Low Branches, visits the grass and tells Toby he was adopted when he was a few days old, that his adoptive parents are still alive, and that Elisha, whose mother was once a grass woman, is now being held prisoner by Leo Blue, who has become a ruthless dictator and wants to marry her. Toby decides to go back to the Tree. |
Toby and the Secrets of the Tree | null | null | Toby's adventures continue as he heads back to the tree to save his parents, Elisha (who is held captive by Leo Blue) and all the Grass People who are being held captive by the evil Joe Mitch, who is digging a hole to the center of the tree, determined to get the secret knowledge of how the tree lives from Toby's father. Meanwhile Toby meets up with another one of his old friends, Nils Amen, who is the leader of a band of woodcutters and is also helping to hide some fugitives in a secret forest in the tree. Nils pretends to side with Leo Blue, in order to give Elisha the message that Toby has returned. |
Dictation: A Quartet | Cynthia Ozick | 2,008 | Dictation Approximately 15,000 Words. This story is about the secretaries of Henry James and Joseph Conrad. The two women have a brief lesbian affair, and hatch a scheme to switch a paragraph form each of their bosses new works. Actors Approximately 8,000 words, originally published in The New Yorker, and later in “Cynthia Ozick Collected Stories.” This story is about a post-middle-aged Jewish actor with an Irish-sounding stage name who has just landed the role of King Lear in an off-Broadway play written by the daughter of a famous Yiddish actor. At Fumicaro Approximately 11,000 words, originally published in The New Yorker and later in “Cynthia Ozick Collected Stories.” This story is about an American from New York who goes to Fumicaro, Italy for a conference on Catholicism. He meets a young, Italian chambermaid who is pregnant out of wedlock and decides to marry her and take her back home to America. The story takes place in the 1930s after Benito Mussolini has taken over. The characters in the story portray an eerie ambivalence to the idea of fascism. What Happened to the Baby Approximately 10,000 words, published in The Atlantic and “Cynthia Ozick Collected Stories.” This story is about an elderly man who is in the middle of a life long ambition to create a new universal language called “GNU”, and his niece Vivian who has been charged by her mother to take care of him after his wife divorced him. |
Kings of the Water | null | null | It is the story of thirty-five-year-old Michiel (Michael) Steyn who returns to the family farm in South Africa for his mother's funeral. This is Steyn's first return to South Africa in fifteen years after leaving in 1987 to escape from a scandal he was involved in while he was an officer in the South African navy. Steyn is from both Afrikaans and English extraction and is now a US citizen. He lives with his partner Kamil Cassis (who is half Palestinian, half Jewish) on the boundary of San Francisco's Castro district. The book engages specifically South African questions of racism, guilt, responsibility and the tentativeness of forgiveness but the novel's ending asks for an international reading, in particular through its foreshadowing of US foreign and domestic policy in the era of George W Bush. Kings of the Water also offers a glimpse at an older version of a marginal character from Embrace as well as allusion to the extended fishing scene from The Smell of Apples, in this way seeming to insist that all three these novels be read and understood in relation to one another. |
Walking Shadow | Robert B. Parker | 1,994 | The story follows Boston-based PI Spenser as he tries to solve the on-stage murder of an actor in the run-down town of Port City. While investigating the crime, he runs afoul of the local Chinese mob and uncovers a web of infidelity, organized crime, and psychologically unstable actors. |
Self Help | Ed Docx | 2,007 | "Alone in her native St. Petersburg, Maria Glover sends an urgent summons to London and New York. Her son and daughter arrive too late to see her". Their mother's death marks the beginning of the twins search for the truth about her... |
Walk of the Spirits | Richie Tankersley Cusick | 2,008 | Miranda Barnes "realizes that life as she knew it is officially over" when she sees the town of St. Yvette, Louisiana. She starts hearing whispers, sees shadows, and hears voices. Her school mates can tell that something is wrong with her. She realized that she has the same "special gift" that her grandfather had to communicate with the spirits, and that she needs to help them. |
Storm Warning | Linda Sue Park | 2,010 | As they were leaving China, Amy and Dan get a call from the Holts telling them that they knew where they were going. So Dan and Amy assume Nellie Gomez, their au pair, told the Holts. On the plane, Dan and Amy get Nellie to give them some information. It turns out it wasn't Beatrice who hired her, Grace did. Nellie also tells them that she works for Mr. McIntyre, but does not tell them that she really works for The Man In Black. As events in the Caribbean take place, Amy and Dan watch as the clue hunt kills a non-Cahill named Lester. Angry, Amy and Dan decide to face Aunt Beatrice, but Nellie kidnaps them, and takes them to Moore Town to meet The Man In Black. They are then forced to solve a puzzle box that Amy and Dan had found in the museum that Lester had worked at. After solving Anne Bonny's puzzle box, getting the Madrigal clue of Mace, and the knowledge that they should go to England, Dan and Amy learn that The Man In Black, who followed them in the first few books in the series, is Fiske Cahill, Grace's brother. He ran away as a kid, and that's why Amy and Dan never heard of him. He tells them Madeleine Cahill's story: Gideon Cahill was trying to find the cure for the plague, and he did, but Gideon didn't know that the cure, which was a serum, altered the user's DNA, giving the users greater abilities in every area of human endeavor. Gideon gave each of his four children a part of the master serum. Soon afterwards, Gideon dies in a fire. The children blamed each other, and separated to start their individual branch.Luke started the Lucians; his sister, Katherine, started the Ekaterina; her brother Thomas started the Tomas; and his sister, Jane, started the Janus. But no one else knew that Gideon's wife, Olivia, was pregnant when Gideon died and her family was separated. Pregnant with Madeleine Cahill, founder of the Madrigals, Olivia raised Madeleine to believe nothing was more important than family. So that is the Madrigals' goal - to reunite the family members. Fiske Cahill also tells them that the Lucians framed Arthur and Hope Cahill for murder in South Africa. Hired by Grace, Nellie was spying for Fiske, so the branch would know about Amy and Dan in order to grant them a Madrigal status. Before leaving, Fiske reveals this to Amy and Dan. For the first time ever, the Madrigals give active status to someone not born in the bloodline: Nellie Gomez. Amy and Dan also become members, revealed in the end of book 7, The Viper's Nest. Amy and Dan are then given seven of the other Madrigal clues and head to England to search for the next clue. Page Number Code is "He didn't tell them everything." |
The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner | Stephenie Meyer | null | The story begins with Bree and Diego hunting for human blood in Seattle, Washington. Bree has been a vampire for three months, and Diego has been one for eleven months. Together they kill and drink a pimp and two prostitutes. Bree and Diego talk about "her" (Victoria) and ask why she is turning so many people into vampires. Diego thinks something is coming, and that "she" is using them as protection. They hide in a cave and discuss their human lives, and how Riley came to offer them a second life as a vampire. Together they decide that Riley is using them as pawns for protection, and that he might be lying to them. They also discover that sunlight does not kill a vampire, but makes their skin sparkle. They become friends and decide to form a "club," spending the day "playing ninja," looking for Riley and the other vampires they live with. They find that Riley had relocated everyone to a log cabin and Diego gets into a fight with Raoul, an arrogant newborn, but another newborn, "Freaky Fred," uses his repelling power to stop Raoul from killing them. That night Bree and Diego stalk Riley, suspicious that he is meeting with "her." They eavesdrop on Riley's conversation with Victoria. Eventually the Volturi show up, threatening to punish Victoria for amassing a vampire army but willing to give her army a chance to destroy the Cullens. The Volturi say that if Victoria does not attack within five days, they will kill her. Bree returns to the log cabin and resolves to run away, while Diego stays behind to talk to Riley. Riley returns to the cabin alone and tells his vampire army that there are older vampires in Seattle (the Cullens) who want to kill them, and if they want to survive, they will have to work together and learn how to fight. Riley tells Bree that Diego is doing surveillance work with "her" and will return to join them in the fight. After three nights of training, Bree and the vampires hunt a ferry boat to drink the passengers' blood and regain their strength for the battle against the elder vampires. Riley then tells everyone that the vampires they will be fighting have yellow eyes and keep a human (Bella) as a pet, giving them Bella's scent to hunt. They head off to fight the Cullens. Fred decides to run away to Vancouver before the battle, and Riley retreats, telling Bree that Diego has already started fighting with the group. Bree arrives at the battle to find the newborn vampires being killed by the Cullens, and thinks that Diego is already dead because she cannot see or smell him anywhere. She deduces that Victoria and Riley killed Diego for being disobedient the night he went missing. Bree surrenders to the Cullens. They debate whether or not to kill her and decide to restrain her until the Volturi arrive. Bree has trouble resisting the urge to drink Bella's blood. The Volturi show up and Jane tortures Bree into telling everything about the newborns. She explains that Riley lied to her and everyone else, and if they did not do as they were told they would be killed. She uses her thoughts to tell Edward that the Volturi had allowed the army to attack the Cullens. The Volturi decide to kill Bree, and Edward warns Bella to shut her eyes. Bree mistakenly thinks that Edward is referring to herself. Bree closes her eyes and is instantly killed. |
The Slave | Isaac Bashevis Singer | 1,962 | Jacob, the hero of the book, was a resident of Josefov, a Jewish town in Poland. After the Khmelnytsky massacres, in which his wife and three children were murdered by Cossacks, Jacob was sold as a slave to pagan peasant farmers. Throughout his several years of slavery, he struggled to maintain his Judaism by observing as many Jewish rituals as possible and by maintaining high ethical standards for himself. While in captivity, Jacob fell in love with his master's daughter, Wanda. While Jewish law and custom forbids Jews from even touching a woman a man is not married to and also forbids Jews from cohabiting with gentiles, Jacob's love for Wanda was too powerful to overcome and they engage in sexual intercourse. Later, Jews from Josefov came to ransom him by paying off Wanda's father and he returned Josefov. While in Josefov, Jacob dreamed of Wanda. In the dream, Wanda was pregnant and asked Jacob why he abandoned her and left the child in her womb to be raised by pagans. Jacob decided to return to the pagan village, take Wanda as a wife, and help her to convert to Judaism. Jacob and Wanda reached another town, Pilitz, where Jacob made his living as a teacher. In Pilitz, Wanda became known as Sarah and Jacob instructed to be pretend that she was deaf and mute so as not to reveal her origin as a gentile. Sarah thirsted for knowledge and at night, Jacob taught her Jewish beliefs, myths, and practices. She suffered in silence as the women in the town gossiped about her right in front of her, as they thought that since she was deaf, she would not hear them. Her secret was finally discovered when she screamed loudly during the birth of her and Jacob's son. Sarah died during the difficult birth, and was given a "donkey's burial" outside of the Jewish cemetery. Jacob called his baby son Benjamin (he likens himself to the biblical Jacob whose wife, Rachel, died in the childbirth of the biblical Benjamin); he traveled to the Land of Israel with the infant. Benjamin grew up to become a lecturer in a yeshiva in Jerusalem. 20 years later, Jacob returned to Pilitz and discovered that the town grew and that the cemetery had grown so much that the place where Sarah was buried was now within the bounds of the cemetery. The place where Sarah was buried was not prominently marked and unknown to the Jews of Pilitz. Jacob was weak and died during the visit to Pilitz. By coincidence (or perhaps, by a miracle), as a grave was being dug for Jacob, the bones of Sarah were found. The town decided to bury them together, side by side. |
Taken by Force | null | 2,007 | Taken by Force explores the patterns of rapes committed by US servicemen during the Second World War between the years of 1942 and 1945, as well as the reaction of the American army in response to the crimes. The book draws upon court records, newspaper articles and trial transcripts, covering the 14,000 rapes that Lilly estimated, using a formula created by Leon Radzinowicz, occurred in Britain, France and Germany at the hands of US soldiers. Chapter 2 covers "explanations for sexual violence during war", which includes discussion about rape being used as a "tool of genocide", as a "inherent feature of military culture", and as a "means of revenge." Chapters 3, 4, and 5 consecutively act as "analyses of rape and rape prosecutions" in the countries of England, France, and Germany and how the number of rapes in each country differ because of views American soldiers held toward the civilian population in each country. |
A Scattered Life | null | null | From the publisher: Free-spirit Skyla Plinka has found the love and stability she always wanted in her reliable husband Thomas. Settling into her new family and roles as wife and mother, life in rural Wisconsin is satisfying, but can’t seem to quell Skyla’s growing sense of restlessness. Her only reprieve is her growing friendship with neighbor Roxanne, who has five kids (and counting) and a life in constant disarray – but also a life filled with laughter and love. Much to the dismay of her intrusive mother-in-law, Audrey, Skyla takes a part-time job at the local bookstore and slowly begins to rediscover her voice, independence and confidence. Throughout one pivotal year in the life of Skyla, Audrey and Roxanne, all three very different women will learn what it means to love unconditionally. With the storytelling ingenuity of Anne Tyler, the writing talent of Jodi Picoult, and the subtlty of Alice Munro, McQuestion offers a satisfying debut that proves she is a gifted portraitist, a natural storyteller and an author to watch. |
Children of the River | Linda Crew | 1,991 | Sundara's childhood includes a boy named Chamroeun described as charming and a smart boy. Chamroeun and Sundara's parents joke that they will one day be married. Sundara shortly falls in love with Chamroeun, but Chamroeun goes to fight in the war as a soldier right before Sundara leaves to her uncle and aunt's house. When Sundara is at her aunt and uncle's house she flees from Cambodia with her aunt, Soka, her grandma, and her uncle, Naro, to escape a communist threat. Her aunt Soka just had a baby, right as they had to leave. While on the small, very cramped ship, Sundara is put in charge of the infant, as Soka is drifting in and out of awareness. The baby is extremely malnourished, and Sundara, eager to save her cousin, asks a mother for her breast milk to help the baby get better. The mother states, "I would, but... Oh, this is all so terrible. I'm not getting enough to drink myself. Soon I'm afraid I won't have milk for my own.". She then goes to a helper and asks for some extra milk, or supplies. He gives her a hard time, but eventually gives her some powdered milk, and some sugar water in a bottle. The baby soon dies shortly after, devastating Sundara. Sundara eventually makes it to America. She seems to understand American ways, but not the reasons behind them. To Sundara's dismay, a teacher, Mrs. Cathcart, reads her poem assignment aloud to the class. It is about her having to leave Cambodia, and all the people dying there. Sundara, along with Soka, work for Mr. Bonner Sundara also works Mr. Bonner's fruit stand at the market. There she meets Jonathan, a boy her age, who attends the same school and seems very sweet to Sundara. He compliments Sundara many times. Sundara also cannot help herself from admiring him. Soon he befriends her, asking to interview her about her life in Cambodia. Sundara is shy about her family history; She has trouble opening up to him. Sundara and Jonathan soon fall for each other. Sundara's aunt has trouble accepting her crush. In fact, as soon as Soka knows of it, she makes Sundara promise that she will not talk to Jonathan anymore. She reluctantly agrees. Despite her promise, Sundara sneaks away to see Jonathan. Sundara soon finds out Chamroeun has been killed shortly after by a hoe while eating a potato peel. As Sundara starts to adapt to American ways, she learns that her new friend Jonathan is popular at school. Jonathan's girlfriend, Cathy Gates, says nobody really seems to understand Jonathan but Cathy. According to Cathy, "Jonathan and I have been going together since the ninth grade. We have something very special between us." As Sundara and Jonathan's relationship builds, they start eating lunch together, and he then asks her to the movie. Sundara realizes she is becoming more American after being told, "You know, you ought to watch how much you become American.". Sundara and her friend Moni have dinner. They end up reminded, that in their society back home all marriages are arranged. On top of Sundara having this problem, news is spreading through the school about her and Jonathan. Cathy soon finds out about their [friendship, and she is not happy. Cathy stands up for herself and decides to face Sundara; Sundara does not seem to want to face Cathy. Sundara has trouble understanding Jonathan's relationship with Cathy. She finds herself confused about a lot of things, such as girls showering together after gym class. It is clear that Sundara has feelings for Jonathan, but cannot show him. Later, one night after a football game, her cousin Ravy gets home to tell Sundara that Jonathan was hurt while playing. Sundara becomes worried and goes to see him. In the hospital, Jonathan explains to Sundara how he dislikes Cathy's attention. He wishes that she had not sent him balloons. "I knew it," he says. "Cathy. I wish she wouldn't do stuff like this." He also admits to Sundara that he loves her. Sundara is not able to get her mind off Jonathan. She is also told that Jonathan is quitting the football team, due to what Sundara has told him about Cambodia. Cathy is upset and knows something is going on between Jonathan and Sundara. She realizes Jonathon likes Sundara. Everything changes when Jonathan's father goes on a mission trip, solely because Jonathon yelled at his dad for not following through on going to help. Jonathan is ashamed that he yelled at his father, and wishes he hadn't. Jonathan gives Sundara a "goodbye kiss". It seems to get harder to see each other after that. When Moni, her friend from Cambodia takes a trip with her to collect bottles, Sundara notices a broken doll. There, she collapses into hysterics, Moni drags her home and takes her inside. After Grandmother claims the baby girl`s spirit has taken over Sundara, the women all pray for a release on Sundara. Soka confesses her feelings about Sundara, which makes Sundara understand how Soka feels about her. |
Maza of the Moon | Otis Adelbert Kline | 1,930 | Ted Dustin, an American inventor, seeks to win a prize of one million dollars by being the first person to touch the moon with an object launched from Earth. He devises a huge gun, which fires upon the surface of the moon. Shortly thereafter, the moon fires back, and war breaks out between the planet and its satellite. Using a videophone he invented, Ted hails communication with the moon. A beautiful woman and her guards first reply, but their transmission is cut off by warlike yellow aliens. Ted eventually heads to the moon in a spacecraft of his own design, and meets the titular character, who turns out to be the beautiful woman from the transmission, as well as a princess of one of the two groups that inhabit the moon. |
The Copper Elephant | Adam Rapp | 1,999 | Whensday Bluehouse is an orphan who was rescued from a life working in the Pitts by coffin maker Tick Burrowman. Burrowman is attempting to make a profit by selling Whensday to a woman from Toptown, a part of the world that is unaffected by acid rain and life on The Shelf. Whensday is unsure of the security of this exchange, and sneaks away one night. Burrowman may have actually grown fond of Whensday, and it is unclear if he is interested in giving her away after all. While Whensday is on the run, she stumbles upon a large, mentally handicapped teenager named Honeycut Greenhouse, obviously another orphan. He was separated from his brother, much as Whensday was, and it is obvious that Honeycut doesn’t have the faculties to take care of himself. Whensday decides to befriend Honeycut, and he rescues her during a vicious rape by Second Staff Brown, a minor officer in the military. Honeycut kills Brown, and a manhunt begins, ending with Honeycut’s capture. Whensday flees and hides in the only place she knows, Tick Burrowman’s home. Upon her arrival, she finds him dead, and a former friend, Joe Painter, seriously ill. They cobble together a flotilla of “body boxes” and attempt to paddle up the river, away from the Shelf and the head for Toptown. But Joe Painter dies on the trip, and the current carries Whensday back to the shelf. She is rescued by a secret clan of women, hiding from the Syndicate, and she stays with them. |
The Cruise of the Breadwinner | H. E. Bates | 1,946 | The story takes place on board the Breadwinner, an old battered fishing boat, contributing to the war effort by carrying out a routine patrol of a particular stretch of coast in the English Channel. The main character, a young boy called Snowy, has volunteered to help and spends much of his time dreaming about the pair of binoculars that the boat's skipper, Mr Gregson, has promised him. The third and final member of the crew is Jimmy, a young engineer with a wife and three children. The story's events, which take place in a single day, begin simply enough. They travel south until Snowy hears a dogfight further out to sea. They head towards the sound and soon hear whistling. Upon arriving at the source of the distress signal, they find a young English RAF pilot who has been shot down but is not injured. The pilot informs them that he's hit a German plane and believes it to have crashed somewhere to the west. He requests that they attempt to find the German pilot and, after a brief search, they succeed. Despite Jimmy's protestations that they should not be helping the enemy, they help the German aboard and Snowy is sent to make the pilots some tea. Whilst he is below deck, another Luftwaffe plane flies at the boat, shooting and charging at the deck. Snowy returns to find the attack has killed Jimmy and severely injured the two pilots. Gregson has also been hit but is not seriously wounded. It starts to rain and Gregson and Snowy help the pilots below deck. Whilst trying to get the engine going, they realise that bullets have penetrated the tank and much of the boat's fuel has been lost. Whilst Gregson goes on deck to hoist the sails, Snowy discovers that the German pilot has left his binoculars unattended. He takes them and finds himself hoping the German will die so that he will be able to keep them. As the story draws to an end, the Breadwinner is racing to get back to shore whilst the pilots are still alive. |
The Body of Christopher Creed | null | null | Torey Adams, the narrator, moves to a new town and begins his senior year at Rothborne, a boarding school. As he starts thinking about how his year will be, he remembers how strange his junior year was, in particular, his former classmate Christopher Creed, who disappeared without a trace, except an email to the principal. Torey, with friends, reads the email from Chris. It hints at the possibility of either suicide or running away. The email mentions Torey and one of his friends, among other classmates, as guys who have "everything". This makes Torey more concerned about Creed's disappearance and what has become of him. At school, Torey begins to feel alienated from his friends Alex, Ryan, Renee, and girlfriend Leandra when they joke about Chris's disappearance and seem to take it lightly. The character Ali McDermott is introduced when she talks to Torey about Creed and asks him to come over that night, as she wants to show him something. At Ali's house, Torey discovers that her home life is awful. He also meets Ali's boyfriend, Bo Richardson. Bo is a "boon" (a somewhat derogatory term in the community that refers to a group of students at their school who come from poorer homes and are avoided by the others, including Torey and his friends) who had injured Chris previously. After introductions the three begin to talk about Chris. Ali's window has a clear view into Chris's bedroom, and she describes seeing Chris hide a diary in a picture frame on the wall, the only place safe from his mother's prying eyes. Ali expresses her suspicions that Mrs. Creed had something to do with her son's disappearance, and the group becomes convinced that the evidence they need will be found in the diary. Torey comes up with a plan: he will go to a nearby payphone and call the Creeds, demanding that they come meet him and bring money in exchange for information about Chris. Meanwhile, Bo will break in and take the diary. The plan backfires, and all three are brought to police headquarters. Torey's mother, a lawyer, intervenes, saving them from prosecution for the time being. However, Bo confesses to the phone call despite his innocence. Ali and her younger brother, Greg, spend the night at the Adams' house upon Bo's insistence. At the Adams' home Torey's mother hands Ali a notebook that Bo claimed was Ali's. It is actually Chris's diary, that reveals he had a girlfriend named Isabella. Inside the diary Chris wrote that he was afraid that his mother would “kill” him. The diary claims that Isabella is a shy, quiet girl who had a romantic and intimate relationship with Chris over the summer and together they discover from Isabella's Aunt, a psychic, that one of them would die in the woods. At school the next day, Torey becomes further distanced from his friends. Renee and Ryan question them about Bo Richardson. He successfully avoids his friends but leaves home sick during the school day. Ali comes to his house after school and tells Torey that Bo has been arrested. Leandra calls Torey and when Ali picks up the phone she accuses him of sleeping with Ali. Torey and Ali go to meet Bo, but run into several of Torey's friends, resulting in an altercation, whereupon Bo reveals to Ryan and Renee that their father, chief of police, had cheated on their mother with Mrs. McDermott. Later, Torey finds Isabella in the telephone book, calls her, and leaves a message saying that Torey is looking for Chris and wants any information she has. After making the call Torey falls asleep, forgetting the call. Torey ignores his old friends and now ex-girlfriend at lunch; he and Ali sit with some "boons" instead. During lunch, the police, and Mrs. Creed, burst in to take Bo for questioning. Ali and Torey protest; both confess to the phone call, but the adults don't believe them and assume they are simply covering for Bo. In the principal's office, Torey attempts to explain to Mrs. Creed that Chris was socially awkward, but she still believes her son had "a very good life" and could not have wanted to kill himself or run away. A few days later when Torey returns home from school he finds a message from Isabella on his answering machine telling him to "come over anytime" to talk about Chris. Ali and Torey then take a trip to Isabella's house and find out that she did not have a relationship with him but did have sex with him. Ali and Torey discover that Chris faked the whole relationship and wrote down the false information in his diary. Isabella also has Torey and Ali meet her psychic, Aunt Vera who proceeds to warn Torey that when he is alone he "will find him. In the woods." Upon returning to the Adams' home, Ali and Torey decide to go to the woods to see if they can find Chris's body. They don't find him. When Torey gets home, he receives a call from his friend Alex, asking him to meet up. When they meet behind Torey's house, Alex indirectly accuses Torey of being an accessory to Chris Creed's alleged murder. When they finish arguing with each other, Torey ventures into the dark woods alone. When Torey turns to return home, he sees an Indian Spirit, a memory from his childhood. Torey follows it, and ends up in an old Indian burial ground. He breaks his leg when a boulder falls on it, forcing him to crawl into a grave. He sees neatly wrapped bodies, but spots a human body that isn't like the others. When he gets closer, he immediately thinks it is Chris, though it's really Bob Haines. Suddenly, air rushes through the space where Torey had crawled in, and the corpse starts peeling apart. Torey is traumatized and sent a mental hospital to recover. Since he can't stand the Steepleton gossip, he finished his junior year of high school at home. Torey realizes through the course of the story that truth changes with each person's perspective. Torey ends his narration of the novel by stating that Chris's body was never found, but he does show some hope, through letters from people he thought could be Chris in disguise |
Damage | null | null | In this section it sets up the mood for the whole book. In chapter one it sets the mood that Austin is a depressed person and is somewhat suicidal. It also introduces Austin and his two best friends Dobie and Curtis. In chapter 2 it shows Austin and his friends are football players. The chapter also gives more details about how they are. In chapter 3 it introduces Austins mom and Becky. Also it expresses how Austin feels about going to school, also how he is used to the routine he does every year to go to school. Chapter 3 show's Austin and his friends favorite spot which is Dairy Queen, also Austin and Heathers meet. In chapter 4 they talk about Heather and how Austin would end up with her, and how his friends feel about her. This chapter also sets the mood for Austin and Heather and how their first date happens. In chapter 5 they talk about Austin's first away game, and how it plays out. Chapters 6-9: In this section they go to a lot of places. In chapter 6 they go to a movie and dinner together, Austin and Heather. They go to Heather's house and he meets her mother. Then Austin goes home to his family. In chapter 7 they go to church on Sunday. Austin is there thinking about Heather and ask God to forgive me. In chapter 8 he is at home in his bed dreaming about him and Heather. Then he goes to school and have practice. After practice they are in locker room talking. Austin takes Curtis home them takes Heather home because she was waiting for him after practice on the truck. In chapter 9 his at home and Curtis comes over. In chapter 10 Austin talks about how he used to be the one to give Dobie rides home after his practices, but since he started to date Heather, Curtis takes Dobie home. It also talks about what him and Heather do after practice which is they go to the spot which happens to be Dairy Queen, and how they get their usual. They (Austin and Heather) have a conversation about what happened between Curits and Kat. Austin waits for Heather to brush her hair before going off, he said "This waiting for hair to be brushed - is the price of dating Heather". They sit in the car just hanging out for a while. Heather think Austin is mad at her when he really is not and she gives him oral sex to please him also in hopes that he will not be mad no more. Then two weeks later they have sex. In chapter 11 Austin plays in his sixth game, and Curtis ended messing up. Curtis gets bothered by this and he does not speak for a while. They are gonna go out that night and they invite Austin, but he's going to be to busy with Heather. In chapter 12 Curtis happens to be in the middle of Bull-in-a-Ring since he messed up the game in chapter 11. After Bull-in-a-Ring Austin does not know if he should help his best friend up or do as the couch said and go get ready to do sprints...He goes to do sprints. In chapter 13 Austin sits in Heathers room and watch's her get dressed. They just talk about the usual stuff. Heather ask's Austin to pass her a clip when he goes to find it he opened the wrong drawer and she gets mad, Austin stared at the note, it was from her father. Austin tell's her its okay to talk about her father to him, but she does not seem to want to open up. Soon Austin has to leave. In chapter 14 Austin and Heather get into a little argument, and then when they make up they go off to Dariy Queen. After that Austin wants to "please her" but she takes it the wrong way and goes off on him, and tells him all these mean things that make him depressed. In chapter 15 it talks about his ride home; lonely. When he arrives he goes all suicidel in the bathroom and is thinking about cutting himself, but Becky his little sister comes to the door with the phone, and it happens to be Heather on the line. She wants to talk so she ask's him to go over. He drives back over to her house. Chapters 16-19: In this section still going places. In chapter 16 Austin is at Heather's house and they are talking about what happened the other night. They talk about their pass and Heather cry's from her pass. In chapter 17 he was just leaving Heather's house they were holding each other and talking at 3 in the morning. At the game they won. Goes home and cannot sleep its Sunday and its 4:30 but her do not have to get up til 8. In chapter 18 his at school and has football practice again.Takes Dobie home then Heather. Austin went to Heather house and she told him it was over with them. In chapter 19 he is at home in his truck thinking. Then he goes to Curtis house and talk about him and Heather. |
Harare North | null | null | The story is set in London. The nameless narrator of the story is a former militia who got caught up in the in-fighting between the Zimbabwean police and the Green Bombers, the notorious militia, and has to flee Zimbabwe when he is charged with murder. He seeks political asylum in the UK but is planning to make the equivalent of US$5,000 in London and fly back as he is sure that with that kind of money he can buy his way out of the criminal justice process. His struggle to raise the money sees him resorting to the low-paid jobs in the underbelly of London, but he also takes advantage of Shingi, his friend and squat-mate and blackmails his cousin’s wife when he discovers that she’s having an affair. The struggle intensifies as the narrator realises that he has to get back to Zimbabwe as soon as possible for a ceremonial ritual for his deceased mother. His mother’s grave, in a rural village, may soon be destroyed the Zimbabwean government which is evicting the villagers to roll in mining operations since valuable minerals have been discovered there. With events becoming increasingly fractious, the story comes to its denouement towards the end when the narrator’s mind begins to unravel and, simultaneously, he and Shingi become a single entity. |
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