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Sex and the Single Girl | Helen Gurley Brown | 1,962 | Introduction (New 2003) In the 2003 edition, Gurley Brown includes a reintroduction to her book and briefly outlines the static situations and changes that the single woman has faced from the 1960s to 2003. *"Chapter 1. Women Alone? Oh Come Now!" The first chapter introduces the single girl to the advantages of her situation, and offers brief advice that will be expanded upon in the following chapters. *"Chapter 2. The Availables: The Men in Your Life" Gurley Brown suggests that the single girl make a list of all the men in her life and then slot them into the following categories: "The Eligibles", "The Eligibles-But-Who-Needs-Them", "The Don Juans", "The Married Man", "The Homosexual", "The Divorcing Man" and "The Younger Man". She then proceeds to advise how to handle the men in each category. *"Chapter 3. Where to Meet Them" The obstacles the single girl faces, and how to overcome them, when meeting men in such environments such as: "Your Job", "Friends of Friends", and "Alcoholics Anonymous". *"Chapter 4. How to Be Sexy" Outlines the different styles of sexy and how to achieve a "sexth sense", and also refers to Alfred Kinsey's reports. *Chapter 5. Nine to Five Includes "Mother Brown's Twelve Rules for Squirming, Worming, Inching, and Pinching Your Way to the Top". *"Chapter 6. Money Money Money" This chapter explains how to stretch your money in areas such as driving and eating, because "nobody likes a poor girl. She is just a drag." *"Chapter 7. The Apartment" Discusses decorating on a budget, hiring a decorator and do it yourself tips such as including "Gobs of Pictures" and how to achieve "A Sexy Kitchen". *"Chapter 8. The Care and Feeding of Everybody" Includes different methods of at home entertaining and recipes for "Three Fabulous Little Dinners and One Semi–Fabulous Brunch". *"Chapter 9. The Shape You're In" The chapter on how to eat well and stay fit with "Gladys Lindberg's Serenity Cocktail", "Ruth West's Stop Dieting! Start Losing!", the "Sexercise" chapter in "Bonnie Prudden's How to Keep Slender and Fit After Thirty", and other methods. *"Chapter 10. The Wardrobe" A quick guide to understanding fashion, shopping and sewing. *Chapter 11. Kisses and Make-Up Step-by-step instructions on cosmetic changes such as make-up, facial hair bleaching (includes formula to mix at home), and contact lenses. *"Chapter 12. The Affair: From the Beginning to End" A step-by-step guide that should prepare a single girl for what will occur, or should occur during the beginning, middle and end stages of an affair. *"Chapter 13. The Rich, Full Life" Includes any advice that did not belong under the previous chapter headings. |
Aliens Ate My Homework | Bruce Coville | 1,993 | Early one May, sixth-grader Rod Allbright is launched into the adventure of a lifetime when a tiny alien spaceship (the good ship Ferkel of the Galactic Patrol) crashes in his room, changing his life forever. Now, Rod finds himself aiding the aliens on their mission: to capture BKR (pronounced Bee-Kay-Are), an interstellar criminal whose mission in life is to cause as much pain and misery as he can. Ultimately, Rod is able to help the crew of the Ferkel in returning to their normal sizes, and defeating BKR. |
Soll und Haben | null | null | After the death of his father, young Anton Wohlfart begins an apprenticeship in the office of the merchant T. O. Schröter in Breslau. Anton quickly succeeds through honest and diligent work, achieving a proper bourgeois existence. He has a variety of experiences with the Schröter family and also with the noble family of the Rothsattels. He later becomes involved with the liquidation of the estate of the Rothsattel family, an obvious symbol of the decline of the nobility and of its clash with emergent capitalist forces. Anton has repeated interactions with two other young men, the Jew Veitel Itzig, whom he had known already in his home town, Ostrau, and a young nobleman, Herr von Fink, who is a co-worker in the Schröter firm. |
A Loyal Character Dancer | Qiu Xiaolong | null | One morning in the park by the Bund, Chief Inspector Chen finds a dead body with precisely 18 axe wounds. He decides to take up the case - however, he is also ordered to escort a U.S. Marshal (Catherine Rohn) and assist her with her investigation. In this case, it means going to look for the wife of a witness in a human-smuggling investigation who will not talk unless his wife is with him. Things are complicated by the fact that the woman has gone missing. |
The Minpins | Roald Dahl | 1,991 | Little Billy is forbidden by his mother to enter the Forest of Sin behind his house. She tells him of the Whangdoodles, Hornswogglers, Snozzwanglers and Vermicious knids that live in the forest. Worst of all is the Terrible Bloodsuckling Toothpluckling Stonechuckling Spittler, which chases its prey while glowing clouds of hot smoke pour out of his nose, and then swallows them up in one gulp. Little Billy doesn't believe his mother, and the Devil whispers to Little Billy that the monsters don't exist, and there is a plethora of luscious wild strawberries in the forest. Soon, Little Billy is walking through the forest when he hears something coming after him, and runs to escape it. As he looks back, he sees puffs of orange-red smoke catching up with him. He escapes what he is sure must be the Spittler by climbing up a tree as high and as fast as he can. When he comes to a rest, he notices windows opening all over the branches, and discovers a whole city of little people, the Minpins, living inside the tree. The leader of the Minpins, Don Mini, tells Little Billy that the monster waiting under the tree is not the Spittler (which the Minpins have never heard of), but the Red-Hot Smoke-Belching Gruncher, who grunches up everything in the forest. It seems that there is no way for Little Billy to safely get down from the tree and return home. But upon learning of the close friendship between the Minpins and birds, Little Billy devises a plan to rid the forest of the Gruncher: Little Billy flies on the back of a swan and uses his scent to lure the Gruncher into a lake. The water of the lake puts out the fire in the Gruncher's belly, killing him. The Minpins are grateful to Little Billy for ridding the forest of their tormentor. They reward him by sending the swan to serve as Little Billy's own personal transport every night, which he uses to explore the world and to continue his newfound friendship with the Minpins. |
The First Sex | Elizabeth Gould Davis | 1,971 | In the first part of The First Sex, Gould Davis used evidence from archaeology and anthropology to support a theory of matriarchal prehistory. The chapters in this section of the book focus on individual parts of the evidence for peaceful matriarchal queendoms: three are titled "Mythology Speaks", "Anthropology Speaks" and "Archaeology Speaks". Gould Davis said that the "loss of paradise" when the "Great Goddess" was replaced by a vengeful male deity is the theme of all surviving myth. She argued that evidence from the Neolithic site at Çatal Hüyük showed there to be no wars or even violent death, and that even physical injury to animals may not have been permissible there. She pointed to other parts of the Mediterranean in which female tombs are preserved more carefully than male ones, and took this to be evidence of female primacy. In "Anthropology Speaks", Gould Davis focused on taboos, chiefly incest, and aimed to show how taboos against brother-sister relationships acted to protect women against violent men. She also argued that menstrual blood was originally sacred rather than polluting or "unclean", and that only when people began to eat meat did men become bigger than women, because of selection of weak women by men. In this section of the book, Gould Davis examined how mythology and society changed as a result of a suggested violent conversion from matriarchy to patriarchy. Her theory proposed that patriarchal revolution resulted from the violent invasion of nomadic tribes who were warlike and destructive, overrunning the peaceful, egalitarian matriarchies. These nomads (Semites from the Arabian Peninsula) are argued to have never achieved a civilization of their own, but only to have destroyed or taken over older ones. Gould Davis asserted that many tales in the Old Testament were actually rewritings of older stories, with goddesses changed to male actors, or a goddess raped or overthrown and her powers usurped by the new father deity. This, she suggested, was part of a concerted effort to wipe out all evidence of female authority. Because the violent invaders wished to establish the a patrilineal system of inheritance, rigorous control of women's sexuality became paramount. Thus women's right to sexual pleasure was redefined as sinful, and virginity was conceived of as a property right of a woman's father or husband. Gould Davis discussed female circumcision as a means to protect the virginity of women and assure clear lines of paternity. This practice is described in the book in graphic detail, as performed with unsterilized instruments, without anaesthesia (conditions pertaining to all surgical practices before the nineteenth century). In this part of the book, Gould Davis focused on the role of women in the ancient civilizations of Crete and Mycenae. Her research suggested to her that, as in her model of prehistoric civilization, women were the primary powers. The book saw the Cretan and Mycenaean civilizations as remnants of the ancient pre-Christian Celtic culture, which Gould Davis also believed to have granted women a great deal of power. She claimed, for example, that the monarchy was matrilineal, and that most of the tribal chiefs were women rather than men. Gould Davis claimed that Greek women possessed rights that are presently denied by the Catholic, Orthodox, and conservative Protestant churches, such as the rights to abortion and divorce. She cited many well-known historians to support these claims. She also argued that women participated in almost all aspects of ancient Greek and Roman society, including government, learning and sport. In the following chapter, "The Celts", she argued that similar rights prevailed until the collapse of the Roman Empire, for a matrilineal system of monarchical descent, and for Celtic women being the major preservers of learning during the early Middle Ages. The final part of The First Sex focused on the period since Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire in 313 A.D. Gould Davis aimed with this part of the book to show how Semitic myths of male supremacy were preached by the early Church Fathers to a Pagan people who would not believe them and did not take them seriously until Constantine became emperor. Gould Davis believed that the writings of Paul in the New Testament were used by the Church to justify violence against women, leading throughout the Middle Ages to a level of cruelty and barbarity unheard of in previous ages. Gould Davis believed that once Christianity had attained civil power, the demotion of women and the "terrible materialism that marks and mars our present civilization" were inevitable. She argued that the influence of Mary as a "Goddess" grew as the violent imposition of Christianity erased the ancient Goddess religion. Quoting Jules Michelet, Gould Davis argued that women by the fifteenth century were treated so badly by men of all social classes that they were seen as "worse than beasts". The Church, she said, approved of this domestic violence, and brutality to women extended beyond families to the priesthood, who cited the Bible to justify themselves. In Gould Davis's view, the status of women was only improved briefly by the Reformation and a flowering of learned women during the sixteenth century. Afterward, Puritanism's witch-hunts and a strengthened papacy placed women back in the same level of submission, and women were tortured and studied in the most prurient manner for "witch marks". Millions of people, she said, most of whom were women, died by burning, drowning, hanging, or from torture during the Catholic and Protestant Inquisitions. In Gould Davis's view, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries marked the first time Western women accepted their own inferiority, and before Mary Wollstonecraft nobody spoke up for them. Gould Davis made a special effort to show how the minds of women were subjugated during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. In the last part of The First Sex, Gould Davis attempted to show the beliefs used to subordinate women to be myths, contending that in reality women are stronger, and physically, mentally, and morally more than equal to men; and that the survival of humanity depends on the restoration of women to their former position as rulers of society. Gould Davis argued that patriarchal civilization is destroying itself, and that only the values of the "matriarchates" can save humanity, because a society based on the mechanistic, Cartesian duality of dominant and violent males leads inevitably to a focus on technology and gadgetry rather than on loving human relationships. Gould Davis called for "the matriarchal counterrevolution that is the only hope for the survival of the human race" and opined that "spiritual force", "[m]ental and spiritual gifts", and "[e]xtrasensory perception" will be more important than "physical force", "gifts of a physical nature", and "sensory perception", respectively, so that "woman will again predominate" and that "the next civilization will ... revolve ["about"] ["divine woman"]", as it had in the past that she asserted. According to critic Prof. Ginette Castro, Gould Davis proposed a discourse "rooted in the purest female chauvinism" and seemed to support "a feminist counterattack stigmatizing the patriarchal present", "giv[ing] ... in to a revenge-seeking form of feminism", "build[ing] ... her case on the humiliation of men", and "asserti[ng] ... a specifically feminine nature ... [as] morally superior." Castro criticized the essentialism and the assertion of superiority as "sexist" and "treason". |
Voyage | Stephen Baxter | 1,996 | The book tells the story in flashbacks during the actual Mars mission of the chronicalized history until the mission's beginning. The point of divergence for this alternate timeline happens on November 22, 1963, where John F. Kennedy survived the assassination (Jacqueline Kennedy was killed, in the renaming of the Kennedy Space Center as the Jacqueline B. Kennedy Space Center), but was crippled and thus incapacitated, as Lyndon B. Johnson is still sworn in. On July 20, 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Joe Muldoon walk on the moon, and Nixon's "most historic phone call" is joined by a call from former President Kennedy, committing the United States to send a manned mission to Mars, which Nixon backs as part of his fateful decision to decide the future of manned spaceflight, instead of deciding on the Space Shuttle program as he did in our timeline. Preparations for this new goal include slashing the number of moon landings so funding and leftover Apollo spacecraft hardware can go towards the efforts of the manned Mars mission. Apollo 12 still lands, Apollo 13 still suffers its disaster, but Apollo 14 is crewed by the astronauts of the canceled Apollo 15 mission in order to carry out the scientific experiments on the lunar surface, and is the last manned moon landing. At the same time, the NERVA program is revived to become the chosen Mars spacecraft development, with larger tests in Nevada, but without containment and plagued with engineering problems. The book centers around chronicling the lives of the future Mars mission astronauts, NASA and contractor personnel all involved helping in making the mission become a reality, and the shifts within NASA's astronaut and management hierarchy throughout the mission's preparations, including female geologist Natalie York's quest to become an astronaut, and her stormy relationships between fellow astronaut Ben Priest and with NERVA engineer Mike Conlig. Other astronauts include Ralph Gershon, a former fighter-bomber pilot involved in illegal bombing missions in Cambodia during the Vietnam War whose dream is to be the first black man in space, and Phil Stone, a veteran Air Force test pilot-turned-astronaut who has flown in a long-term stay on a lunar orbital station before the Mars mission. In the 1970s, the Skylab Space Station is launched, but apparently as a wet workshop design that is based on the Saturn IB S-IVB upper stage called Skylab A. The Saturn V that might have launched Skylab in our timeline instead launches Skylab B, a lunar orbit space station unofficially named "Moonlab", also a wet workshop based on the S-IVB. The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project is instead a series of visits by the Apollo Command/Service Module to Salyut space stations, and Soyuz missions to both Skylab and Moonlab. To facilitate the latter, the Soviets finally finish work on their N-1. The Skylab/Moonlab programs lead to improvements in the design of the Apollo Command/Service Module. A Block III CSM is produced using battery power in place of fuel cells, followed by the Block IV and V, which had a degree of reusability (modular construction and resistance to salt water corrosion). Also chronicled is the development of the experimental 'Mars Excursion Module' by small aerospace firm Columbia Aviation as it struggles against larger rival contractors of NASA and its engineers working painstakingly against the technical challenges of a working and reliable Mars lander. During the Reagan Administration, the Saturn V is upgraded to the Saturn VB, which has numerous improvements, including the use of solid rocket boosters to double its payload. A test of the NERVA is finally launched atop one of these, called Apollo-N, but suffers from pogo oscillations in the S-IC first stage. This damages the NERVA upper stage, which catastrophically fails once fired in orbit; despite returning to Earth safely, the entire crew (including Ben Priest) is killed from radiation poisoning, and the space program nearly collapses from hostile political and public opinion against the use of nuclear power in space, and the seemingly unnecessary risks and reasons of a Mars mission. In the aftermath, a new Mars mission plan dubbed Ares is drawn up, utilizing on-orbit assembly of a different long duration Mars-ship using wet-workshop Saturn rocket components as the propulsion systems as well as a skylab habitat module and external tanks to hold extra fuel, and performing a Venus flyby reminiscent of the Manned Venus Flyby NASA planned in the aftermath of the original Apollo program, but done in this timeline for gravitational assistance, and finally a landing at Mangala Valles on March 27, 1986. However, as a side effect, a number of unmanned probes - including the Viking program, Pioneer Venus project, Mariner 10, Pioneers 10 and 11, and the Voyager program - are cancelled so that their funding can be redirected to the manned Mars mission, although another Mariner orbiter is sent to Mars to help prepare for the manned landing. As a result, although humans walk on Mars, their knowledge of the solar system, including Mars itself, is far less than in reality. |
Rebecca's Tale | Sally Beauman | 2,001 | Rebecca’s Tale continues twenty years after du Maurier's conclusion and begins with the same classic line: “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” Most of the characters from the original novel have left the area: Maximilian de Winter died in a car accident before this sequel begins and Colonel Julyan has retired to a quiet life at home. None of the other characters from the original novel make significant appearances, although some have brief cameos. While in the original novel, Rebecca was ultimately described as a cruel and wanton woman, in this sequel she is presented as a tormented girl, haunted by her traumatic childhood and deeply sad despite her outward boldness. Although the connection was unknown to most of Rebecca's acquaintances in adulthood (including her eventual husband Maximilian de Winter), her mother was the younger sister of Maxim's mother. Maxim's father had seduced his young sister-in-law before she was sent away in disgrace to France, potentially making Rebecca Maxim's half-sister as well as his first cousin. However, Rebecca's father was generally understood to be "Black Jack" Devlin, an Irish gambler and speculator. During Rebecca's early childhood in Brittany, she was raised to believe that Devlin had died while sailing to South Africa, where he was in fact alive and investing in diamond mines. She and her mother were supported by money sent from their relations in England. When she was still a young girl, she was raped by a boy in their French village, teaching her to mistrust, loathe, and manipulate men, but also to be self-sufficient, assertive, and strong in her own right. At the end, taking partial inspiration from Rebecca's more positive ideals, Ellie Julyan rejects the conventionality of her bucolic country life to pursue her own dreams and ambitions, while Terence Gray reconciles with his own identity and opens himself to love. |
Rascal | Sterling North | 1,963 | Subtitled "a memoir of a better era," North's book is a prose poem to adolescent angst. Rascal chronicles young Sterling's loving yet distant relationship with his father, dreamer David Willard North, and the aching loss represented by the death of his mother, Elizabeth Nelson North. (The book also touches on young Sterling's concerns for his older brother Herschel, who is in Europe fighting in World War One). The boy reconnects with society through the unlikely intervention of his pet raccoon, a "ringtailed wonder" charmer that dominates almost every page. The book begins with the capture of the baby raccoon, and follows his growth to a yearling. The story is also a personal chronicle of the era of change between the (nearly) untouched forest wilderness and agriculture; between the days of the pioneers and the rise of towns; and between horse-drawn transportation and automobiles, among other transitions. The author's through-a-boy's-eyes view of his observations during expeditions in and around his home town, contrasted with his father's reminiscences of the time "when Wisconsin was still half wilderness, when panthers sometimes looked in through the windows, and the whippoorwills called all night long", provide a glimpse of the past, as the original subtitle suggests. The book is filled with humorous moments. His sister Theo cannot understand Sterling's building of a canoe in the living room and is "startled nearly out of her wits" when Rascal, who had been lying on and blending into Uncle Justus' Amazonian jaguar rug, stands up. Later in the book, Rascal joins him in a pie eating contest, and they win, but are disqualified, although his friend, Oscar Sunderland, takes first prize because of it. Rascal also enjoyed riding in his bicycle's basket, and helped him sell magazines by creating an animated sideshow. The book also has serious moments. The author's brother Herschel is serving in the military during World War I, and Sterling longs for a word from him. Rascal is confined after he bites an annoying lad who snaps him with a rubber band. Later, Sterling catches a mild case of the Spanish flu during the epidemic. (It is stated in the book that his Aunt Lillie, who took care of him during his sickness, said that Sterling's mother had wanted him to be a writer, which he achieved.) Eventually the problems with Rascal's raids into fields and henhouses become too much of an issue; the neighbors' irritation with the boy's pet can no longer be ignored. In addition, Rascal has become a young adult and, as such, is getting attention from jealous male and interested female raccoons. Sterling realizes that Rascal is a wild animal and can no longer be kept, unless always kept in a cage. He travels in the newly completed canoe to release Rascal in the woods at the far side of the nearby lake. The author's sister, the straight-laced poet and art historian Jessica Nelson North, is one note of early 1900s normalcy in the book. She wasn't particularly pleased with how her brother portrayed her family in Rascal (yet was proud of her brother's achievement, regardless). The theme of Rascal is not friendship, but loss, and the transcendence of it. Sterling loses his mother, the attention of his father, his brother to war, and eventually his best friend, Rascal, but survives and learns from it. |
The White Feather | P. G. Wodehouse | 1,907 | When Sheen, a quiet and studious boy, finds himself facing a street brawl between boys of Wrykyn and those of St. Jude's, their sworn enemies, he slips away to safety to avoid the wrath of his masters. However, his cowardliness is noticed by his fellows, who send him to Coventry. In order to save his reputation, he must train secretly under boxing legend Joe Bevan. Can he overcome the many obstacles in his path, and restore the school's honour in the ring? |
Poor Things | Alasdair Gray | null | The main body of the work centres on Bella Baxter, a woman whose early life and identity are the subject of some ambiguity. That ambiguity is complicated by her husband Archibald McCandless's autobiography, "Episodes from the Early Life of a Scottish Public Health Officer," which distorts the truth about his life with Bella. This is followed by Bella's (or Victoria's) refutation of its facts, suggesting that her "poor fool" of a husband has concocted a life for her from the prevailing gothic and romantic motifs of the period: it "positively stinks of all that was morbid in that most morbid of centuries". This is reinforced by the novel's intricate echoes of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. These fictitious historical documents are prefaced with an introduction by one Alasdair Gray, who presents himself as the editor of the following text, and relates the 'discovery' of the papers by his real-life friends, Michael Donnelly and Elspeth King. The introduction also hosts a critique of Glasgow City Council's treatment of its culture and heritage in the neglect of the local history museum, and a brief mention of Glasgow's time as the European Capital of Culture in 1990, which would be the subject of a more sustained satire in his novel Something Leather. |
Space | James A. Michener | 1,982 | The story begins in 1944 and covers more than 30 years in the lives of four men and their families: Dieter Kolff, a German rocket scientist who worked for the Nazis; Norman Grant, a World War II hero turned U.S. Senator from a fictional state; Stanley Mott, an aeronautical engineer invested with a top-secret U.S. government mission to rescue Kolff from Peenemünde; and John Pope, a small-town boy turned Naval Aviator who becomes a test pilot and then astronaut. Randy Claggett, a rambunctious Marine Corps aviator and astronaut is considered by Michener to be the most important supporting character (the first two parts of the book are entitled "Four Men" and "Four Women"). The lives of the fictional characters interweave with those of historical figures, such as Wernher von Braun and Lyndon Johnson. A whole group of trainee astronauts are introduced to fly fictional but plausible Project Gemini and Project Apollo missions; the intensive training and jockeying for position amongst the astronauts forms much of the background of the middle of the novel, reminiscent of a fictional version of Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff and the movie as well. Michener dramatizes the life experiences of these men and their families against the backdrop of the real history of the U.S. space program, depicting their experiences in post-war aviation, the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union; the development of congressional funding for the space program; the early failures in the Gemini program; and the successful moon landings in the Apollo program. In a fictional postscript to history, Michener creates a last, "Apollo 18" launch to further the drama of Pope, Claggett and Linley, America's first black astronaut. This is the only Apollo mission in which the lunar module lands on the far side of the Moon, unseen by Earth; in order to remain in contact with NASA after landing, while still in lunar orbit the Apollo craft must launch a communication satellite that will bounce the lunar module's signals to Earth. An unusually high amount of sunspot activity, only partially predicted by the NASA ground crew, results in the death of Claggett and Linley in the lunar module when they are exposed to lethal levels of radiation following their ascent back towards the command module and they crash back into the lunar surface; Pope, the command module pilot returns to Earth safely. The mission profile is significantly different from that of the real-world canceled mission that would have been Apollo 18. On the human side, various subplots run through the novel, contrasting the "official" heroism of NASA with the human fallibilities of the cast—the difficulties the Kolffs face in integrating into American society; Norman Grant's initial embrace of the space program and his abandonment of it as it no longer serves his political aims, while his unstable wife and their daughter fall in with a highly intelligent but cynical cult leader calling himself Leopold Strabismus who exploits first the UFO craze and then an anti-scientific creationist agenda to increase his fortune; Randy Claggett's womanizing; the contrast between Stanley and Rachel Mott's ordered, rational existence and their troubled relationship with their sons, and John Pope's unusual yet supportive relationship with his lawyer wife Penny. The novel closes with Pope retired from NASA and a respected professor of astronomy, his wife Penny in the Senate, and Mott consulting on "Grand Tour" unmanned missions to the outer solar system. The two men finally attending a NASA workshop discussing the possibility of extraterrestrial life, at which Strabismus privately drops the creationist/fundamentalist persona he has adopted and joins in the intellectual debate on the inevitability of life elsewhere in the Universe. |
A History Maker | Alasdair Gray | 1,994 | Like Gray's Poor Things the novel takes the form of documentation written by the characters themselves in order to record their experiences for posterity: a Prologue and notes (which make up almost a third of the total text) by "the hero's mother", and the central portion of the book, which is a third person narrative written by its protagonist, Wat Dryhope. Wat finds himself dissatisfied with the lack of purpose in a life in which everything is provided by powerplants, bypassing any need for manual labour. He develops an unhealthy interest in the ancient history of twentieth-century wars and dictatorships when men's struggles had a purpose, leaving himself vulnerable to exploitation to a plot to destroy his world's way of life. |
The First Chronicles of Druss the Legend | David Gemmell | 1,993 | The story begins in Druss's village in the Drenai Empire. He is a misfit and socially awkward. While he is away from the village chopping wood, a party of slavers, led by Harib Ka and the master swordsman Collan, comes to the village and kills or enslaves everyone they find. With his dying breath, Druss' father tells him to fetch the family battle-axe (Snaga), which was stolen by his grandfather Bardan. Druss meets the hunter Shadak, who is hunting the slavers to avenge the death of his son, and they join forces to pursue them. Shadak succeeds in interrogating Harib Ka before Druss kills him, and learns that Rowena (who Harib Ka has realised has mystic powers) has been taken to the port of Mashrapur. Druss travels to Mashrapur and meets Shadak's friend Sieben. Together they find out that Rowena will be transported to the distant land of Ventria. Druss attempts to break onto the ship to rescue her, but is ambushed by Collan's men on the dock. Druss is badly wounded but survives, and Shadak reappears to kill Collan. However, they fail to stop the ship from setting sail without them. When Druss recovers, he and Sieben (who is fleeing a jealous lover's husband) join a group of mercenaries recruited by the Ventrian soldier Bodasen, who is going to support the emperor Gorben in a war in Ventria against the neighbouring Naashanites and rebels. En route, they are attacked by pirates; and during this fight Sieben sees a demon materialise to defend Druss and comes to the conclusion that Druss is possessed. The soldiers arrive in Ventria and succeed in rescuing Gorben from a siege. Gorben is impressed with Druss and promotes him to serve in his elite bodyguard- "The Immortals". Sieben learns from a priest that Snaga is harbouring an evil spirit, but fails to persuade Druss to abandon the weapon. Meanwhile, Rowena has married Michanek, the leading general of the Naashanites. He is an honourable man and becomes concerned when she falls ill. He is told that she is suffering as a result of her mystical powers, and has these removed, along with her memory, in order to save her life. During a break in the war, Druss goes travelling and loses Snaga in a river. Initially thinking he is free of it, he learns from the a wandering Source priest that it has been found by a brutal warlord, Cajivak. He and the mercenary Varsava set out to recover the axe and kill Cajivak, but Druss is captured and imprisoned in Cajivak's dungeon. At first he wastes away, but with the help of a former prisoner succeeds in regaining his strength and escaping, only to find that Sieben, Varsava and the archer Eskodas have mounted a rescue attempt. Druss kills Cajivak and recovers Snaga, then returns to the army. By this point in the war the Naashanites are desperate and attempt to use a demon to assassinate Gorben, but he is saved by Druss thanks to Snaga- the only weapon that seems to hurt the demon. Druss also learns that Rowena has married Michanek and that her memory has been erased. He vows to kill Michanek and reclaim Rowena as his own as the army moves to besiege the last Naashanite stronghold, where Michanek has his home. Michanek has learned of Rowena's past and attempts to reconcile her to the idea of going back to Druss, but she will not have it. During the siege, Michanek is killed and Rowena takes poison since she cannot face life alone. Druss is forced to venture into the netherworld to bring her back. Druss eventually succeeds in finding Rowena, and despite a trick of Snaga's, rescues her. In the process he banishes the demon from the axe. Then he and his companions return to Drenai. The epilogue deals with the events of Skeln Pass, a famous battle late in Druss's career (by this time he is presumed to be in his mid-forties). Gorben has gone mad and invades Drenai, and Druss and Sieben go to Skeln Pass to meet the troops and raise morale. The Ventrians launch a surprise attack, catching the Drenai unprepared, and Druss and Sieben are caught up in the fighting. Under the leadership of Earl Delnar, and with Druss's inspirational presence, the Drenai manage to hold up the Ventrian advance. In a night raid, Druss accidentally kills his old friend Bodasen. The next day, a furious Gorben, commits the Immortals, who have never been defeated, to battle. In the fierce fighting the ensues, Sieben is mortally wounded, but Druss and the Drenai manage to hold the Immortals long enough for reinforcements to arrive and win the war. In the rout, Gorben is killed by his own officers. During the battle, Rowena, who has stayed at home with Sieben's wife Niobe, dies. She tells Niobe that she knew she was dying but sent Druss to Skeln Pass so that he would not have to witness it, as it would break his heart. |
The Prince | S. M. Stirling | null | The action begins in the 2060s and ends in the 2090s. Over that period John Christian Falkenberg progresses from a junior officer in the CoDominium Navy, through a Captain and later Colonel of Marines, to a mercenary leader at the head of Falkenberg's Legion, whose core is composed of officers and NCO's from his former Marine command. Falkenberg is a military genius with a flair for the bold and unconventional, using heavy doses of deception. He has components of Donal Graeme in him, as well as the young Napoleon, though he rejects political power. He has an enemy in Senator Adrian Bronson of Earth, who blames him for the death of his grandson while under Falkenberg's command, and who also opposes Admiral Lermontov, Falkenberg's ally in the Navy. Through the stories, one theme is dominant. The CoDominium is shipping large numbers of voluntary and involuntary colonists to the colony planets. The involuntary colonists cause the most trouble, being used to a welfare state existence in government ghettoes known as Welfare Islands where drugs and entertainment, paid for by the remaining productive members of society, keep them pacified. Relocated to the colony worlds, they gather in city centers and shanty towns. Idealistic reformers take up their cause against the original colonists, who are mostly farmers and large landowners, purportedly in the name of liberty and equality. However, the inevitable outcome would be a short-lived welfare state followed by economic collapse and starvation. Falkenberg and his people are thus on what some would call the wrong side. They act to suppress bandits, rebels and insurgents who prey on landowners, and who may be in cahoots with reforming politicians bent on industrializing the economy. Partly this illustrates the soldier's dilemma, having to obey orders without regard to the rights and wrongs of the cause. It also illustrates Jerry Pournelle's convictions, which echo those of Robert A. Heinlein, that democracy is not the only proper form of government, nor is it always the best given the realities of economics and ecology. In each case in the stories, the nominal democrats are likely to lead their societies to destruction. Often, their opponents are not much better morally, but less likely to destroy their world. The weapons and tactics employed are easily recognizable to a 20th century reader. Indeed a major point in the narrative is the likelihood that, given the need to import all advanced technology, the mule would be a better vehicle than the truck on a colony world, and a tank or two might be the deciding factor in a campaign. The weapons are rifles, mortars and light artillery. A few helicopters are available, but in some situations they are vulnerable to missiles fired by ground troops. Originally published as the novel West of Honor, later incorporated into Falkenberg's Legion Founded by religious zealots, Arrarat's society is besieged by well-organized (and well-supplied) bandit gangs composed mainly of involuntary colonists. The story is a first-person narrative by newly-commissioned Lieutenant Harlan (Hal) Slater of the CoDominium Line Marines. Falkenberg commandeers him and any other available soldiers to form a provisional battalion to be sent to Arrarat in response to an urgent request for help from the governor. On arrival they find that they are not at all welcome. The governor had asked for a much larger (and more experienced) unit to deal with numerous lawless bands in control of much of the countryside. The military men have other concerns, however. They fear the havoc restless soldiers will create in the capital. To avoid this Falkenberg elects to take the marines up-river to the bandit-occupied Fort Beersheba, an old fort built by the Line Marine regiment that had initially pacified the planet. Slater is tasked with taking and holding Fort Beersheba in a daring night assault using one company of airlifted troops, while Falkenberg marches the remainder of the newly organized 501st Line Marine Battalion up the river valley toward him. Holding the fort is not easy - though disorganized and untrained, the rebels have plenty of weapons with which to pummel Slater's A Company. Although A Company takes heavy casualties, Slater holds his position as the anvil to Falkenberg's hammer and the bandits attempting to flee from the CoDominium forces are destroyed. After establishing the fort as a base, Slater and the other officers watch the restless and combat-eager marines suffer more and more from a military kind of cabin fever which they call the Bug. To combat this growing problem, Falkenberg forces the reluctant planetary governor to move against the bandits tyrannizing the farmers of the Jordan Valley who simply want to farm and be let alone by both the central government and the bandits gangs. Meanwhile Falkenberg directs a cleaning out of the farther reaches of the colony. However, the governor's campaign goes poorly and his forces are besieged in the town of Allansport, forcing him to call Falkenberg for help. Slater takes A Company to bait the enemy south of Allansport, and ends up holding off a major enemy counter-attack and occupying the strategic hill called the Rockpile, taking extreme casualties. However, because of Slater's actions the enemy is defeated, with Slater severely wounded and medevacked to the capital. However, the political situation is much more complicated. The religious farmers who had been oppressed by a gang of ex-convicts begin avenging themselves on anyone who collaborated with the bandits; while the colonial governor, who was trying to use the bandits to generate revenue to set up industries on Arrarat to provide employment for the time-expired convicts, becomes an enemy. How much of an enemy he will be is debatable, as he is in the Bronson camp and Bronson has no use for losers. The story ends with the newly promoted Major Falkenberg recruiting the now Captain Slater (the youngest in the history of the fleet) into joining him in a transfer to Falkenberg's new command, the 42nd Line Marine Regiment, and Slater's Arrarat-born girlfriend Kathryn agreeing to join him. Originally part of the novel The Mercenary, later incorporated into Falkenberg's Legion Falkenberg has been recruited by Admiral Lermontov of the CoDominium fleet to create a military force that can support a government on one of the colony planets, providing the Fleet with a base when the CoDominium collapses, taking Earth with it. He is courtmartialed and discharged from the CoDominium Marines on a technicality in order to operate as a mercenary, though thanks to his conflict with Senator Bronson of Earth, he was likely to be arrested anyway. On Hadley he encounters the same situation as on other colonies, with the added element that the CD is pulling out. The authorities left behind are trying to create power bases by raising armies, some from landowners, some from industrialists, some from the convicts and involuntary colonists. Falkenberg, nominally working for the government in power, begins training his Mercenary Legion, using a battalion of officers and noncoms from his Marine regiment, the 42nd Line Marine Regiment, who have arrived as 'colonists,' as the cadre. Eventually this force, plus a regiment of local troops trained separately, allows him to dictate the outcome on Hadley. One of the local officials who had been involved with training that regiment attempts a coup, but is killed by Legion troops anticipating the attempt. The reason for the coup is an imminent takeover by "democratic" populist forces organizing the underclasses. Since all resources are already being used to feed the underclass, any takeover would lead to collapse. Having foiled the coup, Falkenberg carries out a military assault on the populists in a stadium, killing thousands and eliminating their leaders. Though in theory the odds are a thousand or so Legion soldiers against ten times as many civilians, some with firearms, in practice the battle IS entirely one-sided, and depicted as such by Pournelle - as in all cases where trained, well-organized and determined soldiers face untrained civilians. The scene of the soldiers descending from the topmost level of the stadium, firing in volleys, is very like the classic Odessa Steps sequence in the movie The Battleship Potemkin (except that the sympathies are completely reversed). The ruthlessness of the assault is reminiscent of Napoleon's tactics used when dealing with uprisings in Paris. The colourful description "There was too much blood, blood cascading down the steps, blood pouring down stairwells" might be partially derived from medieval chronicles describing the conquest of Jerusalem by the Crusaders. The scene as described also sounds remarkably like Belisarius' slaughter of the Nika rioters in the Hippodrome in 6th century Constantinople. The colony is left in the charge of the government's one remaining Vice President, a technical operator who understands the need to remove the population to the countryside and stabilize the agricultural economy. Falkenberg, angered by the necessity of his actions and fully aware that he had perpetrated an atrocity - though convinced it was necessary and unavoidable - takes the Legion and departs. Later, Pournelle, tongue in cheek, provides the official version of "the government of Hadley thanking Falkenberg for suppression of civil disturbances". Originally a short story "His Truth Goes Marching On", later incorporated into Prince of Mercenaries Captain Peter Owensford of Falkenberg's Legion recounts how, as a Lieutenant in a Volunteer Brigade sponsored by the Earth Humanity League, he was part of an intervention on the side of Republican forces against the local rulers, a Spanish aristocracy known as Carlists. Thanks again to dumping of colonists from Earth, the Santiago colony on Thurstone has progressed to de facto slavery by debt bondage in order to maintain social order. Parallels with the Spanish Civil War are many and, according to the author, intentional. The campaign is brutal, especially with a detached officer corps of political appointees unable to make proper military decisions. A "political officer" in the zampolit Soviet style, parroting liberty and atheism instead of communism, overrules Owensford's tactical decisions and impedes his training of the men. In the end, after losing many troops, Owensford catches the officer and some cronies preparing to use an atomic bomb to destroy his command and provoke the CoDominium Navy to act against the Carlists. He confiscates the bomb and attempts to retreat; but is caught in a Carlist advance. Eventually he surrenders to mercenary forces (who as detached professionals are less likely to execute him out of hand), and becomes a mercenary himself. His commanding officer in the mission, Captain Anselm "Ace" Barton, has already done so. Originally the novel Prince of Mercenaries. Parts of the novel incorporate the short story "Silent Leges". On the hot jungle planet of Tanith, Falkenberg is working with Governor Blaine, another Lermontov ally. Tanith is the source of a drug used in the Welfare Islands, borloi, and the revenue from that traffic is being used to support the Fleet as the Senate on Earth cuts its support year by year. Most of the workers on the plantations are convicts. Falkenberg is helping to deal with a rebellion in the plantations. He is also helping Blaine to support Lermontov. Here Prince Lysander of Sparta, a planet founded with certain political ideals by the Constitutional Society, comes to learn about Falkenberg. He finds himself in the middle of a plot to hijack borloi away from the Navy on behalf of Senator Bronson. Enlisting with Falkenberg as a junior officer, he learns the realities of military life. The opposition is another force of mercenaries commanded by Ace Barton. They foil the plot, but now Bronson is determined to undermine Sparta. Barton and Falkenberg broker a truce, with Barton rescuing Falkenberg when one of the locals reneges on the agreement and takes Falkenberg hostage. Barton's part in the rebellion means he has to leave the planet, and with few options, he re-enlists with Falkenberg, who sends him to Sparta. Lysander commits himself to the plans of Lermontov and Falkenberg to use Sparta as a base for the Navy after the CoDominium collapse. Originally a short novel, "Sword and Scepter". Part of the novel The Mercenary, later incorporated into Falkenberg's Legion Falkenberg departs Tanith for a contract on the planet New Washington. This is one of a pair of planets, orbiting a common center which itself orbits a red dwarf star. It is one of the farthest colonies from Earth, being over a hundred parsecs away. The two planets are tidally locked, so they always present the same face to each other. As day progresses to night on New Washington, the side of the sister planet Franklin facing it goes from night to day. One revolution takes 40 hours. The pair revolve around their star in 52 days. New Washington was founded by Franklin dissidents. Now that certain ores have been found on New Washington, Franklin has invaded with CoDominium connivance and mercenary help. Falkenberg is hired to throw out the invaders. As usual, the political class on New Washington is not entirely behind his military objectives. He is able to execute stealthy takeovers of crucial installations to give him an operational base, from which he takes over large amounts of territory on behalf of the rebel government. The campaign eventually comes to a head when Falkenberg's forces come up against a band of Scottish mercenaries from the planet Covenant and holds them at a pass in the mountains, inflicting devastating casualties with his artillery. The leaders of the local militia leaders are outraged when Falkenberg allows an extravagantly long cease-fire with the Coventanters and demand that Falkenberg now try to force the pass himself, however the rebel officials Falkenberg has left behind begin illegal reprisals against civilians and Falkenberg leaves his force guarding the pass and returns to the capital. At this point a CoDominium ship appears, ostensibly to stop the conflict which is breaching the Laws of War. In fact the commander of the ship is a Lermontov ally. The danger was that Franklin would be able to build its own Navy and threaten Lermontov's plans if the invasion succeeded. The scheme was to pacify the planet at minimum cost by creating enough trouble for the CoDominium to order mercenaries on both sides to leave, at which point no credible military force would be present. This turns out to be the real reason Falkenberg did not try to force the mountain pass. However, Falkenberg has decided to stay. He secures a land grant for his Legion, turning them into settlers. In the end Falkenberg becomes Protector of New Washington. Originally the novels Go Tell The Spartans and Prince of Sparta, co-written with S.M. Stirling The remaining narrative takes place on Sparta, leading up to the acclamation of Lysander as Imperator by the Navy and Marines when the CoDominium collapses. However, before this can happen, the conflict between Spartan society and the convict underclass must be resolved. Sparta is a constitutional dual monarchy, one King taking external affairs, the other King being involved in the economy. Citizenship with the right to vote is an earned privilege, as in Heinlein's Starship Troopers. Citizens are also expected to join the militia, on the model of Swiss citizen-soldiers. Other than enforcing basic laws, education and military service, the government does not intervene in the lives of the people. Prosperity or starvation is the responsibility of the individual. The underclass can attempt to become Citizens, and many do. For the rest, the usual populists try to organize them into a Movement. Paradoxically, Sparta's openness and political transparency makes it more vulnerable to such a Movement than a dictatorship such as Carlist Santiago. One such movement has a guerilla army of self-styled Helots. After the episode on Tanith, Senator Bronson begins building up the open and covert oppositions on Sparta. His motives are actually not far removed from Lermontov's - he too wishes to set up a power base among the colonies to preserve his version of civilization when the CoDominium collapses. However, his appetite for personal and dynastic power prevents him from finding common ground with Lermontov, Blaine and Falkenberg. He rejects their attempts at a truce. Instead he sends in supplies and advisors to organize the Helot forces, and employs techno-ninja saboteurs from the Meiji colony to infiltrate the data systems on Sparta. To counter this, a cadre of Falkenberg's Legion does not accompany him to New Washington, instead going to Sparta to create the nucleus of an army. Leading this portion of the Legion is Peter Owensford, along with Ace Barton, the mercenary Falkenberg defeated on Tanith, and Benjamin Whitlock, a sociologist and political historian who, with his Southern U.S.A. roots, may be a stand-in for the author, Jerry Pournelle, who is from Louisiana. The rebels are led by a woman, Skida "Skilly" Thibodeau, who strongly resembles the actress, singer and model Grace Jones. Although highly intelligent and an amateur student of military history, she devises complex campaign plans which the Legion is able to detect and foil, despite the Helots' advanced weaponry and sabotage campaigns supporting her. Much of the narrative is taken up with these bloody campaigns, in which Skilly's rebels employ artillery, missiles, rape, murder, poison gas and civilian massacre in order to undermine Spartan society. They have help from former CoDominium officers in the pay of Bronson. The penultimate act of the Bronson campaign is an attempt to use the Marine garrison on Sparta, with support from suborned Navy ships and a general uprising by Helot elements in the capital, to destroy the government. The armed Citizens stand and fight, so much that the Marines switch sides. The Navy restores proper command, almost engaging in a fratricidal space battle. Lysander's aging father is killed when the palace is assaulted. In the final chapters, one of Skilly's officers, a nephew of Bronson's, defects and tells Lysander's generals that there is an atom bomb somewhere in the city. Skilly then contacts the commanders, offering the location of the bomb in return for a safe-conduct off the planet. They grant her this, but some of Falkenberg's men simply set out to do privately what the government cannot do publicly. The problem of the underclass is dealt with in a fashion that again echoes Heinlein's notions, this the one of being sent to Coventry - those who do not accept Sparta's social contract will be given basic tools and sent to uninhabited islands to work out their own fate without interference. Finally, with the CoDominium in collapse and all Earth authority vanished, the Generals and Admirals acclaim Lysander, now King of Sparta, as Imperator. |
Porterhouse Blue | Tom Sharpe | null | For the first time in five hundred years, the master of Porterhouse fails to name his successor on his deathbed before dying. He succumbs to a Porterhouse Blue - a stroke brought about by overindulgence in the college's legendary cuisine. Sir Godber Evans is appointed as his successor. Sir Godber, egged on by his zealous wife, Lady Mary, announces sweeping changes to the centuries of college tradition, much to the concern of Skullion and the Fellows, who plan a counter-attack on the proposed contraceptive machines, women students, and canteen. Meanwhile, the only research graduate student in the college, Lionel Zipser, visits the hard-of-hearing Chaplain and explains his fixation for Mrs Biggs, his middle-aged, large-breasted bedder, through a megaphone, and is therefore overheard by the whole college. Mrs Biggs is not within earshot, but nevertheless senses that something is up from Zipser's awkward behaviour around her every time she comes to clean his room and especially when she teases him sexually, the climax of which is when she asks him to help her take off her bright red PVC raincoat from behind, which prompts him to reach around her and - at least in the TV mini-series - almost touch her large breasts. While Sir Godber congratulates himself on having defeated the traditionalists, investigative journalist Cornelius Carrington is brought in on the pretext of helping both parties, while secretly having his own agenda. Meanwhile, having been advised to pick up a foreign student, so as to avoid his predatory lust for Mrs Biggs that could end badly, Zipser visits an array of public houses in search of a condom and later wakes from a drunken stupor in possession of two gross of condoms. He tries many ways to get rid of them and eventually inflates them with gas from the gas fire in his room and floats them up the chimney, not realising that some get stuck in the chimney and the rest float down into the college quadrangle. Fearing for the good name of college, Skullion spends the night bursting the inflated condoms. At this point it turns out it is Mrs Biggs who is the predator, as she sneaks up to Zipser's room in the middle of the night and wakes him up. To his amazement she undresses and, despite his protests, promptly enters his bed and lies on top of him. Unfortunately, while undressing, she has lit the gas fire, which takes a short while to ignite the inflated condoms stuck in the chimney, causing an explosion that demolishes the Bull Tower and kills her and Zipser in their moment of passion. When Skullion refuses to open the main gates of college to let the fire engines in and continues to burst the inflated condoms, he is fired. He takes his revenge by giving a shocking revelatory interview on Carrington's live television show. After the new master refuses Skullion's pleas to let him keep his job, Skullion offers shares that a former master left him. Sir Godber flatly refuses, but then has a fatal accident. Skullion, although not entirely to blame, quickly leaves. Two senior academics find the dying Sir Godber who whispers them one word: Skullion. They agree that, in accordance with college tradition, Skullion has been named the new Master of Porterhouse. When Skullion is visited by the college officials with the good news, he thinks they have found out his involvement with Sir Godber's death and whilst they are telling him about his great fortune, he has a debilitating Porterhouse Blue himself. Nonetheless, he is installed as the Master and the college find that the shares he'd offered to Sir Godber are worth more than the cost of rebuilding the Bull Tower, so Porterhouse's traditions are firmly re-established. |
Little Altars Everywhere | Rebecca Wells | 1,998 | Author Rebecca Wells alternates between setting her short stories in the 1960s, when Siddalee Walker, daughter of Vivi, is growing up, and the early 1990s, when Sidda is grown and dealing with the consequences of her turbulent childhood. It is the prequel to Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. Each chapter is narrated by a different person (Little Shep, Sidda, Lulu, etc.). |
O Ateneu | Raul Pompéia | 1,888 | Sérgio is left at the age of eleven on the doorsteps of the Ateneu by his father and enters the school for the first time. It immediately becomes clear the sexual references by the headmaster's statement to Sérgio's father in the begging of the book: "You should see a coiffeur,and cut this blondy hair of yours. You know,the pretty boys in this school, don't go along very well". After,he is eventually is approached by two older students—Sanches and Bento Alves—who try to engage into a homosexual relationship with him, but he does not accept the proposal. Sérgio then approaches a rebellious boy named Franco in order to avoid their company. Since Franco is constantly disciplined by the headmaster, Sérgio cuts his friendship with the boy, out of fear of facing the same fate. He then meets a boy named Egbert and becomes very close to him; their relationship does not develop beyond friendship mostly due to the sexual and emotional feelings Sérgio nourishes for the school's nurse—Dona Ema. Towards the end of the book, a student sets fire to the Ateneu, burning the whole structure down. The fire is a metaphor which represents the end of a chapter in Sérgio's life, as he progresses towards maturity. |
Pierre: or, The Ambiguities | Herman Melville | 1,852 | It tells the story of Pierre Glendinning, junior, the 19-year-old heir of the manor at Saddle Meadows in upstate New York. Pierre is engaged to the blonde Lucy Tartan in a match approved by his domineering mother, who controls the estate since the death of his father, Pierre, senior. When he encounters, however, the dark and mysterious Isabel Banford, he hears from her the claim that she is his half-sister, the illegitimate and orphaned child of his father and a European refugee. Pierre reacts to the story (and to his magnetic attraction for Isabel) by devising a remarkable scheme to preserve his father’s name, spare his mother’s grief, and give Isabel her proper share of the estate. He announces to his mother that he is married; she promptly throws him out of the house. He and Isabel then depart for New York City, accompanied by a disgraced young woman, Delly Ulver. During their stagecoach journey, Pierre finds and reads a fragment of a treatise on “Chronometricals and Horologicals” on the differences between absolute and relative virtue by one Plotinus Plinlimmon. In the city, Pierre counts on the hospitality of his friend and cousin Glendinning Stanley, but is surprised when Glen refuses to recognize him. The trio (Pierre, Isabel, and Delly) find rooms in a former church converted to apartments, the Church of the Apostles, now populated by impecunious artists, writers, spiritualists, and philosophers, including the mysterious Plinlimmon. Pierre attempts to earn money by writing a book, encouraged by his juvenile successes as a writer. He learns that his mother has died and has left the Saddle Meadows estate to Glen Stanley, who is now engaged to marry Lucy Tartan. Suddenly, however, Lucy shows up at the Apostles, determined to share Pierre’s life and lot, despite his apparent marriage to Isabel, and Pierre and the three women live there together as best they can, while their scant money runs out. Pierre’s writing does not go well — having been "Timonized" by his experiences, the darker truths he has come to recognize cannot be reconciled with the light and innocent literature the market seeks. Unable to write, he has a vision in a trance of an earth-bound stone giant Enceladus and his assault on the heavenly Mount of Titans. Beset by debts, by fears of the threats of Glen Stanley and Lucy’s brother, by the rejection of his book by its contracted publishers, by fears of his own incestuous passion for Isabel, and finally by doubts of the truth of Isabel’s story, Pierre guns down Glen Stanley at rush hour on Broadway, and is taken to jail in The Tombs. There Isabel and Lucy visit him, and Lucy dies of shock when Isabel addresses Pierre as her brother. Pierre then seizes upon the secret poison vial that Isabel carries and drinks it, and Isabel finishes the remainder, leaving three corpses as the novel ends. |
Debt of Bones | Terry Goodkind | 2,001 | During the war against D'Hara, a young woman meets with Zeddicus Zu'l Zorander, Wizard of the First Order in order to force him to pay a debt of bones he owes her and save her child. In so doing, she initiates the series of events leading up to the end of the war with D'Hara and the division of the Westlands, Midlands, and D'Hara by the boundaries. |
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood | Rebecca Wells | 1,996 | When Vivi, Teensy, Necie, and Caro were younger, they created the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. The Ya-Ya’s caused shenanigans and chaos everywhere, but also had a sisterly bond that could fix anything. Now, at 70 years old, the Ya-Ya’s are determined to fix the struggling relationship between mother and daughter. Siddalee “Sidda” Walker, a play director, has never had a smooth relationship with her mother, Vivi, but when a New York Times reporter twists Siddalee’s words around in an article about her recent play, Siddalee and Vivi’s mother-daughter relationship goes spiraling down. Not only is Sidda having trouble with her mother, but she is also having trouble with her fiancé, Conner. Sidda postpones the wedding between her and Conner. Between that and Sidda’s now fear to love, she runs off to her friend’s family cabin at Lake Quinault. When Vivi and the other “Ya-Ya’s” find out about this, they decide to send Sidda the “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood” scrapbook to help Sidda understand their lives, and more importantly, her mother’s life, better. |
The Blessing Way | Tony Hillerman | null | Anthropologist Bergen McKee has travelled to the Navajo Reservation to research tales of Navajo witches known as "skinwalkers". Meanwhile, McKee's friend, Tribal Police Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn, is called upon to investigate a corpse with a mouth full of sand. Soon, both McKee and Leaphorn find themselves in danger as they investigate a mystery involving a missing electronics expert and McKee has a more personal contact with a skinwalker than he bargained for. The novel includes a description of a Navajo Enemy Way ceremony. |
The Magical Monarch of Mo | L. Frank Baum | null | Chapter One has no plot, but rather is a basic description of the Land of Mo, or "The Beautiful Valley". It explains that everyone in Mo is happy, and that the people never need to work, because everything they could desire grows on the trees, including items such as clothes. In A New Wonderland, the author mentions planning to move there himself, but this was omitted from subsequent editions. Chapter Two: The Monarch of Mo goes to fight the Purple Dragon, which has just eaten all of the caramels in the land. The Dragon bites off his head, and the King is forced to go home headless. The King tries to make the best of it, but the Queen complains that she cannot kiss him anymore, so he issues an edict saying that whoever can make him a new head will get to marry one of the princesses. After two failures, a durable head is made out of wood by a wood-chopper. The Purple Dragon finds the wood-chopper and bites his head off, replacing it with the King's head. When the wood-chopper appears in court, he switches heads with the King, so that the King has his own head again and the wood-chopper has a wooden head he made. The King then tries to fulfill his promise, but the princesses refuse to marry a wooden-headed man. The wood-chopper then confronts the Purple Dragon, who tries its head-biting technique again, only to get its teeth stuck in the wooden head, thus letting the wood-chopper get his own head back so he can marry a princess. Chapter Three: The Monarch meets a dog, who is a curiosity because there are no dogs in Mo. However, his majesty loses his temper and ends up kicking the dog who literally gets bent out of shape until he resumes his natural form again. Chapter Four: Prince Zingle, the oldest Prince, is upset because the King will not let him milk the Ice-Cream Cow. Urged by the Purple Dragon, Zingle pushes his father down a large hole so he will become the King. The Monarch escapes from the hole and punishes Zingle by abandoning him on the Fruit Cake Island on the Rootbeer River, an island made of fruit cake. After a while, Prince Zingle gets such a furious stomachache from eating nothing but fruit cake that he repents. Chapter Five: The King celebrates his birthday (which he does several times a year) by throwing a huge celebration, during which he entertains everyone with items from a magical casket. Everyone goes ice-skating on a lake of sugar-syrup. The sugar cracks and Princess Truella, Prince Jollikin and Nuphsed sink to the bottom. The King gets them out by fishing for them, baiting the line with a kiss for Truella and a laugh for Jollikin. But when it comes to getting Nuphsed, no one knows what he likes best, so they consult the Wise Donkey. The Wise Donkey suggests that they use an apple, knowing that it won't work. When it doesn't work, the Wise Donkey eats the apple and tells them to use a kind word. They do, and it works. Chapter Six: King Scowleyow, who lives in a nearby country, hates the people of Mo, and has his people build a giant man out of cast-iron, designed to destroy Mo. They wind up the Cast-iron and he walks towards Mo, but trips on the dog. Prince Thinkabit figures out how to get rid of the Cast-iron Man: he tickles the Cast-iron man to get him on his back, then he pushes a pin in the Cast-iron Man to get him to stand up again, but now the Cast-iron Man is facing the other way, so he goes to King Scowleyow's kingdom and destroys it instead. The Cast-iron man eventually gets stuck in the mud at the bottom of the ocean and is never heard from again. Chapter Seven: A boy named Timtom falls in love with Princess Pattycake, the most beautiful princess, who unfortunately has a bad temper and tries to beat anyone who talks to her. He journeys to see the Sorceress Maëtta to get her help, and along the way, he meets three animals, who agree to help him in return for gifts from Maëtta. Timtom gets a pill for getting rid of Pattycake's temper and the gifts for the animals, but they are stolen by a Sly Fox. Timtom manages to recover the gifts, thus pleasing the animals. He then goes to Pattycake and feeds her the pill. She loses her temper and then agrees to marry him. Chapter Eight: A horrible monster called a gigaboo comes to Mo and starts destroying things. Prince Jollikin fights the gigaboo, and has his head, arms and legs cut off. Prince Jollikin manages to put himself back together, although at first he could only find his legs and head. He then saves the day by killing the gigaboo. Chapter Nine: There is an evil wizard in Mo who is a midget and very sensitive about his height, so he tries to make a potion to increase his height. One of the ingredients of the potion is the big toe of a princess, so he steals the toe from Princess Truella. Truella gives chase, overcoming the obstacles the Wizard throws at her, and eventually kills the Wizard and recovers her toe. Chapter Ten: The Duchess Bredenbutta falls asleep on her boat while it floats down the Rootbeer River, and so she gets too close to the waterfall at the end of the river and falls down. She ends up in Turvyland, where everything is opposite of the way it should be. With some help from a local named Upsydoun, she manages to get back to her home. Chapter Eleven: The King's animal crackers, which are real animals, fight amongst each other, putting the King in a bad mood, so when Prince Fiddlecumdoo asks to leave Mo, the King consents, although it is a bad idea. Prince Fiddlecumdoo leaves and meets a friendly giant named Hartilaf. Hartilaf's wife accidentally runs the prince through a clothes-wringer, and Prince Fiddlecumdoo returns home, completely flat. They use an air pump to get him back to normal. Chapter Twelve: Prince Zingle builds a large kite, which flies into the air, taking Zingle with it, eventually landing in the Land of the Civilized Monkeys, where monkeys act like humans. The monkeys do not speak English (but rather, they speak Monkey) and have never seen a human before, so they think Zingle is a dangerous animal and lock him in the zoo, where all of the monkeys come to see him, including two professors who believe that Zingle may be the missing link. Prince Zingle manages to escape and get back home. Chapter Thirteen: The King's plum-pudding has been stolen, so he asks his wise men who did it. The wise men blame the fox, who is captured. The fox explains that he did not do it, as he was busy curing his family's sore throats by taking out the throats and turning them inside-out, then drying them in the sun. The wise men then blame the bullfrog, who is also captured. The bullfrog explains that he did not do it, as he and his wife were busy trying to save their tadpoles, who were eaten by a large fish. The wise men then blame the Yellow Hen, who is also captured. She explains that she did not do it, as her last batch of eggs accidentally produced a Hawk, not a chicken, and the Hawk took her away to a different country, and she spent the last nine days returning to Mo. The King, furious at the wise men for being wrong three times, has them put into a meat-grinder, so that they are mixed into one wise man, who tells the King that the Purple Dragon stole the plum-pudding. Chapter Fourteen: The King holds a council of war to try to figure out how to destroy the Purple Dragon. They decide that the dragon cannot be destroyed, but at least they could rip out its teeth and make it harmless. They build a giant pair of forceps and clamp it to one of the Purple Dragon's teeth. The Purple Dragon winds its tail around a pillar to avoid being pulled by the people. As it turns out, his tooth cannot be removed, even though the men run to the other side of the valley; instead, the Purple Dragon is stretched all the way across the valley, so that it is no thicker than a fiddle-string. Prince Fiddlecumdoo cuts the Purple Dragon into fiddle-strings, and so the Valley of Mo is freed from its worst enemy. |
After Virtue | null | 1,981 | MacIntyre holds that After Virtue makes seven central claims. It begins with an allegory suggestive of the premise of the science-fiction novel A Canticle for Leibowitz: a world where all sciences have been dismantled quickly and completely. MacIntyre asks what the sciences would look like if they were re-assembled from the remnants of scientific knowledge that survived the catastrophe. He claims that the new sciences, though superficially similar to the old, would in fact be devoid of real scientific content, because the key suppositions and attitudes would not be present. "The hypothesis which I wish to advance," he continues, "is that in the actual world which we inhabit the language of morality is in the same state of grave disorder as the language of natural science in the imaginary world which I described." Specifically, MacIntyre applies this hypothesis to advance the notion that the moral structures that emerged from the Enlightenment were philosophically doomed from the start because they were formed using the aforementioned incoherent language of morality. MacIntyre claims that this failure encompasses the work of many significant Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment moral philosophers, including Kierkegaard, Marx, Kant, and Hume. These philosophers "fail because of certain shared characteristics deriving from their highly specific historical background." That background is the Enlightenment's abandonment of Aristotelianism, and in particular the Aristotelian concept of teleology. Ancient and medieval ethics, argues MacIntyre, relied wholly on the teleological idea that human life had a proper end or character, and that human beings could not reach this natural end without preparation. Renaissance science rejected Aristotle's teleological physics as an incorrect and unnecessary account, which led Renaissance philosophy to make a similar rejection in the realm of ethics. But shorn of teleology, ethics as a body of knowledge was expurgated of its central content, and only remained as, essentially, a vocabulary list with few definitions and no context. With such an incomplete framework on which to base their moral understanding, the philosophers of the Enlightenment and their successors were doomed from the beginning. MacIntyre illustrates this point through an example of a people who, he argues, experienced a similar incoherence in their own moral and ethical tradition: the Polynesian people of the South Pacific and their taboos. King Kamehameha II removed the taboos of the people in order to modernize their society and met little if any resistance. The Polynesians had no issue with abandoning their long-standing cultural traditions and MacIntyre claims this is because the taboos, though once meaningful to the islanders, had been shorn over the centuries of their underlying spiritual and didactic purpose, becoming a set of arbitrary prohibitions. The fact that Kamehameha II could abolish them so easily and without opposition is evidence, MacIntyre argues, of their incoherence. A similar incoherence, he argues, bedevils the ethical project since the Enlightenment. Another reason MacIntyre gives for the doomed nature of the Enlightenment is the fact that it ascribed moral agency to the individual. He claims this made morality no more than one man's opinion and, thus, philosophy became a forum of inexplicably subjective rules and principles. The failure of the Enlightenment Project, because of the abandonment of a teleological structure, is shown by the inadequacy of moral emotivism, which MacIntyre believes accurately reflects the state of modern morality. MacIntyre offers a strong critique of Friedrich Nietzsche, whom he calls the "King Kamehameha II of the European tradition," in reference to the Polynesian allegory above. MacIntyre explains that, "Nietzschean man, the Übermensch, [is] the man who transcends, finds his good nowhere in the social world to date, but only that in himself which dictates his own new law and his own new table of the virtues." Although he disagreed with Nietzsche's inegalitarian and elitist view of mankind, he acknowledged the validity of Nietzsche's critique of Enlightenment morality as an explanation of the latter's degeneration into emotivism, and that, like Kamehameha II, Nietzsche had identified the moral imperatives of his time as arbitrary and incoherent in demanding their abolition. The nineteenth-century critic who has most lastingly and profoundly influenced MacIntyre is not Nietzsche but Marx — indeed, After Virtue originates in MacIntyre's plans to write a book repairing the moral weaknesses of Marxism. His critique of capitalism, and its associated liberal ideology and bureaucratic state (including what, in After Virtue, he condemned as the state capitalism of the USSR) is not expressed in traditional Marxist terms. Instead, it is written as a defence of ordinary social 'practices', and of the 'goods internal to practices'. Pursuit of these helps to give narrative structure and intelligibility to our lives, but these goods must be defended against their corruption by 'institutions', which pursue such 'external goods' as money, power and status (chapters 14-15). MacIntyre seeks to find an alternative to Nietzsche's philosophy and eventually concludes that only classic Aristotelian thought can hope to save Western humanity. While Nietzsche seems to include the Aristotelian ethics and politics in his attack on the "degenerate disguises of the will to power," MacIntyre claims that this cannot be done due to important differences between the structure and assumptions of Aristotelian and post-Enlightenment philosophy. These include: *Aristotle's assumption that man is as-he-happens-to-be and that this is distinct from man-as-he-should-be. The Enlightenment, on the other hand, offers no metaphysical framework whatsoever in place of teleology. *Aristotle's claim that rules are based on virtues, which are derived from an understanding of the telos. The Enlightenment reversed this and predicated virtues on an understanding of subjective (but purported to be universal) principles. *Aristotle's assertion that virtue and morality are integral parts of society, as an understanding of the telos must be social and not individual. In the Enlightenment, however, societies lost their moral authority and the individual became the fundamental interpreter of moral questions. MacIntyre opposes Nietzsche's return to the aristocratic ethics of Homeric Greece with the teleological approach to ethics pioneered by Aristotle. Nietzsche’s critique of Enlightenment moral theory does not work against a teleological ethics. For MacIntyre, "Nietzsche replaces the fictions of the Enlightenment individualism, of which he is so contemptuous, with a set of individualist fictions of his own." Nietzsche’s übermensch, his solution to the lies of the Enlightenment, exposes the failure of the Enlightenment's epistemological project and of its search for a subjective yet universal morality. Nietzsche neglects the role of society in the formation and understanding of tradition and morality, and "Nietzsche’s great man cannot enter into relationships meditated by appeal to shared standards or virtues or goods; he is his own only moral authority and his relationships to others have to be exercises of that authority... it will be to condemn oneself to that moral solipsism which constitutes Nietzschean greatness." After Virtue ends by posing the question 'Nietzsche or Aristotle?', although MacIntyre acknowledges that the book does not give sufficient grounds for a definitive answer that it is Aristotle, not Nietzsche, who points to the best solution for the problems that the book has diagnosed. Those grounds are set out in MacIntyre's subsequent works, in which he elaborates a sophisticated revision of the philosophical tradition of Aristotelianism. In the end, however, MacIntyre tells us that we are waiting not for Godot but for St Benedict. MacIntyre charges a strong critique against individualist political philosophy, such as John Rawls' A Theory of Justice and Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia. To MacIntyre, morals and virtues can only be comprehended through their relation to the community in which they come from. Whereas Rawls tells us to conceive of justice through abstracting ourselves from who we are (through the veil of ignorance, for example) MacIntyre disagrees. Running throughout 'After Virtue' is the belief that in order to comprehend who we are, we must understand where we come from. |
The Fourth Hand | John Irving | 2,001 | While reporting a story from India, Patrick Wallingford, a New York television journalist, has his left hand eaten by a lion. Millions of TV viewers witness the accident, and Patrick achieves instant notoriety as "the lion guy". In Boston, a renowned hand surgeon, Dr. Nicholas M. Zajac, awaits the opportunity to perform the nation’s first hand transplant. After watching video of Patrick, Dr. Zajac contacts the journalist and pledges to find a suitable hand donor for him. Doris Clausen, a married woman in Wisconsin, wants to give Patrick Wallingford her husband’s left hand—that is, after her husband dies. When her husband later dies from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Doris immediately rushes the hand to Boston. In the waiting room prior to the procedure, Doris has sex with Patrick, explaining that she had always wanted to have a child but was unable to with her late husband. The hand is then successfully attached by Dr. Zajac, with unorthodox visitation rights for the hand granted to Doris. Patrick quickly falls in love with Doris, who has his baby, Otto Clausen Junior. Doris, however, will not return Patrick's love, and only allows him to touch her intimately with her late husband's hand, now Patrick's. |
The Nature of Alexander | Mary Renault | 1,975 | The book is a biography of King Alexander the Great, (356-323 BCE/BC), ruler of Macedon, Egypt and Persia. Renault wrote several historical novels in which Alexander appears: The Mask of Apollo (1966), Fire from Heaven (1969), The Persian Boy (1972) and Funeral Games (1981). She felt these were not enough to tell the whole story of Alexander, and so she completed her nonfiction biography. The book makes no attempt to be impartial or neutral, but rather unabashedly advocates Alexander as a truly great man. For example, Renault rejects the usual terminology of the "murder" of Kleitos, pointing out that legally, "murder" refers only to a killing with premeditation, which absolutely was not the case when the King killed Kleitos in a drunken brawl, after much drink and much provocation. She also points out that the beauty of the mummy of Alexander was still much admired even many generations after his death. She refutes many slurs against Alexander, both ancient and modern. Renault also defends Alexander's friend Hephaistion, pointing out that he corresponded with Aristotle and was successful in every mission and independent command he undertook. The hardcover edition is illustrated. |
Fire and Hemlock | Diana Wynne Jones | 1,985 | As she clears out her old bedroom, Polly discovers that below her memories, in which she led an entirely normal and unremarkable life, there is a second set of memories, which are rather unusual. As Polly thinks back to this "second set" of memories, the point where they seem to diverge is when she stumbled into a funeral in an old mansion, Hunsdon House, when she was ten and playing with her best friend, Nina. There, she was approached by a man named Thomas Lynn who took her back outside and kept her company. He takes her back inside to help him select six pictures from a large pile, his share of the estate of the deceased; one of them is a photograph called "Fire and Hemlock" (hence the name of the novel), which he gave to her. He then takes her back to her grandmother's house, where she is living. Over the following years Tom and Polly continue a friendship largely through correspondence, with occasional visits. Tom sends her books and letters with stories in them, many of which tie into the general theme of his predicament. Together, the two come up with stories about a hero named Tan Coul and his assistant Hero, who are Mr. Lynn's and Polly's alter egos, respectively. These stories all eventually come true, after a fashion. For instance, after discussing Tan Coul's horse, they encounter an identical horse disrupting traffic in the streets of London, having escaped from a nearby circus. An invented town and hardware store later turn out to be real, the proprietor being the spitting image of Tom, and his nephew Leslie falling into the story much later as a possible victim of Laurel's. Tom and Polly's story features three other heroes; later on, Tom gives Polly a photograph of all the members of his orchestra, and asks her to identify them. She immediately finds the other three heroes. These three are exactly the ones with whom Tom was considering setting up an independent string quartet. All the while, Polly encounters members of Tom's ex-wife's family, all of whom seem to be threatening her and trying to break off her relationship with Tom. These include Seb, who is a few years older than Polly. Polly understands the threats as Laurel (Tom's ex-wife) having some sort of power over him. Tom refuses to talk about it. This friendship develops against the background of Polly's growing up in her own disintegrating family life: her father Reg leaves, and a new lodger moves in and begins a relationship with her mother, Ivy. When Ivy sends her to live with her father in Bristol, it soon becomes apparent that she was not wanted there, her father having neither told his girlfriend that she was coming nor that she was supposed to live with them permanently. Eventually Polly moves in with her grandmother, who acts as a strong, fierce, strict anchor in her life. As Polly turns sixteen, she realises that she has always loved Tom, but when she is rejected by him (in part because of their age difference, but also for her own safety, as she later discovers) she sets out to discover the secret of his relationship with the sinister Laurel that is somehow connected to all the supernatural events that happen to Tom and her. To do this, she performs voodoo-like ceremony, and it partly succeeds - she is summoned to Hunsdon House, where it all started. Laurel is there, but humiliates Polly and tells her (untruthfully) that Tom is dying of cancer, and wants to be left alone by her. Mortified, Polly agrees to forget him, and leaves. Her second set of memories ends here. Three years later, sitting in front of the picture (that she now realizes was a gift from Tom) Polly decides to start investigating, and finds out that all memory of Tom has been erased from her life, and that he has been eradicated from the memories of anyone who should have known him. As well as this, other people that she met in connection with Tom have no idea who she is, her friend Nina believes that Polly stopped talking to her years ago, and friends that she met through Tom have apparently never met her. She becomes frustrated, and is determined to find Tom, the man she knew and still loves. In this she is aided by reading two ballads, Tam Lin and Thomas the Rhymer, which help her figure out the truth. In reality, Tom has entered into a deal with the so-called Queen of the Fairies - Laurel. The time has now come when he must give his life to prolong that of her husband, the sinister Morton Leroy, the King of the Fairies. Using the information in the ballads as an instruction, she arrives at the ceremony over which Laurel is presiding, and manages to outwit her and secure Tom's life, and, depending on the way you interpret the strange happenings of the ending, his love. |
River of Ice | null | null | In a cave under a glacier (the "River of Ice") in British Columbia, Brent and Lini Waller find a time capsule with treasure, artifacts, and manuscripts from an advanced, pre-Ice Age civilization. Lini seeks to sell the cave contents to the Wittwar Foundation. Benson declines to lead an expedition to the cave. Lini is kidnapped, and a steel needle is pounded into her brain, a pre-Ice Age mind control technique. She leads the Justice Inc. team into several death traps, including a room filled with dry ice and a building that falls on their car. Mac and Josh, sent to locate the cave, are captured by the criminals. Nellie, captured, apparently has a needle inserted in her brain. Flying to the cave, under Lini's control, Nellie strands Benson, Smitty, and Rosabel in a remote location. Benson had planned for a second plane, delivered by a young Canadian pilot, but accidentally crashes it and is captured. The mastermind seeks the ancient cold light technology which lights the cave, removes all the ancient artifacts, and sets an explosion that buries the cave with the Justice Inc. team inside. Benson arranged for the explosion to destroy the criminals, and escapes the cave using ancient advanced technology. |
My Education: A Book of Dreams | William S. Burroughs | 1,995 | Most of the dreams are concerned with mundane affairs: talking to his friends Ian Sommerville, Allen Ginsberg and Brion Gysin; protecting his cats; trying to get sex, drugs or something to eat. There are flying dreams, erotic suitcase-packing dreams, dreams of being bullied by men in uniforms. There are references to strange drugs such as "Jade" and "Bogomolets Anti-Human Serum 125." In addition, there are other segments which seem unconcerned with dreams at all, such as a chapter where Burroughs instructs the reader on how to create botulism. There is a place he refers to as the Land of the Dead, which, like Interzone, seems to be a conglomeration of many cities: Tangiers, London, Paris, and others. ru:Моё образование: книга снов |
Bliss | Peter Carey | 1,981 | Written as a dark, comic fable, the story concerns an advertising executive, Harry Joy, who briefly 'dies' of a heart attack. On being resuscitated, he realizes that the life he has previously drifted aimiably through is in fact Hell – literally so to Harry. His wife is unfaithful with his partner. His son is selling drugs, and his daughter is a communist selling herself to buy them. In one of the novel's more shocking scenes, glimpsed through a window, incest occurs. Redemption comes in the form of Honey Barbara – pantheist, healer, whore. In the words of the book's blurb "Honey is to Harry as Isis is to Osiris. Together they conquer Hell and retire to the forest where their children inherit the legend of paradise regained." But Harry must die for a second time to be truly saved. |
Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul | Tony Hendra | null | When Hendra was 14, he had an affair with a married woman. When her husband, a devout Catholic, discovered them in each other's arms, he took Hendra on a trip to Quarr Abbey, a monastery on the Isle of Wight off the coast of England. Hendra, expecting to be disciplined, was surprised when a "cartoonish" monk, Father Joseph Warrilow, instead treated him kindly. Hendra fell in love with Quarr and decided to become a monk. When Hendra reached the age of eighteen and could legally begin his time at Quarr, Father Joe found out that Hendra had received a scholarship to Cambridge University, and he urged Hendra to first attend college and obtain a degree before he could be admitted to the monastery. While at Cambridge, Hendra attended a theatrical revue called Beyond the Fringe. The brilliant performance by Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Alan Bennett, and Jonathan Miller had such an impact on him that his life set off on a totally different course. In his words, "I went into that theater a monk. I came out a satirist. Save the world through prayer? I don't think so. I'm going to save it through laughter." In spite of his decision not to become a monk, he continued to visit Father Joe for more than 40 years, until Father Joe's death on April 27, 1998. |
Fletch Won | Gregory Mcdonald | 1,985 | During what is effectively a prequel, Fletch has only been at the News-Tribune as a junior reporter for a short time and Frank (his editor) is losing respect for his new employee. Frank moves Fletch to a different section of the newspaper more than once, but Fletch continues to cause trouble. When Fletch is to run the story of local lawyer Donald Habeck, who requests an interview in order to announce that he is giving 5 million dollars to a local museum, the lawyer turns up dead in the News-Tribune parking lot. Unsurprisingly Frank takes Fletch off the story and gives it to an experienced reporter who has been with the paper for years. Fletch is now charged with investigating a whorehouse—which he does. However, he is not about to give up on the Habeck story, the circumstances of which seem mighty suspicious, especially when Fletch starts to suspect that the legal firm Habeck worked for is one of the most crooked firms around. |
How It Is | Samuel Beckett | 1,961 | The title is Beckett's literal translation of the French phrase, comment c'est (how it is), a pun on the French verb commencer or 'to begin'. The text is divided into three parts: 1. "before Pim" - the solitary narrator journeys in the mud-dark until he encounters another creature like himself thereby forming a "couple". 2. "with Pim" - the narrator is motionless in the mud-dark until he is abandoned by Pim. 3. "after Pim" - the narrator returns to his earlier solitude but without motion in the mud-dark. In a letter (April 6, 1960) to Donald McWhinnie at BBC Radio Drama, Beckett explained his strange text as the product of a " 'man' lying panting in the mud and dark murmuring his 'life' as he hears it obscurely uttered by a voice inside him... The noise of his panting fills his ears and it is only when this abates that he can catch and murmur forth a fragment of what is being stated within... It is in the third part that occurs the so-called voice 'quaqua', its interiorisation and murmuring forth when the panting stops. That is to say the 'I' is from the outset in the third part and the first and second, though stated as heard in the present, already over." |
Searching for David's Heart | Cherie Bennett | 1,998 | Darcy Deeton is a twelve-year-old girl who loves her older brother, David. After becoming jealous when he falls in love with Jayne Evans, Darcy inadvertently leads David to his death in a car accident. The Deetons decide to donate David's most important organ, his heart. Darcy is so guilt-ridden about his death that she is determined to find the person who has his heart so she can find some closure. Darcy embarks on a wild adventure with her best friend, Sam. |
Hammerhead Ranch Motel | Tim Dorsey | 2,000 | Serge follows the suitcase containing five million up the coast of Florida to Tampa where he proceeds to meet Lenny Lipowicz, a part time Don Johnson impersonator who owns a real moon rock from a 1970s space mission. Along for the ride are City and Country, two girls from Alabama who are on the run after an incident in a bar bathroom where a girl accidentally stabbed herself with a steak knife she was using to snort cocaine from. One of the girls pulled the blade out trying to help, but it cut an artery. With their fingerprints all over, they decided to run for it. There is also a gangster named Fiddlebottom who changed his name to the more menacing "Zargoza", and a Hemingway impersonator named Jethro, and so on. All these characters meet up by the end at the Hammerhead Ranch Motel as hurricane Rolando-berto comes ashore. |
Cadillac Beach | Tim Dorsey | 2,004 | The year is 1996. At long last, Serge A. Storms has been captured. He is committed to the psychiatric hospital at Chattahoochee, where he patiently tries to explain his views. Serge grows tired of this diversion, however, and escapes once more. His newest obsession involves investigating the circumstances surrounding his grandfather's death forty years earlier, when he allegedly committed suicide by wandering into the ocean at a Miami beach. Serge's grandfather, who passed on many of his habits and interests (as well as his mental instability) to his grandson, may have been involved with a lucrative jewel theft shortly before his disappearance, however, so his friends are understandably reluctant to talk. The novel then skips forward eight years and over the previous novels in the series to 1996, where Serge is living with his friend Lenny and Lenny's mother while planning a phantasmagoric array of projects, the biggest of which is still to solve the matter of his grandfather's supposed suicide. To finance his quest, Serge and Lenny start up a unique tour service highlighting the "lesser known" side of Florida's tourism industry. During one of his tours, a group of drunken convention attendees accidentally kidnap and kill a mob boss. The mobster in question just happens to be one that Serge personally insulted a few days earlier, incurring the wrath of both the mob and the FBI. Serge decides to keep close tabs on the salesmen for their own protection, not letting them leave his sight. Somehow, he also finds the time to publicly embarrass the Castro regime of Cuba and the United States government at the same time. Tagging along in Serge's deathmarch/tour are Lenny, a newspaper columnist from New York City, a friend of Serge's grandfather's named Chi Chi, and City and Country, a pair of dim-witted women that Serge ditched at the beginning of The Stingray Shuffle, in 1998. |
Torpedo Juice | Tim Dorsey | 2,005 | The book takes place mainly in the Florida Keys, where Serge heads to "reinvent himself". After flirting with becoming the next Jimmy Buffett (undaunted by a total lack of musical talent), he finally decides to marry. All he has to do is find the right woman. Given Serge's personality (a mixture of bizarre topic-hopping as his attention drifts and his penchant for brutal honesty), this proves quite a challenge. And somehow, he's picked up a legion of devoted followers continually begging him for pearls of wisdom. After briefly courting a few unwilling prospects, he falls in love at first sight with Molly, a new hire at the local library. She initially seems to be stereotypically meek and prim, but is won over when she inadvertently watches Serge beat a man to death for insulting her. She agrees to his hastily-scheduled wedding (held during an underwater concert) and quickly proves to be more than a match for Serge's formidable libido. He is quickly baffled by the intricacies of a "normal" relationship, however, and his bride resents all the time he spends with his dim-bulb pal Coleman. Arguments and cold silences follow. With all of this frustration, Serge barely notices the brown Duster following him or the repeated attempts on his life. Meanwhile, the regulars at the No Name Pub are vexed by Gaskin Fussels, an obnoxious rich loudmouth who flies down to the Keys every weekend to "whoop it up". They ignore him as best they can until Fussels, obliviously following a half-joking suggestion, steals and accidentally destroys a prized possession of the local viciously psychotic drug lord obsessed with the movie Scarface. Simultaneously, downtrodden waitress Anna discovers that her abusive husband has been murdered, along with her brother and his wife. She flees for her life, trying to decide who to trust and how to free herself from the trouble in which she suddenly finds herself. She finds an ally, and later a lover, in Jerry, the desperate-to-be-liked bartender at the No Name Pub. Gus is a deputy in a small police station. Gus can't escape his mocking nickname of Serpico or the humiliations his ex-wife heaped on him, both of which his partner Walter is happy to mention. Suddenly the fax starts spitting out bulletins about possible serial killers headed their way and dangerous cars to be on the lookout for. A slimy ex-CEO, recently tried for improprieties that robbed thousands of people of their retirement funds (in an apparent reference to the Enron scandal), decides to spread a little "goodwill" around the Keys. But he is obviously buying people's support before announcing his plans to obscure some of Florida's most beautiful shoreline with condominiums. Legally, he should have lost nearly all his wealth, but thanks to the quasi-legal dealings of his equally slimy lawyers, he is still spending other people's money and living the good life. In the end, of course, very few people are who they seem and identities are unmasked as all the plot threads come crashing together. Molly is a serial killer even more deranged than Serge, Fussels is a fed investigating Jerry (who is actually "Scarface"), and Anna and Gus find themselves in possession of a solid gold boat anchor worth millions. |
Man Plus | Frederik Pohl | 1,976 | In the not-too-distant future, a cold war threatens to turn hot. Colonization of Mars seems to be mankind's only hope of surviving certain Armageddon. To facilitate this, the American government begins a cyborg program to create a being capable of surviving the harsh Martian environment: Man Plus. After the death of the first candidate, due to the project supervisors forgetting to enhance his brain's ability to process sensory input to cope with the new stimuli he is receiving, Roger Torraway becomes the heart of the program. In order to survive in the thin Martian atmosphere, Roger Torraway's body must be replaced with an artificial one. At every step he becomes more and more disconnected from humanity, unable to feel things in his new body. It is only after arriving on Mars that his new body begins to make sense to him. It is perfectly adapted to this new world, and thus he becomes perfectly separated from his old world, and from humanity. The success of the Martian mission spurs similar cyborg programs in other spacefaring nations. It is revealed that the computer networks of Earth have become sentient, and that ensuring humanity's survival will guarantee theirs as well. In the end, the network is puzzled...it appears that something else was behind the push to space, a mystery even to the machines. |
The Flame Breathers | null | null | Four Polish scientists and a private detective become "Flame Breathers" and die; a car and a plane set speed records and are destroyed, the driver, pilot, and a reporter, killed; a Montreal police lab, the financier Singer's home, a bathtub with financier Henderlin in it all explode; a house in NJ, heated and lit without using electricity, gas, or oil, explodes. A beautiful woman with black hair thwarts the Justice Inc. team repeatedly. A small strange man seems to be implicated in the scheme. Benson initially finds no chemical explanation for the flames and explosions. He investigates, his aides playing relatively small roles. Benson is betrayed by his paralyzed face and his white hair. The plot is complex: two gangs, each backed by a financier, fight for control of a secret process, discovered by the four scientists, that can turn water into an energy source. The black-haired woman seeks justice for the death of the reporter, her brother, and gets it as Benson causes the gangs destroy one another. The small man, lab assistant to the four scientists, dies, taking the secret of getting energy from water to the grave with him. |
House of Incest | Anaïs Nin | null | Nin's usage of the word incest in this case is metaphorical, not literal. In other words, in this book the word "incest" describes a selfish love where one can appreciate in another only that which is similar to oneself. One is then only loving oneself, shunning all differences. At first, such a self-love can seem ideal because it is without fear and without risk. But eventually it becomes a sterile nightmare. Toward the end of the book, the character called "the modern Christ" puts Nin’s use of the word into context: “If only we could all escape from this house of incest, where we only love ourselves in the other." Nin was under the analysis of Otto Rank during the period of writing House of Incest. Rank was an early disciple of Freud, serving as the secretary and youngest member of his Vienna group, but had long since dissented from Freudian orthodoxy and developed his own theoretical school. Incest: From a Journal of Love"—The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin (1932–1934) reveals that the two were also having an affair. Rank helped Anaïs edit House of Incest. He had experience with this topic, as Otto Rank's most famous book is The Trauma of Birth. House of Incest is largely an attempt by the narrator to cope with the shock of the trauma of birth. Anaïs Nin describes the process as akin to being "[e]jected from a paradise of soundlessness.... thrown up on a rock, the skeleton of a ship choked in its own sails." |
The Deep Blue Good-by | John D. MacDonald | 1,964 | The Deep Blue Good-by introduces readers to McGee, his place of residence, the Busted Flush (a houseboat he won in a poker game), and its mooring place, slip F-18 at the Bahia Mar Marina in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. In the early chapters we learn that McGee is a bachelor, a man who can be friends with ladies as well as have a passion for them, and a man of principle (although they are somewhat at the mercy of his uncertain emotional condition and his circumstances at the moment; in McGee's own words, "Some of them I'll bend way, way, over, but not break."). We also learn that McGee is by occupation a salvage consultant, a concept almost certainly coined and developed by MacDonald. (As a "salvage consultant," McGee undertakes to recover for its rightful owner money or property of which the owner has been wrongfully deprived and has no other hope of recovering, taking half its value as his fee.) McGee works when he has to, almost always only taking jobs when his supply of money (kept in an ingenious "hidey-hole" aboard the Flush) is low. In one tale, however, McGee avenges the murder of a long-time friend. In another, he is asked by the daughter of a friend to find out why her husband is trying to kill her. While he can be mercenary at times, he is not a mercenary. Another feature of the McGee series is the seemingly unending parade of colorful and invariably evil villains whom McGee must contend with in order to make a recovery for his clients. In this first story the antagonist is Junior Allen, a smiling, seemingly friendly man, large, "cat quick", powerful, and pathologically evil. The story begins with a fortune smuggled home after World War II by a soldier who was a native of the Florida Keys. This soldier killed another soldier just prior to his discharge, went on the run back to the Keys, and buried his treasure there. He was later captured by the U.S. Army and sent to a military prison, where he met Junior Allen. Allen discovered vague details about the fortune hidden in the Keys and after his release from prison went there to find it. The story depicts the psychotic behavior of Allen as he evolves from thief to serial rapist to murderer. We see McGee's savvy, guile, and physical prowess as he works methodically to locate Allen and eventually make the recovery. As is thematic in many of the McGee books, however, he pays a heavy price for the successful recovery. Throughout the series, in fact, it is debatable as to whether McGee ever makes a recovery in which the costs outweigh the gain. |
Dragon and Phoenix | Joanne Bertin | 1,999 | The book covers the fall of an empire to the south of the Five Kingdoms, the land of the first novel. The empire of Jehanglan is sustained by the Phoenix dynasty, which draws its power from a phoenix trapped a thousand years ago. The phoenix is kept in place by the power of a truedragon, also trapped and exploited. On discovering that one of their cousins is trapped, Linden Rathan and his soultwin, Maurynna Kyrissaean, lead a party to rescue him. Unfortunately, they play into the hands of a Jehangli lord who seeks to trap the Dragonlords and use the additional power to take the throne for himself. |
The War in the Air | H. G. Wells | 1,908 | The first three chapters of The War in the Air relate details of the life of Bert Smallways and his extended family in Bun Hill, in the countryside south of London. Bert is an unimpressive, not particularly gifted, unsuccessful young man with few ideas about larger things, but with a strong attachment to a young woman named Edna. He works as a helper and partner in a bicycle shop. When bankruptcy threatens one summer, he and his partner abandon the shop, devise a singing act ("the Desert Dervishes"), and resolve to try their fortunes in English sea resorts. As chance would have, their initial performance is interrupted by a balloon flight of one Mr. Butteridge. Butteridge is known not for ballons, but for his successful invention of an easily maneuverable fixed-wing aircraft whose secret he has not revealed and that he is seeking to sell to the British government or, failing that, to Germany. By accident Bert is stranded in Butteridge's balloon, which has on board Butteridge's plans. Bert is clever enough to appraise his situation, and when the balloon is shot down in a secret German "aeronautic park east of Hamburg," Bert tries to pass himself off as Butteridge in order to sell the secret. (Aircraft development has been mainly limited to airships and what appear to be single-use semi-gliders that have to be launched from an airship (the Drachenflieger); it has not succeeded in producing a really practical heavier-than-air machine, only a few awkward devices of limited utility. Butteridge's invention is a major breakthrough in heavier-than-air flight, being highly manoeuvrable, capable of both very fast and very slow flight, and requiring only a small area to take off and land; it appears to combine the advantages of the helicopter and the aeroplane in a manner superior to modern real-world V/STOL craft.) But Bert has stumbled upon the German air fleet just as it is about to launch an attack on the United States, and Prince Karl Albert, the author and leader of this plan, decides to take him along for the campaign. The German aerial forces, and consisting of airships and Drachenflieger, attempt to seize control of the air before the Americans build a large-scale aerial navy. The Germans are unaware that the Chinese and Japanese have also been building a massive air force. Tensions between Japan and the United States, exacerbated by the issue of American citizenship being denied to Japanese immigrants, also lead to war. The "Confederation of Eastern Asia" (China and Japan) turns out to possess aerial forces, and their aircraft and tactics have been seen as a portent to the kamikaze of World War II. The United States therefore has to fight on two fronts: the Eastern and the Western, in the air as well on sea. Bert Smallways is present as the Germans first attack an American naval fleet in the Atlantic, then bomb New York City into submission. Bert's disguise has already been foiled by the perspicacious Germans, and he is relegated to the role of a witness realizing the true horror of war. After New York City is bombarded by the German flying machines, the Asiatic aerial forces fly over the Rocky Mountains, and engage the Germans in dog fights above Niagara Falls. The Asiatic air fleet is equipped with large numbers of lightweight one-man flying machines called Niais, which appear to be ornithopters, armed with a gun carried by the pilot firing explosive bullets "loaded with oxygen" for use against the hydrogen-filled airships. Bert is stranded on Goat Island in the middle of Niagara Falls, finds a crashed Niais and, after killing Prince Karl Albert, who is similarly stranded, manages to escape from the island on it, crashlanding near Tanooda, NY. He learns that the Asiatic forces have landed "a million men" on the western seaboard, and with the help of a local landowner named Laurier turns the plans for Butteridge's flying machine over to the U.S. president, hiding out in Pinkerville "on the Hudson." The Asiatic fleet also attacks a combined Anglo-Indian aerial force, capturing the Burmese airfields, and in Australia as well, capturing the Pacific islands. In Europe, the United Kingdom, France and Italy fight the German and Swiss forces, leading to the destruction of London, Paris, Hamburg and Berlin. (The imagination of Bert Smallways if not that of H.G. Wells—it is not always easy to distinguish them in the novel—is deeply infected by the racism prevalent in England during the Edwardian era.) A global financial collapse is caused by hostile nations freezing assets, and the end of the credit system. This is referred to as "the Panic," which is followed by "The Purple Death." The War in the Air, the Panic, and the Purple Death bring about "[w]ithin the space of five years" a total collapse of "the whole fabric of civilisation." But Bert Smallways, fixated on his amorous attachment, returns home after many adventures via a ship to kill a rival and win the hand of Edna; they marry and have eleven children. We are assured in the final chapter that "our present world state, orderly, scientific, and secured," is eventually established, but the novel reverts to the ensuing fortunes of the Smallways family as England relapses into a sort of an agricultural medieval feudalism. |
Indiana Jones and the Philosopher's Stone | Max McCoy | 1,995 | The search for wealth and immortality has sent men mad. Now Indiana Jones is called to London to recover an ancient alchemist's manuscript that is supposed to contain the formula both for creating gold from lead and also granting eternal life. Certain that a missing British alchemist and an insane Renaissance scholar are involved in the theft; Indy, along with the alchemist's beautiful sister, travels to Rome, and straight into the hands of Mussolini's fascists. The scholar Sarducci (who appears mad) has stolen the Voynich Manuscript. However the manuscript is also a map, leading readers into the desert and the most ancient and magnificent crypt in the world, where Indiana Jones will either witness an astounding miracle of alchemy, or become the tomb's next inhabitant. |
The Perks of Being a Wallflower | Stephen Chbosky | 1,999 | "Charlie" is the alias of the adolescent narrator of the novel, who is about to begin his first year of high school. The novel is presented through letters that Charlie writes to an anonymous friend, whom he hears girls at school talk about fondly. Charlie begins his freshman year apprehensive due to the death of his only good friend Michael, who committed suicide several months before. He does not feel that he can lean on his parents or older siblings for support, because they never truly understood him. He also explains that the only relative that he ever felt close to was his Aunt Helen, but she was killed in a car accident on his seventh birthday. Charlie soon befriends two seniors, Sam and her step-brother Patrick. Throughout the story, Sam, Patrick, and Charlie's English teacher Bill introduce him to many new experiences and the letters he writes show his growth. In the end, he learns that he can go on life without being scared because he is a wallflower. Charlie writes about situations he gets into with his new friends including going to parties, seeing and performing in Rocky Horror Picture Show and going on his first date. Charlie also falls in love with Sam during the novel. He writes to his anonymous friend a lot about love. Besides his feelings for Sam, he also briefly dates Mary Elizabeth, another girl in their group of friends. In addition, Charlie writes about Patrick's relationship with Brad, the quarterback of the football team, who is gay but still "in the closet". Another relationship discussed is his sister's, who is dating a boy who Charlie witnessed hitting her, which Charlie is especially sensitive to as his Aunt Helen was abused. Charlie grows a lot during the story and learns how to participate in life. At the end of the summer, Patrick and Sam take Charlie through the tunnel again, this time, with Charlie standing in the truck bed. |
The Bottle Imp | Robert Louis Stevenson | null | Keawe, a poor Hawaiian man, buys a strange bottle from a sad, elderly gentleman who credits the bottle with his fortune. He promises that an imp residing in the bottle will also grant Keawe his every desire. Of course, there is a catch — the bottle must be sold at a loss, i.e. for less than its owner originally paid, or else it will simply return to him. The currency used in the transaction must also be in coin (not paper money or a bank cheque/check). The bottle may not be thrown or given away. All of these commands must be transmitted from each seller to each purchaser. If an owner of the bottle dies without having sold it in the prescribed manner, that person's soul will burn for eternity in Hell. The bottle was said to have been brought to Earth by the Devil and first purchased by Prester John for millions of dollars; it was owned by Napoleon and Captain James Cook and accounted for their great successes. By the time of the story the price has diminished to eighty dollars. Keawe buys the bottle and instantly wishes his money to be refunded, to convince himself he has not been suckered. When his pockets fill with coins, he realizes the bottle does indeed have unholy power. He finds he cannot abandon it or sell it for a profit, so he wishes for his heart's desire: a big, fancy mansion on a landed estate. Upon his return to Hawaii, Keawe's wish has been granted, but at a price: his beloved uncle and cousins have been killed in a boating accident, leaving Keawe sole heir to his uncle's fortune. Keawe is horrified, but uses the money to build his house. After explaining the risks, he sells the bottle to a friend. Keawe lives a happy life, but there is something missing. Walking along the beach one night, he meets a beautiful woman, Kokua. They soon fall in love and become engaged. Keawe's happiness is shattered on the night of his betrothal, when he discovers that he has contracted the then-incurable disease of leprosy. He must give up his house and wife, and live in Kalaupapa—a remote community for lepers—unless he can recover the bottle and use it to cure himself. Keawe begins this quest by attempting to track down the friend to whom he sold the bottle, but the friend has become suddenly wealthy and left Hawaii. Keawe traces the path of the bottle through many buyers and eventually finds a Haole of Beritania Street, Honolulu. The man of European ancestry has both good and bad news for Keawe: (a) he owns the bottle and is very willing to sell but, but (b) he had only paid two cents for it. Therefore, if Keawe buys it, he will not be able to resell it. Keawe decides to buy the bottle anyway, for the price of one cent, and indeed cures himself. Now, however, he is understandably despondent: how can he possibly enjoy life, knowing his doom? His wife mistakes his depression for regret at their marriage, and asks for a divorce. Keawe confesses to her his secret. His wife suggests they sail, with the bottle, to Tahiti; on that archipelago the colonists of French Polynesia use centimes, a coin worth one-fifth of an American cent. This offers a potential recourse for Keawe. When they arrive, however, the suspicious natives will not touch the cursed bottle. Kokua determines to make a supreme sacrifice to save her husband from his fate. Since, however, she knows he would never sell the bottle to her knowingly, Kokua is forced to bribe an old sailor to buy the bottle for four centimes, with the understanding that she will secretly buy it back for three. Now Keawe is happy, but she carries the curse. Keawe discovers what his wife has done, and resolves to sacrifice himself for her in the same manner. He arranges for a brutish boatswain to buy the bottle for two centimes, promising he will buy it back for one, thus sealing his doom. However, the drunken sailor refuses to part with it, and is unafraid of the prospect of Hell. "I reckon I'm going anyway," he says. Keawe returns to his wife, both of them free from the curse, and the reader is encouraged to believe that they live happily ever after. |
Fire on the Mountain | Edward Abbey | 1,962 | Charlie includes the following shadongalong to introduce this book: The story which follows was inspired by an event which took place in our country not many years ago. However, it is a work of fiction and any resemblance to living persons or actual places is accidental. Billy Vogelin Starr returns to his beloved New Mexico after having spent the previous nine months at a school in the East. His grandfather, John Vogelin, is driving Billy back to his Box V Ranch after picking him up in El Paso. Billy has one thought during the drive, he wants to see Lee Mackie II, who he considers the finest man alive and his own personal role model. But when they reach the ranch Billy learns there are problems. They stop at Hayduke's place—a name that would be used again by Abbey -- (a combination general store, post office and bus stop) for refreshments before returning to the ranch. Hayduke tells Vogelin he's received more letters from the government. A cowboy comes up as they are preparing to leave. "I hear you declared war on the United States Government, John", the cowboy said. "No, they declared war on me." They discuss Lee Mackie, wondering which side he will come down on. John thinks Lee will support him, but isn't certain. They return to the ranch and John points to Thieves Mountain, telling Billy that's where they will be tomorrow trying to track down a wayward pony. Just then three Air Force jets fly over. Billy points in wonder, but John has a different reaction. "Trespassers." Cruzita Peralta, John's housekeeper and cook, is waiting for them at the ranch. She and her husband, Eloy, help maintain the ranch. Eloy is away repairing a fence that was knocked down by an Army jeep. When Eloy returns he tells John and Billy about an encounter he had with government officials. Three cows escaped through the gate they left open. Billy goes to bed but has trouble sleeping. Eventually he hears 34-year-old Lee Mackie has finally arrived but can't make out what the two men are discussing. He sneaks up to listen. Lee is trying to convince the old man that he can't fight the U.S. government and win. Mackie urges John to take the $65,000 and sell the ranch. John says never. When the talk dies down, John hears Billy moving behind the door. That's when Billy is finally reunited with his hero. While out looking for the wayward pony the following day the three of them come across a sick calf. During the attempt to help him, John collapses. The old man insists he's all right, but Lee clearly doubts it. John heads off in one direction and Lee and Billy another, all looking for the pony on the mountain. On the journey up the mountain Lee and Billy cross the path of a Jeep with three soldiers in it and a coyote tied to the hood. They have clearly been hunting. Lee asks them if they have seen the horse they are looking for? The soldiers respond with rudeness and jokes. They refuse to answer Lee's question and eventually threaten him with the shotgun if he and the boy don't move aside so the Jeep can pass. After Billy provides a distraction, Lee lunges forward and takes the shotgun from the soldier. Lee forces the other soldiers to hand over their guns and then asks them his question again. They claim not to have seen the horse. He hesitates, but decides to let them pass. But he refuses to give them back their guns. And then he demands they take the coyote off the hood too. After the soldiers have left, they roll the dead coyote down the mountain and bury the guns, promising to pick them up on their way down and turn them into the police later. They continue up the mountain and eventually reach a cabin high on the mountain. John has beaten them there but there's been no sign of the lost pony. After dinner, Billy is out getting water from the stream when he comes across a lion resting on a rock above him. When the lion hears John calling out for the boy, he gets up and leaves. The three wake when it's still dark and prepare for a new day. Lee apologizes, but he has to leave them and return to his wife and job. Billy and his grandfather search the entire next day, but can't find the horse. On the third day, they find him. He's dead. John is convinced the horse was shot before the lion tore him open. They return to the ranch, mostly in silence. Lee tries once again to convince John to sell the ranch to the government. John wonders which side is Lee on? Two days later Colonel Everett Stone DeSalius appears at the ranch to talk to John. He has brought a Declaration of Taking, basically saying the government can take his land over his objections for the Department of Defense, basing the decision on its vital importance to national security. John still refuses to sell his land, not quite grasping the situation. DeSalius tells him a check for $65,000 is waiting for him at District Court and that they are standing on U.S. government property. DeSalius says they will be reasonable and give him a month to vacate their property, his home. They will also pay transportation costs for his goods and herd. The old man says no, he will not cooperate. Tells him to tear up that Declaration and that he will die on that property. Things are quiet for the next month. Lee visits once a week and goes for long horseback rides with Billy, telling him stories of when he was a boy and how he helped defend the ranch in a raid by the Apaches. A lie, of course, but good entertainment for a long ride. Lee was there when the U.S. Marshal made his first appearance in July. He tells John that he was supposed to be off the property by today, but the judge had anticipated that he would still be there. So, the judge granted him a two-week extension. He also tells him that if the cattle are still there in two weeks, the government will remove them for him, at his expense. John asks the marshal, Burr, how many men he'll bring next time. Burr responds with a smile, "How many you think I'll need?" John promises him he'll need more. And that he'll kill the first man who touches his house. Lee once again tries to convince the old man to take the money and leave, but John shouts, "No! They'll have to carry me out of here in a box" and that he'll take a few of them with him. Two weeks later the government drove off the cattle while the men were off getting supplies for a long siege. Eloy, who was left to guard the place, was arrested. A soldier confronts the pair and informs them what is happening. John considers fighting them and reaches for his gun, but Billy sitting next to him convinces him to wait. He promises the soldier he won't interfere in their roundup of his stock. John tells Cruzita that he'll go into town that night and bail out Eloy. He also tells her that he wants her and Eloy to stay off the ranch until this business with the government is settled. Cruzita refuses, but when John says he won't bail out Eloy unless she agrees, she does just that. Billy realizes that he'll be next. His school reopens in three weeks and his mother had sent a letter to his grandfather. John begins to fortify his home, preparing for battle. Both the Vogelin men wonder where Lee Mackie is. Later that night Lee arrives. John asks him to take Cruzita and Billy into town, bail out Eloy, and then put all three of them on a bus to El Paso. Better yet, take them all there himself. Billy puts up a fight, not wanting to leave his grandfather. John instructs Lee to make sure Billy is on that train when it leaves. By the time they bailed Eloy out and drove the 60 miles to El Paso they had missed the evening train. Lee and Billy spent the night taking in the sights in Juarez before sleeping in a hotel. In the morning, Lee puts Billy on the train and has a private chat with the porter, handing him some cash. They say their goodbyes with a promise to see each other next year, then Lee watches as the train pulls away. The two wave at each other as the train begins moving. Billy gets up and moves toward the cabin door. The porter and conductor start moving toward him. Billy then goes into the bathroom. After a few seconds, Billy exits the bathroom, pulls the emergency stop brake, opens the outer door, closes his eyes and leaps. When he stops rolling Billy discovers he's still alive and gets up and starts running. He heads for the tall buildings of downtown El Paso, hiding in the shadows whenever he spots a police officer. He eventually finds a bus station and buys a one-way ticket back to Baker, N.M. Then he has lunch while he waits. When they reach Haydukes, Billy hides in the shop until it closes. He helps himself to the snacks in the shop, feeling a little guilty for the theft, then begins to walk toward the ranch. As he gets close to the ranch a car approaches him. He hides in a ditch, recognizing Lee. But he also sees his grandfather, who had promised never to leave the ranch again. He realizes he must be searching for him, but it's too late. They have sped past him. He goes to the ranch and spends the night in the barn. When he wakes, he's back in his bed in the ranch house. Billy talks to Lee and his grandfather. They tell him what a foolish thing he did and that if he ever does it again, they'll never let him return to New Mexico for the summer. John also agrees to let him stay one more week. During the following week some soldiers stop by to put U.S. Government Property signs up around the house. When they try and put one on the house, the old man puts a shotgun in one of their faces, telling him if he touches the house, he's dead. They back down and leave, trying to avoid a confrontation. Billy goes around and removes all the signs the two had just put up. DeSalius returns and makes John an offer. He can continue to live in his house until his death with only one condition: He must leave the house on the days they do missile testing for his own safety. John refuses to sign the agreement. DeSalius tries to urge him to reconsider, promising this is his last chance. John Vogelin says no. That night Lee arrives and tries to convince John to take the offer. He won't budge. Lee doesn't give up, arguing long into the night trying to make the old man see reason. The next day John tells Billy he's going home that night. And they're putting him on an airplane, so he can't jump out of that. The rest of the day John walks through his house, inspecting the fortifications and his storage of food. That's when they hear many cars approaching the house. It's the marshal, Burr, and he's brought eight other men with him, all carrying rifles. John asks his grandson to sneak out of the house and go to the pickup truck and get the handgun out of the glove compartment. Billy agrees. John and the marshal begin to chat as Billy gets inside the cab of the truck. When he looks inside the glove compartment, the gun is not there. Billy realizes his grandfather had fooled him to get him out of the way. He tries to make a dash back to the house, but one of the deputies stops him and forces him inside the back seat of one of their cars. Burr fails to convince John to give up. Billy opens the door and tries to make a run for the house, but the deputy grabs him and throws him back in the car, then threatens to handcuff him. Burr returns to his men and tells them they'll have to use force. He tells them to prepare the tear gas grenades and get the boy out of the line of fire. John has retreated inside the house. The deputies move in. As Burr distracts Vogelin in front, one of the deputies sneaks around the back and climbs the roof. A shot rings out, missing Burr. The deputy on the roof drops a tear gas grenade down the chimney shaft. John refuses to leave the house, despite the tear gas. When Burr approaches the house, a second shot is fired, missing him again. The deputies decide to wait him out, letting him breathe in the gas. When the deputy watching him relaxes a little, Billy makes another break for the house. Two other deputies catch him, bring him back and handcuff him to the hitching rail. After more tear gas and more time, Burr tries again for the house. This time the bullet lands at his feet. He returns, orders a deputy to take Billy away from the scene, then tells the other deputies to forget about the gas and to put some tracers into the house, hoping to burn the old man out. That's when Lee Mackie arrives with Billy's Aunt Marian. He drives his car between the deputies and the house. He orders the deputies to release Billy, who is scooped up by his aunt. Lee talks briefly with the marshal, then takes his ax and heads for the house, calling out to John. John tells him to stop, Lee says he won't. John shoots over his head, but Lee keeps going. John opens the front door and points his rifle right at Lee, who tells him to go ahead and shoot. Finally, John gives up, calling Lee a traitor. Billy tells Lee that he's a traitor and never to talk to him again. Three days later the old man has disappeared. He was moved to Aunt Marian's house, but he was miserable living away from his ranch. Before leaving in the middle of the night, he visits Billy. He asks Billy if he can guess where he's going. Billy thinks about it and then says yes. He makes Billy promise not to tell them where he went. The next morning the search begins. Billy doesn't tell them he knows where the old man went. The old man's truck is found in El Paso and Lee tries to help them with the search. Eventually, he decides John must have returned to the ranch and decides to go out there. He takes Billy with him. Marshal Burr stops them as they are entering, but decides to let them search if they promise to be out by sunset. Lee and Billy spot John's tracks and then Lee confesses he too knows where the old man went. They're going up to the cabin on the mountain to talk to him. Eventually they have to leave Lee's car and climb Thieves Mountain on foot. They hear an Army Jeep following them, but decide there is little they can do about it. They have to climb over some trees that have recently been chopped down to block the Jeep trail. They reach the cabin and discover John Vogelin sleeping against the cabin wall. Only, he's not asleep. The climb up the mountain and the work in cutting down the trees killed him. Lee and Billy talk about what to do with the body. Billy argues he knows his grandfather wanted to remain here. Lee is worried about laws. They can't bury him, because it's all granite six inches down. Lee carries the body into the cabin and just as he's about to start the fire, the marshal appears. He confirms the old man is dead and regrets the series of events that led to this. While Lee and Burr argue over what to do next, Billy spills the kerosene from the lantern on the cabin floor. Before the marshal can stop him, Billy lights a fistful of matches and drops them on the floor. The marshal tries to rescue the body, but Lee stands before him with a chair, threatening him. The marshal tries to stop it, but seems unwilling to go any further. Finally, he leaves and then they go outside to watch the fire burn. |
As Seen on TV | Chris Kerr | 2,005 | Set in the world of TV and small screen production, the main character is a screenwriter. Rush is given the chance to write for the "A-Team" movie, a step up from the world of Zombie, flesh-eaters! |
Jonathan Troy | Edward Abbey | 1,954 | Many of the other characters in the book refer to Jonathan Troy as the golden boy. He's a senior at the local high school and they call him that because he has everything: Looks, intelligence and talent. But he is not an easy character for the reader to like. We're given an insight into the mind of a teen-age boy, where he holds nearly everyone he meets in contempt—especially his father, Nathaniel, and his favorite teacher, Feathersmith. The book is written as a series of different events, almost none of them related. Jonathan has had an ongoing relationship with one girl, Etheline. But once he finally succeeds in seducing her, he begins to lose interest, especially when she starts talking about marriage. A chance meeting with a new girl in town, Leafy, gives him new inspiration and he begins pursuit of her. Abbey also introduces the only major gay character in any of his eight novels, Phillip Feathersmith. Abbey doesn't come right out and say he's gay, but he describes his "fairy-flower" hands, talks about what a pink little fellow he is, and Jonathan calls him "Fairysmith" in his own mind. Feathersmith shows an attraction to Jonathan that is not very subtle. Most of the story is set in a western Pennsylvania town called Powhattan. It was actually based on the town near where Abbey grew up, Indiana, Pennsylvania. Abbey even uses some of the names of businesses in Indiana in the 1940s for his story. The Blue Star Restaurant becomes the Blue Bell Bar that is the business under the apartment Jonathan Troy shares with his father. There are many hints of the greatness Abbey would fine tune in his later works, including his love of the desert (Jonathan longs to go there); his deep passion for women and beer; and above all his sense of humor. One of the memorable characters in the book is Fatgut, a pathological liar who Jonathan seems close to. But for most of the book you figure Jonathan has no friends, mostly because he's too full of himself. You hear his every thought, and it's all very brutally honest. The key secondary character of the story is Jonathan's father, Nathaniel Troy. He is a Communist living in 1950s America, right about the time of the Red Scare. He receives almost daily threats to his well-being. Jonathan avoids his father as much as possible, living a mostly independent life. But the climax of the story comes when some town drunks decide they're going to make the Communist kiss the American flag. Another character in the novel is Red Ginter, who would also be a character in The Fool's Progress. In this book, Ginter is the neighborhood bully who has tormented Jonathan most of his life. In the latter book, he's a member of a baseball team who hits the game-winning home run, but then refuses to run the bases. There was a real person named Earl "Red" Ginter who was part of Abbey's early life and seems to be the inspiration for these characters. There is no nobility in Jonathan Troy. Having access to his thoughts kills any affection you might be able to muster. He's rude to nearly everyone he meets, especially his father. Once he's made love to Etheline, he looks at her again with fresh perspective and decides he hates her body. And when given an opportunity to stand up for something noble, Jonathan usually turns and heads in the other direction. One of the techniques Abbey uses in this book is devote a few chapters to printing notices in the local newspaper. It provides a slice of small-town life and in at least once case, relates to the plot. |
The Brave Cowboy | Edward Abbey | 1,956 | This book is the story of a cowboy (Jack Burns), who lives as a transient worker and roaming ranch hand much as the cowboys of old did, and refuses to join modern society. He rejects much of modern technology, prefers to cut down any fence he comes across, will not carry any kind of modern identification such as a driver's license or Social Security card, and refuses to register for the draft. When his friend Paul Bondi, who is a philosophical anarchist, is jailed for refusing to register for the draft, Burns deliberately gets himself arrested in an attempt to break his friend out of jail, but winds up on the run from the law himself. Bondi has been tried and is awaiting transport from county jail to federal prison but refuses to escape with Burns. As police have discovered that Burns has also never registered for the draft, authorities are intent on sending Burns to trial and eventually federal prison for violation of the Selective Service Act of 1948. Burns eventually escapes reluctantly leaving his friend behind. After a brief stop to say goodbye to Paul's wife (Jerry) and son (Seth), Jack heads for the nearest mountains on horseback. The police mount a manhunt and pull out all the stops to capture Burns, including helicopters on loan by the Air Force. If Burns can scale the mountain range, he figures he can escape under the cover of the forest on the other side. The police know this as well, so they position themselves to prevent that from happening. |
The Big Over Easy | Jasper Fforde | 2,005 | The book begins a short time after Easter, and no one can remember the last sunny day. Mary Mary, a detective sergeant from Basingstoke (which is nothing to be ashamed of) is being transferred to Reading, Berkshire. She hopes to be paired up with Detective Chief Inspector Friedland Chymes, a member of the Detective's Guild with multiple appearances in the fictional magazine Amazing Crime Stories, but instead is paired up with Jack Spratt at the Nursery Crime Department, who is most famous for some giant killing (only one was technically a giant, the rest were just tall), and arresting the serial wife killer Bluebeard. Jack himself is living with his second wife, Madeleine,who moonlights as a photographer for certain prestigious events, and their five children: Pandora, Ben, Stevie, Jerome, and Megan. Madeleine is trying to rent the spare room in the house, but without much success. Jack's first wife could only eat fat and soon died. The day after Mary is transferred, Humpty Dumpty is discovered dead outside of his residence at Grimm's Road- fallen off the wall, apparently. Jack's Superintendent, Briggs, introduces him to Mary Mary at the crime scene. Jack interviews some possible witnesses, including Wee Willie Winkie, the insomniac neighbor; Ms. Hubbard, the owner of the boarding house where Humpty stayed; and Prometheus, the titan from Greek mythology, the latter of which Jack offers to rent the spare room in his house to. They all describe Humpty as a nice egg, who generally kept to himself. Upon inspection of Humpty's room, Jack and Mary find some rather odd clues: several shares in Spongg Footcare, Reading's Footcare empire, a picture of Humpty with a girlfriend in Vienna, and a strand of hair. Humpty Dumpty's wife is found to have committed suicide at the biscuit factory, but it is suspected that she has been murdered. The woman had jumped into a chocolate vat and was sliced by the machines, but when the employees stopped the machine, it was too late. The police of the Nursery Crime Division find a suicide note, but Mary concludes that it was written by his wife by comparing it to her diary. The proof of suicide also comes from a witnessing employee who saw her jump in, and no one pushed her. A few days later Jack and Mary team up with Superintendent Baker, Ashley (an alien who can only speak binary code) and forensic scientist Gretel Kandlestyck-Maeker. A few days later, the team are called in to investigate the recent death of Wee-Willy Winkie. He was attacked with a large weapon, supposedly a broadsword, and a fifty pound note was found in his hand, showing he was blackmailing the killer. Jack has his own problems at home when his mother calls him to sell a painting of a cow. Jack next interviews Randolph Spongg. Humpty had been investing in their failing businesses in hope of a breakthrough, which never came. The interview took place in Spongg's strange house, where doors lead nowhere, some rooms revolve around and go-kart races inside the house itself are held commonly every year. They next interview Lola Vavoom, who lives in the room next to Humpty Dumpty in the block of flats. At the end of the conversation she tells them that Humpty's shower had been running for a whole year, before his death. The two men break the door, and baker finds a skeleton in the shower. The man was identified as Tom Thomm, son of a local flautist. His skin had been washed away in the shower water, and his skeleton badly damaged, making it a hard case. Five bullet holes were found in the shower curtain, three waist height and two foot height. Gretel says that when he was shot in the waist, he fell on the floor, where the two other shots hit is head and he was killed. When Jack returns home, he tells his mother that the painting of the cow his mother wanted to sell was fake and he only received some beans in return. Mrs Spratt retorts that she had the painting valued years ago and that the auctioneer probably knows how incredibly valuable it is. She is so upset that she throws the beans out of the window, and Jack sees them bury into the ground by themselves. Jack is interviewed by work colleagues, and Friedland Chimes appears and warns Spratt that if he doesn't give the case to Chimes, he will be fired. Jack accepts that that may happen, and refuses to give the case away. Later on, they have a meeting with another industrialist, Solomon Grundy, whose wife is Rapunzel. When she takes off her hat and her hair falls to the ground, Spratt and Mary remember the hair found in Humpty's bedroom. Solomon shows them into a room with an abnormal amount of security. The security was so big that if a person went in, they had to wear no shoes in case of being detected. In the centre has a puzzle piece held in unbreakable glass. It has magic powers which he reveals to Jack and Mary by putting them on each side of the room. When Jack thought of a number, Mary said it out loud. This was so amazing that Solomon decided to put it on display for everyone in Reading. There is another interview at a hospital called Saint Cerebellum's, this time with mad scientist doctor Quatt, and on their way to meeting her Jack notices the serial killer the 'Gingerbread Man'. Jack had been chasing the killer in previous cases and had to witness his colleague having his arms ripped off, only for the local newspaper, the Gadfly, to say that Chimes had caught the 'Gingerbread Man'. The interview with Doctor Quatt only reveals that she was Humpty's doctor. The conversation ends with Quatt showing Jack and Mary her latest experiment: a kitten's head sewn onto the body of a haddock. When an inspector is put in charge of watching Spratt and the others, Humpty's car, the ford zephyr, is found. They were about to remove it from the garage it was found in, but Jack realises that the front headlight has removed and a wire was feeding through it. He orders everyone to run away and the car explodes. Spratt and Mary then interview a woman who was divorced from Humpty. She reveals that she killed Humpty out of jealousy by putting two poisonous tablets in his coffee. Jack then tells her that Humpty was pushed, not poisoned and that she is innocent. When Jack returns home, he finds that his mother has a huge crowd of people around the house, and says that the beans that were thrown from the window had grown into a huge stalk. She had even made arrangements for the magical celebrity, the Jellyman, to see it when he arrived in Reading. Jack is told by Gretel that Humpty Dumpty was shot by someone from behind, which smashed through his shell and burst the albumen, sending a shock which cracked the whole egg. When Mary, Spratt and the inspector enter Humpty's house, the question they have in mind is how did Humpty get his money? He had no proper job and all he did was invest in failing companies. This is soon answered when a goose that lays golden eggs is discovered on the sofa. On a further inspection, a giant verruca is found on another sofa. Jack then remembers a strange doctor, Horatio Carbuncle, who always made living things like the verruca. He killed Humpty Dumpty because he was investing in a company which got rid of verruca's. Humpty's wife killed herself because she thought that she had killed him, and Wee-Willy Winkie was killed because he was blackmailing him. Jack wasn't sure about Tom, but thought the evidence was good enough. Mary then calls him into the next room and shows him the body of Carbuncle, shot dead. Jack then remembered the verruca and the puzzle piece. If Randolph was the killer, he would have the best motive so that he could put the verruca under the floor of Solomon's room. Hundreds of people would come in bare-footed to see the puzzle piece, and the verruca would give off a gas which would infect all the peoples feet with verruca's. They would turn to the only foot care product, made by Randolph Spongg, and the failing company would make thousands. Jack is told that the man who shot Humpty was employed by Solomon Grundy, but Jack knows that Solomon is not the killer and sets off to find the real one, Randolph Spongg. Arriving at the house, the butler asks him to remove his mobile. The rooms become strange and it starts to revolve. Jack enters a normal room with a mirror next, but he cannot see himself in the reflection. He sees Randolph and Lola come out of a trapdoor, and turns round, but sees no-one. Randolph explains that this is his magic. Lola says that she is happy that Humpty is dead in the ford zephyr and reveals that she loves Randolph. Behind the two, the butler comes out of the trapdoor, but to Jack's surprise the butler is behind him. Jack is confused as he is standing in front of a mirror and can't see his reflection, but that of Randolph and Lola, and the butler is the only one with a reflection. Randolph puts a sandwich with tin foil inside on a table and shines a lamp on it. He explains that the sandwich will crumple up under the heat, and when the corners of the tin foil touch, the house will explode. When they leave, Jack realises that it is not a mirror at all, but glass. He breaks it and finds a room on the other side, made exactly backwards. The butler had a twin brother who appeared on the other side, looking like he had a reflection. Jack stops the bomb, but the killers escape in a UFO. After talking to Mary, he thinks that the car bomb wasn't intended for them, but for Humpty. He gets this idea because Lola said that Humpty died in the zephyr, so was hoping he would be killed in it. Jack then realises that the killer of Tom Thomm was Humpty's wife. The three shots were waist height, but head height for Humpty. His wife killed herself as she was sorry for what she had done. Moments later Jack is informed by Gretel that Humpty survived the shot, and that instead, he hatched. The team are thrown into confusion as they try to find a giant which Humpty hatched into. Spratt and Mary then return to his house to attend the arrival of 'his eminence' the Jellyman. When people look at the stalk, Jack has an urge to climb it. The only people in the house are a few police officers, Spratt, Mary, the Jellyman, Madeleine and their children. The few police officers stationed outside the house are alerted, and one by one, a strange creature kills them all. The monster bursts into the house in an attempt to kill the Jellyman. Jack leads him outside and climbs the stalk, followed by the beast. When they are high up in the sky, the monster rips Jack off and he falls all the way through the garden shed. When Jack regains consciousness, he sees a chainsaw. He is reminded of the axe and takes it and begins hacking down the beanstalk, aiming for the beast to fall down. It jumps onto him and tries to kill him, but a voice behind it makes it stop. Dr.Quatt appears in front of Jack and tells him that she is the killer, who's aim was to kill the Jellyman all along. She was about to kill Jack, but Mary knocks her unconscious. The monster runs to her aid, picking her up and running away. Mary tries to kill them, but Jack tells her to not bother. The beanstalk topples over from when Jack tried to cut it down, crushing the monster and Dr.Quatt. The end of the book is the explanation. The goose that lays golden eggs is taken away by scientists and is cut open to find out what makes it lay golden eggs. They are disappointed when they cut it open and only find a normal goose's insides, and the only gold-laying goose dies. Jack explains to Mary that Humpty, although a good man, or egg, had many friends, and many enemies. His previous wife thought she killed him by poison, his wife thought she killed him by shooting him in the shower, Solomon Grundy thought he killed him by hiring a man to shoot him, Randolph Spongg and Lola Vavoom thought they killed him with a car bomb. But the real killer was Doctor Quatt, who injected him with the monster when he was having his appointments with her. Humpty's wife killed herself because she thought she killed him. Wee-Willy Winkie saw Humpty hatch and knew it was her and blackmailed her. She made the monster follow her, and when she met him, the beast killed him with its claw. She was using Dr Carbuncle to help her, and shot him in case he leaked information. Her plan was to kill the Jellyman and used Humpty as a host to create the monster. She only wanted to kill one person, but a lot of others were the victim of her powerful, and short wrath. |
The Long Emergency | null | null | Kunstler's premise is that "cheap, plentiful" oil is the foundation of industrial society and the pervasiveness of its effects is not widely appreciated. Through the 21st century, oil and natural gas will become increasingly difficult to obtain, becoming increasingly expensive and ultimately unavailable. Scarcity of petroleum will cause significant problems for transportation and generation of electrical power. In addition, shipping of food and manufactured items will become increasingly expensive, ultimately prohibitively so. Also, natural gas is vitally important to food production as it is the raw material for much of commercial crop fertilizers. In the industrialized West, most food production and manufacturing is performed far from, and generally abstracted away from the consumer. The author further argues that alternative sources of energy will be insufficient. As petroleum sources become scarce, environmentally harmful or risky technologies such as coal and nuclear will become necessary but not sufficient for our energy needs. Hydroelectric, solar, and wind power, even in combination with coal and nuclear, will also be far from sufficient. Kunstler does not consider hydrogen to be a true energy source since one cannot drill into the earth and obtain hydrogen. Hydrogen must be extracted from other energy sources, such as natural gas or using electricity at a total net loss of energy. Kunstler states that, as energy becomes scarce, transportation will become difficult or impossible, causing food and other necessary commodities to become unavailable in many communities. It will be necessary for local communities to become self-sufficient for food production, but many communities will be unable to do so, particularly large cities. The result will be mass starvation, disease, and civil unrest. Kunstler suggests that governments will be incapable of managing these problems. This period of scarcity and collapse will possibly last for hundreds of years, hence the "long" emergency of the book's title. Kunstler, a long-time critic of suburban design, advises communities to change to accommodate walking and bicycling as the primary modes of transport. Populations should be moved out of big cities into smaller communities that have nearby arable land with adequate water and favourable climate for agriculture. People should begin learning to grow food. |
The Zahir | Paulo Coelho | null | The Zahir means 'the obvious' or 'conspicuous' in Arabic. The story revolves around the life of the narrator, a bestselling novelist, and in particular his search for his missing wife, Esther. He enjoys all the privileges that money and celebrity bring. He is suspected of foul play by both the police and the press, who suspect that he may have had a role in the inexplicable disappearance of his wife from their Paris home. As a result of this disappearance, the protagonist is forced to re-examine his own life as well as his marriage. The narrator is unable to figure out what led to Esther's disappearance. Was she abducted or had she abandoned the marriage? He encounters Mikhail, one of Esther's friends, during a book launch. He learns from Mikhail that Esther, who had been a war correspondent against the wishes of her husband (the protagonist), had left in a search for peace, as she had trouble living with her husband. The author eventually realizes that in order to find Esther he must first find his own self. Mikhail introduces him to his own beliefs and customs, his mission of spreading love by holding sessions in hotels and meeting homeless people living in the streets. He tells the narrator about the voices he hears, and his beliefs related to them. The narrator, who only too frequently falls in love with women, consults with his current lover, Marie, about his encounters with Mikhail. She warns him that Mikhail could be an epileptic. However, she also advises him to search for the Zahir as is his desire, even though she would prefer him to stay with her. The narrator eventually decides to go in search of his Zahir. As it was Esther who had initially brought Mikhail from Kazakhstan to France, the protagonist suspects that she may in fact be in Kazakhstan. At first, he is curious about what made Esther leave, but later he realizes that troubles with her relationship with her husband may have been a major reason. As he discovers, she was interested in getting to know herself through the making of carpets. Eventually the narrator meets his Zahir and the outcome of this meeting constitutes the climax of the book. Through the narrator's journey from Paris to Kazakhstan, Coelho explores the various meanings of love and life. In a recurring theme in the book, Coelho compares marriage with a set of railway tracks which stay together forever but fail to come any closer. The novel is a journey from a stagnant marriage and love to the realization of unseen but ever increasing attraction between two souls. |
In the Woods | Tana French | 2,007 | Twenty years prior to the novel's events, twelve year-old Adam and his two best friends failed to come home after playing in the familiar woods bordering their Irish housing estate. A search is called by the families, and the police find Adam shivering, clawing the bark of a nearby tree, blood on his shoes and slash marks on his back. He is unable to tell them what happened or where his friends are. His amnesia holds to the present day, where he goes by his middle name, Rob, to avoid the attention of the media to his famous case. His friends were never found. The plot of the novel circles around the murder of a twelve year old girl, Katy Devlin, whose case Rob and his partner Cassie Maddox are given to investigate. The body is found in the same woods where Rob’s friends disappeared, at an archeological dig site, and the coincidence is enough to make Rob nervous, though he insists to his partner that he is fine. Cassie and Rob have been partners for a few years and get along famously, teasing one another and completing one another’s thoughts. There are many rumors at the station that they are romantically involved, though both of them scoff at the idea, despite the fact that they live almost like a married couple, spending a lot of time at Cassie’s cooking dinner for one another, drinking wine, and having Rob crash on Cassie’s couch across the room. Katy’s murder takes the pair along many lines of investigation. Her death might be related to her father’s protests against the new highway meant to go straight through the dig site, or one of the students on the dig might have attacked her. She might have been abused by her father or someone else (her mother, twin sister, or older sister) in the family. She might have been previously poisoned over time. Or it might be related to the disappearance of Rob’s friends, as a hair clip that one of his friends was wearing that day appeared near the crime scene. These possibilities are investigated, but the detectives come up frustratingly empty-handed at every turn. The case messes with Rob’s psyche as he tries to remember details about the two previous disappearances in case it would help. He tries spending the night in the woods, but freaks out and calls Cassie to pick him up. He’s afraid to sleep again, thinking that he’ll just have nightmares, so Cassie allows him into her bed. Things escalate from there and they end up having sex. Rob feels immensely awkward after and can’t go back to their normal jokey-insult ways, but also feels that he can’t start a relationship with her. Their partnership deteriorates just as they start to uncover new leads in the case and they are unable to discuss the case and get along the way they used to. Rob goes back to the dig site alone, where all the students are frantically digging before the site is shut down for the construction of the highway. He comes to a realization and calls in the forensics team again, who discover the location of the murder in a shed to which only three people have the key. After some heavy interrogation, one of the suspects confesses, though his motive is far from clear. It becomes clearer when the suspect contends that he had been dating Katy’s older sister, Rosalind. When questioned by Cassie, she denies it and any involvement in Katy’s death, but also makes a comment that Cassie is obviously sleeping with Rob. Cassie takes it in stride, but after the interrogation, she has an idea of how to get a confession out of Rosalind: Go to her and admit sleeping with Rob and promise to keep her updated on the case if she promises not to tell. Rosalind’s psychopathic tendencies get the better of her, and once she knows that she has Cassie in her debt, she brags about the whole thing and how she got the murderer to come up with the idea by telling him that all three girls were being sexually abused by their father, but that Katy liked it and was therefore their father’s favorite. Rosalind also told him that Katy told their father lies to make him beat them and would watch and laugh, that if Katy was gone, then they would be happy. She also admitted to Cassie that Katy was strong-willed and wouldn’t always do as Rosalind told her, so she had poisoned her to make her sick. After this confession, recorded on a wire, Cassie arrests her and takes her in, but because Rosalind was a few months from turning 18 (though she had told Rob previously that she was already 18), the confession is invalid. She is released with a smug smile. The Police Captain has learned that Rob is actually Adam Ryan and confines him to desk work. He never goes back to Detective work. Cassie starts dating someone else and gets engaged. Rob is heartbroken and calls her, but it’s too late. He goes to the dig site to see the highway construction has begun, and thinks that he’ll never regain his lost memories of that night. |
Equal Danger | Leonardo Sciascia | 1,971 | The book starts with the murder of District Attorney Vargas, who is prosecuting a high profile case. The subsequent investigation failing, the police assign the protagonist Inspector Rogas, "the shrewdest investigator at the disposal of the police," to solve the case. While he is starting his investigation, two judges are killed. After Rogas discovers evidence of corruption surrounding the three government officials, he is encouraged by superiors "not to forage after gossip," but to trail the "crazy lunatic who for no reason whatever was going about murdering judges." This near admission of guilt drives Rogas to seek out those wrongfully convicted by the murdered judges. Rogas finds his likely suspect in Cres, a man who was convicted of attempting to kill his wife. Mrs. Cres accused her husband of trying to kill her by poisoning her rice, which she escaped only because she fed a small portion first to her cat, who died. Rogas concludes that he was probably framed by his wife, and seeks him out, only to find that he has sneaked away from his house. Meanwhile another district attorney is killed, and eyewitnesses see two young revolutionaries running away from the scene. Rogas, close to finding his man, is demoted, and told to work with the political division to pin the crimes on the revolutionary Left. From this point, Rogas finds Galano, the editor of a revolutionary paper, and has his phone tapped. This leads to Rogas discovering the Minister of Justice at a party with many revolutionary leaders. After this, he and the Minister have a discussion, where the Minister claims he would prefer the revolution, but feels the country is not ready. Following this, Rogas speaks to the President of the Supreme Court, who details a philosophy of justice wherein the court is incapable of error by definition. He also discovers that his suspect, Cres, is in the same complex as the President, but Rogas does not pursue him, hoping that he will kill the President. After Rogas realizes that Cres lives in the complex under a pseudonym and wasn't there to commit a murder, he meets with the Secretary-General of the revolutionary party. Both of them are killed. The book ends with the murder of the Secretary-General being blamed on Rogas. |
Still Life with Woodpecker | Tom Robbins | null | The book begins in "the final quarter of the twentieth century," at a year never specified, presumably in the early 1980s. It revolves around a family of deposed European royalty living in a small house in the suburbs outside of Seattle, under the protection of the CIA. They consist of: the father, King Max, a former gambler and poker player whose prosthetic heart valve makes a loud scraping noise when he gets excited; the mother, Queen Tilli, an opera-lover with a strong foreign accent and a fondness for saying "Oh, oh, spaghetti-o"; Gulietta, the non-English-speaking maid and the daughter, Leigh-Cheri, a redheaded vegetarian liberal princess and former cheerleader, having pulled out of classes after being asked to resign from the cheer squad after having a miscarriage while cheering at a football game. Leigh-Cheri proclaims herself celibate, withdraws from public life and cloisters herself in her room, only to emerge to ask her parents for permission to go to the Care Fest, a liberal convention in Hawaii with scientist and politician speakers, including Leigh-Cheri's idol, Ralph Nader. Gulietta is sent to accompany her, and while on the plane, Leigh-Cheri meets Bernard Mickey Wrangle, an outlaw bomber known as the Woodpecker (the common Tom Robbins-fantasy-alter-ego character). Like Leigh-Cheri, he is a redhead, and unlike her, he is on his way to blow up the Care Fest. As it turns out, the Woodpecker has a passion for tequila that inadvertently causes him to bomb a UFO conference instead of his intended target. Gulietta rats him out as the bomber to Leigh-Cheri, who then places him under citizen's arrest. Before she knows it, Leigh-Cheri finds herself at a bar with this crooked-toothed outlaw, drinking tequila and kissing passionately. The two do not agree on their philosophies concerning life: Leigh-Cheri believes it is everyone's job to make the world a better place, Bernard thinks that life is meant to be lived and, on occasion, shaken up. In between bombings and falling in love, Leigh-Cheri is approached by an unusually beautiful woman who claims she is from the planet of Argon. She informs Leigh-Cheri that redheads are considered evil on her planet and that "Red hair is caused by sugar and lust". This is highly insulting to Leigh-Cheri because she has only recently taken those things out of her life. Leigh-Cheri, Bernard, Gulietta, and a friend flee Lahaina after Bernard frames the Argonian couple for the bombing of the UFO meeting. Out on the sea, an unexplainable light source flies by their boat (the Argonians?) and Gulietta leaves Hawaii having developed a slight cocaine addiction. While courting the princess in Seattle, Bernard manages to ruin a priceless royal rug, kill Tilli's chihuahua, and get arrested for his past exploits. The princess is overcome with longing for her confined lover; her solution to their separation is to isolate herself in the attic and create the same atmosphere Bernard is forced to live in. In continuous solitude, with nothing but a pack of Camel cigarettes to entertain her, Leigh-Cheri unveils a secret conspiracy involving redheads, ancient pyramids, Thomas Jefferson, the moon, CHOICE, and the planet of Argon. When Bernard hears that people are copying Leigh-Cheri's self-isolation and making it a fad, he sends her a letter telling her that she has caused him to shave and he will never forgive her. Leigh-Cheri leaves her attic, and becomes engaged to a rich Arab named A'ben Fizel who builds a pyramid for her as an engagement present. Gulietta is made queen by the revolutionaries of her country, and Max and Tilli are given ample living expenses, which Max uses to gamble his life away in Reno. The day before Leigh-Cheri and A'ben's wedding is scheduled, Leigh-Cheri learns that Bernard was shot in an Algerian jail. Hysterical, she flees to the pyramid and, upon entering it, discovers Bernard, waiting for her, strapped with dynamite as usual. A'ben is informed of this by a guard, and he locks the two into the pyramid's chambers. A'ben tells the public that Leigh-Cheri was captured by terrorists, has the pyramid painted black, and announces that no one will ever enter it again, effectively burying the two alive. In the meantime, Bernard and Leigh-Cheri, trapped in the pyramid, are living on wedding cake and champagne while they discuss the pyramids, redheads, the moon, and Camel cigarettes. When they are almost completely out of supplies, Leigh-Cheri decides to use the dynamite to make an opening while Bernard sleeps, sacrificing her own life to save him. He tries to stop her, but the dynamite goes off anyway. They awaken in the hospital where they discover that they are both deaf. Max is so shaken by Leigh-Cheri's capture and reappearance that his heart gives out on him. After the funeral, Leigh-Cheri and Bernard move back to Seattle where they spend the rest of their days living in domestic bliss, and retreating to solitude occasionally. |
Hinds' Feet on High Places | Hannah Hurnard | 1,955 | It is the story of a young woman named Much Afraid, and her journey away from her Fearing family and into the High Places of the Shepherd, guided by her two companions Sorrow and Suffering. It is an allegory of a Christian devotional life from salvation through maturity. It aims to show how a Christian is transformed from unbeliever to immature believer to mature believer, who walks daily with God as easily on the High Places of Joy in the spirit as in the daily life of mundane and oftentimes humiliating tasks that may cause Christians to lose perspective. The book takes its title from Habakkuk 3:19, "The Lord God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds' feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places." The story begins in the Valley of Humiliation with Much Afraid, being beset by the unwanted advances of her cousin, Craven Fear, who wishes to marry her. The Family of Fearings seems to have some strong similarities to the Addams Family. Much Afraid is ugly from all outward appearances, walking on club feet, sporting gnarled, deformed hands, and speaking from a crooked mouth that seems to have been made so by a stroke or the like. The Good Shepherd is tender and gentle with Much Afraid, especially in the beginning. However, His many sudden departures may strike the reader as bizarre, given the human penchant to expect kindly souls to never do everything that may be interpreted as rude or as hurtful in any way. Yet, though the Shepherd leaves in a moment, He returns the same way at the first furtive cry of the forlorn little protagonist. "Come, Shepherd, for I am much afraid!" When Much Afraid intimates that she would love to be able to dance upon the high places as do the surefooted deer, the Shepherd commends her for this desire. In order to accomplish this, he offers to "plant the seed of love" into her heart. At first sight of the long, black hawthorne-looking seed, she shrieks in fear. Soon, she relents, and after the initial intense pain, she senses that something is indeed different in her, though she still looks the same, for now. Just when the reader thinks that Much Afraid is about to reach the High Places, the path turns downward towards a seemingly endless desert. There is an incident at the sheer cliff that must be climbed with only one rope, which hangs a long way down to her from the top. Then days are spent in a forest that is shrouded in a thick cloud of fog. During this time Much Afraid is sequestered with her two friends, Sorrow and Suffering, in a log cabin. The climax is an unexpected twist that comes as Much Afraid despairs of ever reaching the High Places. |
Hudibras | Samuel Butler | null | The knight and his squire sally forth and come upon some people bear-baiting. After deciding that this is anti-Christian they attack the baiters and capture one after defeating the bear. The defeated group of bear-baiters then rallies and renews the attack, capturing the knight and his squire. While in the stock the pair argue on religion. Part two describes how the knight's imprisoned condition is reported by Fame to a widow Hudibras has been wooing and she comes to see him. With a captive audience, she complains that he does not really love her and he ends up promising to flagellate himself if she frees him. Once free he regrets his promise and debates with Ralpho how to avoid his fate with Ralpho suggesting that oath breaking is next to saintliness: :For breaking of an oath, and lying, :Is but a kind of self-denying; :A Saint-like virtue: and from hence :Some have broke oaths by Providence :Some, to the glory of the Lord, :Perjur'd themselves, and broke their word; Hudibras then tries to convince Ralpho of the nobility of accepting the beating in his stead but he declines the offer. They are interrupted by a skimmington, a procession where women are celebrated and men made fools. After haranguing the crowd for their lewdness, the knight is pelted with rotten eggs and chased away. He decides to visit an astrologer, Sidrophel, to ask him how he should woo the widow but they get into an argument and after a fight the knight and squire run off in different directions believing they have killed Sidrophel. The third part was published 14 years after the first two and is considerably different from the first parts. It picks up from where the second left off with Hudibras going to the widow's house to explain the details of the whipping he had promised to give himself but Ralpho had got there first and told her what had actually happened. Suddenly a group rushes in and gives him a beating and supposing them to be spirits from Sidrophel, rather than hired by the widow, confesses his sins and by extension the sins of the Puritans. Hudibras then visits a lawyer—the profession Butler trained in and one he is well able to satirise—who convinces him to write a letter to the widow. The poem ends with their exchange of letters in which the knight's arguments are rebuffed by the widow. Before the visit to the lawyer there is a digression of an entire canto in which much fun is had at the events after Oliver Cromwell's death. The succession of his son Richard Cromwell and the squabbles of factions such as the Fifth Monarchists are told with no veil of fiction and no mention of Sir Hudibras. |
The g Factor: The Science of Mental Ability | Arthur Jensen | 1,998 | The book traces the origins of the idea of individual differences in general mental ability to 19th century researchers Herbert Spencer and Francis Galton. Charles Spearman is credited for inventing factor analysis in the early 20th century, which enabled statistical testing of the hypothesis that general mental ability is required in all mental efforts. Spearman gave the name g to the common factor underlying all mental tasks. He suggested that g reflected individual differences in "mental energy", and hoped that future research would uncover the biological basis of this energy. Jensen argues that because it is difficult to arrive at a consensual scientific definition of the term intelligence, scientists should dispense with the term and focus on specific abilities and their covariances. He argues that mental abilities are best conceptualized as a three-level hierarchy, with a large number of narrow abilities at the base, a relatively small number of broad factors at the intermediate level, and a single general factor, g, at the apex. The g factor can be derived from a correlation matrix of mental ability tests by many different methods of factor analysis. A g factor always emerges provided that the test battery is sufficiently large and diverse. The only exception is when one uses orthogonal rotation which precludes the appearance of a g factor. Jensen argues that orthogonal rotation is not appropriate for substantially positively correlated variables such as mental abilities. The g factor has been found to be largely invariant across different factor analytic methods and in different racial and cultural groups. Jensen argues that g is normally distributed in any population. He also contends that g cannot be described in terms of the information content or item characteristics of tests, and likens it to a computer's CPU. Jensen hypothesizes that g is fundamentally about the speed or efficiency of the neural processes related to mental abilities. Jensen reviews studies on biological correlates of g, and notes that they are numerous, including brain size, latency and amplitude of evoked brain potentials, rate of brain glucose metabolism, and general health. He puts the broad-sense heritability of g at .40 to .50 in children, at .60 to .70 in adolescents and young adults, and at nearly .80 in older adults. He argues that shared family influences on g are substantial in childhood, but that in adults the environmental sources of variance are almost exclusively of the within-family kind. Jensen suggests that the main environmental influence on g is developmental "noise", consisting of more or less random physical events affecting the neurophysiological substrate of mental growth. Jensen reviews the evidence that elementary cognitive tasks (ECTs) are correlated with g. He argues that the ECT research supports the notion that g is related to the speed and efficiency of neural processes. The g factor shows considerable practical validity. It is related to a large number of economically, educationally, and socially valued attributes. It is a particularly good predictor of academic and job-related outcomes. Jensen stresses the difference between g and what he calls vehicles of g. Changes in test scores do not necessarily represent changes in the underlying construct, viz., g. Practice effects on test scores appear to be unrelated to g. An authentic change in g happens when the change shows broad generalizability to a wide variety of cognitive tasks. Intensive psychological interventions beginning in infancy have generally failed to produce lasting effects on g. To what extent the Flynn effect represents a change in g is unknown. Mainly due to the relation between differences in g and important educational, economic, and social differences, there has long been interest in group differences in g in the United States. The most extensively researched is the gap between white and black Americans. According to Jensen, whites outscore blacks in the US by about 1.2 standard deviations, or 18 IQ points, on average. Blacks in sub-Saharan Africa score, on average, about two standard deviations below the white mean. The black-white gap in the US is not due to test bias. Cognitive tests have the same reliability and validity for all American-born, English-speaking groups. The magnitude of the black-white gap in the US is best predicted by the test's g loading, implying that the gap is mainly due to a difference in g. Jensen argues that the black-white gap has a biological component. He contends that the causes of differences in g between blacks and whites consist of the same environmental and genetic differences and in approximately the same magnitudes as within-population differences. The g factor is important because it is a major node in a complex network of educationally, socially and economically important variables ("the g nexus"). Jensen believes that a person's level of g is a threshold variable, and that above a certain threshold other, non-g abilities and talents, including personality differences, are critical for educational and vocational success. Jensen thinks that future research on g will have to extend into two directions, "horizontal" and "vertical." Horizontal research will identify new variables in the g nexus. Vertical research will uncover the origins of g in terms of evolutionary biology and neurophysiology. |
Anna of Byzantium | Tracy Barrett | 1,999 | In the novel, the manuscript of the Alexiad, which Anna had worked upon in the library at Constantinople, is brought to her to continue at the convent, though in history, she didn't start writing until she arrived. |
The Sittaford Mystery | Agatha Christie | null | Sittaford is a tiny village on the fringe of Dartmoor. Mrs Willett and her daughter Violet are the newly installed tenants of Sittaford House, a residence owned by a Trevelyan, a retired Army captain. They invite four people to tea on Friday afternoon: Captain Trevelyan's long-standing friend, Major Burnaby, Mr Rycroft, Mr Ronnie Garfield and Mr Duke. At the suggestion of Mr Garfield, the six of them decide to play a game of table-turning. During this séance, at 5.25 pm, a spirit announces that Captain Trevelyan has just been murdered. Concerned for the Captain's safety, Major Burnaby says that he intends to walk to Exhampton, a village six miles away, to see if Captain Trevelyan is alright. After four days of snow, there is already a thick layer of snow on the ground and further heavy snowfall has been forecast for later that evening. There is no telephone in Sittaford, and it is impossible to use a car because of the snow. Two and a half hours later, just before 8 pm, in the middle of a blizzard, Major Burnaby is trudging up the path to the front door of Hazelmoor, the house in Exhampton where Captain Trevelyan now lives. When nobody answers the door, he fetches the local police and a doctor. They enter the house through the open study window at the back, and find Captain Trevelyan's dead body on the floor. Dr Warren estimates the time of death at between 5 and 6pm. A fracture of the base of the skull is the cause of death. The weapon was a green baize tube full of sand, used as a draught excluder at the bottom of the door. Captain Trevelyan's will states that, apart from £100 for his servant Evans, his property has to be equally divided among four people: his sister Jennifer Gardner, his nephew James Pearson, his niece Sylvia Dering and his nephew Brian Pearson. Each of these four would inherit approximately £20.000. James Pearson is arrested for murder because he was in Exhampton at the time of the murder, trying unsuccessfully to get a loan from Captain Trevelyan. While the official investigation is led by Inspector Narracott, James Pearson's fiancee Emily Trefusis starts sleuthing herself. She's assisted by Charles Enderby, a Daily Wire journalist who, the day after the murder, presented a cheque for £5000 to Major Burnaby for winning the newspaper's football competition. Emily and Charles go to stay with Mr and Mrs Curtis in Sittaford, searching for clues. Mr Dacres, James Pearson's solicitor, reveals to Emily that things look much worse than they already imagined. James has "borrowed" money from his firm to buy shares without the knowledge of the firm. There are several red herrings. Brian Pearson, who came under suspicion when Enderby discovered him making a late-night rendezvous with Violet Willett, is Violet's fiancé. He was not in Australia, as first thought, but in England all the time. And the Willetts' motive - up to now obscure and a cause of suspicion - for moving into the isolated Sittaford house had nothing to do with any connection with Captain Trevelyan, but was in order to live close to Dartmoor Prison. An escaped convict (though later recaptured), whose escape from Dartmoor Prison three days after the murder was engineered by Brian Pearson, is Violet's father. The plan was that, after the escape, her father and Brian would live with them in the house as manservants until the danger was past. Martin Dering created a false alibi because his wife Sylvia was watching him for divorce proceedings. Sylvia is Mr Rycroft's niece; Jennifer Gardner is Mr Garfield's godmother; and Mr Duke is an Ex-Chief-Inspector of Scotland Yard. Emily solves the mystery in Hazelmoor after finding Captain Trevelyan's ski boots hidden in the chimney and two pairs of skis in different sizes. Major Burnaby is the killer. He cleverly and opportunistically engineered the table movements during the séance to make the spirit convey the message that Captain Trevelyan had been murdered. Instead of walking the six miles in two and a half hours after the séance, he first went to his own house which was close by, put on skis, and skied the distance in a fraction of that time. He killed Captain Trevelyan about a quarter to six. Then he cleaned his skis, and put them in the cupboard. He hid Trevelyan's ski boots in the chimney and put his own in the cupboard with the other ski gear, hoping that the second pair of skis and the fact that they wouldn't fit Trevelyan would pass unnoticed. Mr Rycroft, who is a member of the Psychical Research Society, reassembles five of the six original participants for a second séance at Sittaford House, the absent Mr Duke being replaced by Brian Pearson. The séance has scarcely begun, when Inspector Narracott steps in, in the company of Emily and Mr Duke, and charges Major Burnaby with the murder of Captain Trevelyan. Emily explains that Burnaby had lost a lot of money by buying rotten shares and that his motive for the murder was to keep for himself the cheque for £5000. Although he denied it to Enderby and the police, he had already received the letter notifying him of the win on the morning of the day on which he murdered Trevelyan and which was actually won by Captain Trevelyan himself. Trevelyan would often use Burnaby’s name to send in competition solutions because he found Sittaford House too grand an address for such correspondence. In the final chapter Emily turns down a marriage proposal by Enderby who has fallen in love with her during the investigation, because she still loves her fiancé James despite his character faults. |
Harlot's Ghost | Norman Mailer | 1,991 | At first it appears to be the autobiography of Harry Hubbard, which is made up of anecdotes of his life and actions with the CIA, the aftermath of the Cuban Revolution, the Mafia in the 60's and the assassination of JFK. The very beginning of the book starts with Harry being told by a friend that his mentor Hugh Montague (a top level CIA officer) has either been assassinated or committed suicide on his boat. He then is told by his wife, Kittredge (a CIA member), that she has been unfaithful and is in love with another high level CIA intelligence officer. Under perceieved threat of his own assassination by the CIA he escapes to Moscow. It is there that he rereads in a hotel room the dense manuscript of his life at the CIA which he has documented and kept secret over his career. At that point, the book really begins. It details the life of a CIA inelligence officer who has connections to the highest levels of the CIA. It raises basic questions about the fight against Communism and goes into the Cuban Revolution and the Cuban Missle Crisis and perhaps most importantly raises questions about the assassination of JFK and who was ultimately responisble. Well written (the book is a lyrical treasure at times) it is considered by some to be Mailer's masterpiece work. The book ends in 1984 with the words "To be continued." |
The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power | Richard Behar | 1,991 | The full title of the article is "The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power: Ruined lives. Lost fortunes. Federal crimes. Scientology poses as a religion but is really a ruthless global scam — and aiming for the mainstream". The article reported on the founding of the Church of Scientology by L. Ron Hubbard and controversies involving the Church and its affiliated business operations, as well as the suicide of a Scientologist. Lottick was a Russian studies student who had taken a series of Scientology courses; he died after jumping from a hotel tenth floor window. The Church of Scientology and Lottick's family have differing positions on the effect Scientology coursework had on him. While none of the parties assigned blame, they expressed misgivings about his death. Initially, his father had thought that Scientology was similar to Dale Carnegie's self-improvement techniques; however, after his ordeal, the elder Lottick came to believe that the organization is a "school for psychopaths". Mike Rinder, the head of the Church of Scientology's Office of Special Affairs and a Church spokesman, stated "I think Ed Lottick should look in the mirror ... I think Ed Lottick made his son's life intolerable". The article outlined a brief history of Scientology, discussing Hubbard's initial background as a science fiction writer, and cited a California judge who had deemed Hubbard a "pathological liar". Cynthia Kisser, then director of the Cult Awareness Network, was quoted: "Scientology is quite likely the most ruthless, the most classically terroristic, the most litigious and the most lucrative cult the country has ever seen. No cult extracts more money from its members". |
31 Songs | Nick Hornby | 2,002 | The music varies from established classics like Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan to independents like Ani DiFranco, Top 40 pop like Nelly Furtado, and a few songs with special meaning only to Hornby. Song by song, Hornby delves into what makes music catchy or classic, and how it can come to play an integral role in a person's emotional life. Proceeds from the book go to the TreeHouse Trust, a UK charity operating a school for children with autism and communications disorders, which Hornby's son attends, and to 826 Valencia, a U.S.-based learning center, founded by McSweeney's publisher Dave Eggers, that offers writing workshops and tutoring. The paperback edition of Songbook adds a few music-related essays by Hornby from other sources. After the release of "Songbook," McSweeney accepted online submissions from authors writing about their favorite songs in the same manner as Hornby. These submissions were posted to the McSweeney website. Additionally, TheBlueScarf is a blog adaptation of Hornby's collection. After Hornby mentioned he was a fan in Songbook, Ben Folds contacted him and Hornby wrote the song "That's Me Trying" for William Shatner's album Has Been. |
The Chancellor Manuscript | Robert Ludlum | 1,977 | In the story, Peter Chancellor, who found unlikely success as an author of political thrillers after his ambitions to become a historian were frustrated, writes a work of fiction that comes close enough to the scenario described that the people who controlled those files, a group called Inver Brass in the novel, decide that someone else may also know too much. This sets the stage for the international intrigue that follows. In the end Ludlum left the reader wondering if it was he himself, not Peter Chancellor, the protagonist of his story, who knew of the conspiracy. |
The Virgin Soldiers | null | null | The core of the plot is the romantic triangle formed by the protagonist, a conscripted soldier named Private Brigg; a worldly professional soldier named Sergeant Driscoll, and Phillipa Raskin, the daughter of the Regimental Sergeant Major. The location is a British army base in Singapore during the Malayan Emergency. Brigg and Phillipa are virgins in every sense of the word; they're both barely out of adolescence. Brigg is fearful of Phillipa's father and hardly dares go near her. He is equally afraid of the Malayan and Chinese prostitutes in the nearby city. His only outlet is with his mates in the barracks, who fantasize endlessly about what they might do without actually knowing how to go ahead and do it. Phillipa is getting more and more rebellious, eventually setting herself up with Sgt. Driscoll as a lover while she leads Brigg on in the romance department. Brigg, meanwhile, has finally summoned up the courage and the cash to approach a prostitute, called Juicy Lucy by the troops. The encounter starts out disastrously, but after Lucy realizes Brigg is a virgin, she takes pity on him and begins his education in her own way. This develops into a long-term relationship, at least for Brigg, who she calls affectionately "Bligg". Brigg tries not to think about what Lucy does when he is not with her. Driscoll is seething with his own inner demons. He keeps taunting a Sgt. Wellbeloved with the phrase "Rusty nails!". Wellbeloved boasts constantly of keeping the Japanese busy during WW2, as a one-man guerilla army. Towards the end of the tale, the secret is revealed: Wellbeloved was a coward, and Rusty Nails was the nickname of the soldier he betrayed to the Japanese. Driscoll beats Wellbeloved into a pulp on behalf of the victim. The novel crystallizes around violent incidents involving rioting in the city and an attack by Communist guerillas on a train. Several of Brigg's friends are killed. Brigg tries to find Lucy for solace, only to be told she was beaten to death by soldiers. (In the film, the locomotive destroyed was one of the last four used to haul mainline BR steam - the famous Fifteen Guinea Special.) Mere days before he is to be sent home, he confronts Phillipa with his frustrations, with unexpectedly pleasant results. For Phillipa, however, he is a passing fancy. Her Sergeant awaits ... Eventually Brigg and his remaining friends are about to embark for home. The final scene has them shouting the name of a laundryman whom Brigg's has mistakenly shot in the hand in an earlier episode, a certain Fuk Yew. It symbolizes their relation to Malaya, and Malaya to them, when the tailor responds with the appropriate hand signal, using his damaged hand. One may compare the British-made 'Virgin Soldiers' serving out their 2 years of National Service in Malaya, with the American-made 'MASH' portraying US soldiers serving out their 2 years of the draft in Korea in the same period. There is a stark difference in the style of the humour. |
Spaceland | Rudy Rucker | null | Joe Cube is a high tech executive waiting for his company's IPO. On the New Year's Eve before the new millennium, trying to impress his wife Jena, he brings home a prototype of his company's new product (a TV screen that turns standard television broadcasting into a 3D image). It brings no warmth to their cooling marriage, but it does attract the attention of somebody else. Joe is suddenly contacted by a Momo, a woman from the fourth dimension she calls the All, of which our entire world (which she calls Spaceland) is like nothing but the thin surface of a rug. Momo has a business proposition for Joe that she won't let him refuse. She is bent on making him start a company that will create a specific product that she will supply. The upside potential becomes much clearer for Joe once Momo "augments" him, by helping him grow a new eye on a 4D stalk, giving him the power to see in four dimensional directions, as well as the ability to see into our dimension using a four dimension perspective. After that, it's a wild ride through a million-dollar night in Las Vegas, a budding addiction to a tasty purple fruit from the All, a troubled marriage, eye-popping voyages into Momo's universe and strange encounters with Momo's sworn enemies (who are another race of 4D beings), rubbery red creatures called the Wackles, who steal money, speak in unusual words, offer sage advice, and sometimes messily explode when shot at themselves. The plot gets complicated when the Wackles kill Momo, and Joe discovers the startling revelation about Momo's business scheme. Suddenly, the fate of all beings in our world Spaceland is at stake and Joe must do something about it fast before it is too late. |
Saturn Rukh | null | null | In an unspecified time in the future, a multi-national consortium sends a team of six astronauts (each with the chance of earning a billion dollars if they complete their mission properly) to Saturn to establish a factory that mines helium for the production of precious "meta" (stabilized metastable helium), a powerful rocket fuel, in the planet's upper atmosphere. With only enough "meta" fuel to get them to Saturn, failure will cost them their lives. And all too soon the crew of astronauts crash-lands on a surface, which is actually the back of an enormous alien life-form they dub the Rukh, a 4-kilometer-long, bizarre sting-ray-shaped creature that "swims" through Saturn's gaseous upper atmosphere and has two brains, both male and female. When part of their apparatus is swallowed by one of these giant birdlike beings, the crew needs to find a way to communicate and to be able to cooperate with the Rukhs so that they may survive. |
Alice Through the Needle's Eye | Gilbert Adair | 1,984 | The entire plot really consists of Alice traveling through the Alphabet as she goes along meeting new friends, or rather, creatures and obstacles. In the end, she awakes to find that not more than a few seconds have gone by and that it was all just a dream. The story begins with Alice busily talking to herself as she continuously tries to thread a needle through. To her dismay she continues to fail at this and she takes an extremely close look when she finds herself gliding through the air in an unknown world. She mentions how it was December at her previous whereabouts and how in Needle's Eye World it seemed to have a pleasant summer-ish feel to the place. When she finally falls to the ground she is cushioned by a haystack. When she emerges, she hears a distant call for "'elp". Alice soon discovers that they were the small whimpers of a the Country Mouse, who believes that she is a comet. The Country mouse hereafter befriends Alice and informs her that she is not in a haystack, but an A-stack, or rather a messy pile of A's. She spots a few spelling bees, makes her way out of the haystack and continues in the direction of which she recalls seeing a beach from when she was flying. Alice does not travel too far before she meets two cats, yet upon taking a closer look, she discovers that both are joined at the tail. Alice questions them of their breed which they reply, as they finish each others sentences "We're Siamese--". Unknowingly, Alice interrupts and discusses how Siamese are much much different in appearance. The cats complete their statement and inform her that they were about to say Siamese-Twin Cats until she so very rudely interrupted. Alice apologizes as the cats begin to explain that one or the other is "as large as I am" or "as intelligent as I am" continuing in such a manner that their words are reduced to a mere "--'s I am--". After a short recovery from their long list, Alice decides that she will identify the cats by naming one Ping and one Pang. For if she mistakes one for the other, surely it must end up being the latter. Ping and Pang recite the poem "The Sands of Dee"; Pang forgets the last word of the poem, prompting a duel between them. The two cats instruct Alice to count twenty paces, but she mentions that she could "...count up to a hundred if I really tried." Thus, Ping and Pang begin to step away from each other, but before their duel begins, the sky darkens and rains down cats and dogs. When the peculiar shower of animals has stopped, Ping and Pang realize that they must attend the "vote." Alice follows them to find out what the vote is about. The chapter opens with Alice following the Siamese Cats towards the vote. Suddenly, an Elephant rears about near her—the Country Mouse making a short return to frighten it. Alice decides not to frighten the mouse, but at least scare it off. Hereafter, Alice and the Elephant have a conversation about being afraid of little things, the Elephant retorting "I suppose you aren't afraid of insects, then?" After their short argument, the Elephant states that they will be "late for the speeches." Alice is then swept away by the Elephant towards the "Hide-and-Seek Park." Here, she overhears the conversation of the Grampus and the Italian Hairdresser (She knows he is Italian because he speaks in Italics). The Emu begins its speech, but is constantly interrupted by the Crocodile, belonging to the Hairdresser, which is detained by an electric eel. Finally, the Emu finishes its speech and concludes with "And that's why I ask you all to vote for me!" In the end, after Alice inquires what he stands for, he recites a poem about the letter "F". After this, the vote transforms into an auction, and with the final cry of, "Going...going...gone!" everyone abruptly vanishes. Luckily, not everyone had vanished and Alice was left with both the Grampus and the Italian Hairdresser. The grampus promptly inquires if her name is "Boris". Soon after, after a short while of discussion, the Grampus realizes that he has indeed written down the wrong name within his autobiography. He explains to Alice how forgetful he is, giving an example of how he sometimes "leaves home without an umbrella and returns with one". "This is why I have an autobiography," he said. "So that I don't forget!" Both the Grampus and Alice miss the train that he wrote that they would need to get on in his autobiography. He then points out that they are to be attacked by a band of blood-thirsty brigands. After he realizes that the blood-thirsty brigands are not coming, he asks Alice to tie him up. Soon after she "rescues" him and they board the next train. As they ride the train, the Grampus begins a discussion on the meaning of words. Promptly after their discussion, the Grampus notes that he does not want to be swept away by the hurricane mentioned in his book. Alice, not wanting to "create" a hurricane, comes to the conclusion of simply writing the word 'not' into his book. The train suddenly turns into a study room and, out of curiosity, Alice ventures out to discover what might lay upon the hill she had spotted in the distance. When starting to climb the hill, Alice bumps into two people, or rather, 'stick figure people'. She realizes after a short conversation, that they are Jack and Jill from the nursery rhyme. Although, they are a quite rude rendition of the two. She states that she recognized them from the rhyme which prompts Jack to 'test' her. He says "If you know then surely you can do this!" Jack then asks, or commands, Alice to recite the poem forwards, backwards, and in French. Although Alice had no intention of it, she spat out the words as if it were a second nature to her. Jack then states that due to the fact that she had 'caused' them to fall, she must now carry the eels or "L's" within their bucket to Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. Alice sets off because she is too polite to say no in the first place. After a whiles walk, Alice reaches a maze-like place with a sign that reads "Llabyrinth". To Alice's disappointment, she cannot get to the centre of the maze due to her childish logic of "If I take all lefts I'll be alright, but if I take all rights I'll be left! Left within the maze!". Alice comes across several confusing signs, many of which leading her back to the same place she was before. After a moment of despondency, she hears the Country Mouse; she attempts to follow it, but to no avail. She also attempts to throw one of the eels over the hedge as a signal, but fails, as it comes back like a boomerang. Eventually, she drops off to sleep. When she awakes, she sees what she assumes is a human, running past her. She follows it, and in time, arrives in the centre of the maze. After finding a large congregation of animals stuck in the middle of the maze, they attempt to go through a race for the food that the Welsh Rabbit (the one who she had followed into the centre) possesses. In this chapter Alice is volunteered for her to go into the rabbit hole which the cluster animals within the maze believe leads out. When going down the hole, she feels as if she's falling sideways, and describes it as an infinity sign. She contemplates things such as parallel lines meeting at infinity and how the sign looks like a tired eight. When she finally comes out, she is surprised to see where she is. ===IX: Swan Pie and Green : Yo I: The Battle of Letter II: Was it a Dream?=== |
O Jerusalem | null | null | The book begins immediately after the partition decision was announced. The Jews flooded the streets of Palestine, celebrating. However, the Jewish leaders immediately began planning for war. Ehud Avriel was sent to Prague to buy arms in the name of Ethiopia. Meanwhile, the Jews built an army and air force from scratch. The Jewish leaders, like David Ben-Gurion, knew that, due to military shortcomings, the conflict could only be won through intelligence warfare. The Arabs vowed to put Jerusalem under siege, and did. For many months Jerusalem survived on very limited foodstuffs. On the Arab side, Captain Abdul-Aziz Kerine bought arms in Prague in the name of Syria, the only sovereign Arab nation at the time. The Arab countries (Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Transjordan) discussed their plan of action. They agreed to work together, but everyone, especially King Abdullah of Transjordan, had their own agenda. In the end, the Arab states' lack of cooperation led to their downfall. There was a lot of disorganization and non-cooperation on the Jewish side as well. The main Jewish army was the Haganah, however the Stern Gang and Irgun were other Jewish militant groups. The groups had conflicting ideals (for example: the Haganah was willing to internationalize Jerusalem in order to have a unified, peaceful state, but Jerusalem was of the utmost importance to the Stern Gang and the Irgun), but they managed to retain more organization and cooperation than the Arab armies.In the main text of O Jerusalem!, it is related that the Stern Gang and the Irgun massacred the Arab village of Deir Yassin, outraging Arabs and Jews alike. The Haganah denounced the massacre, but the Arabs believed the Haganah to be responsible and retaliated at the Jewish kibbutz of Kfar Etzion. Collins and Lapierre also acknowledged that other eyewitness accounts claim that the event at Deir Yassin was a battle and not a massacre. As May 15 drew closer, the two peoples continued preparing for war. However, the Jewish intelligence learned that, although the mandate was set to expire on May 15, the British were planning to leave on May 14. Prepared for the early departure, the Haganah mobilized quickly and managed to capture many British buildings before the Arabs even realized that the British had left. Not privy to this intelligence, the Arab armies activated on May 15. The Jewish homeland of Israel was declared on Iyar 5, 5708 Hebrew, or May 14, 1948 Gregorian. Today, this day is celebrated as Yom Ha'atzmaut, or Israeli Independence Day. After the expiration of the mandate, war befell the region. The Arab armies underestimated the Haganah's strength and were not prepared for a strong foe. Both the Arab and Jewish armies suffered major shortcomings in ammunition and manpower. The situation in Jerusalem worsened, leaving Jewish Jerusalemites near starving. On June 11, 1948 a UN sanctioned cease-fire began. Jerusalem's starving were saved by a temporary end to the siege. Jerusalem's storerooms and stomachs were filled again. By cease-fire agreement, neither army was allowed to re-arm itself, but the Haganah was able to buy arms through the black market. The Arab armies, however, were not. After four weeks, the fighting began again, followed by another cease-fire beginning on July 19 (July 17 in Jerusalem), 1948 (O Jerusalem! Collins). |
Eater | Gregory Benford | null | In the early 21st century, astronomers detect what appears to be a distant gamma-ray burster, a black hole engulfing another star many light years away. The data is bizarre and also troubling because only 13 hours later, a second burster appears, which, given the great distance between stars, would be impossible. Eventually, the astronomers realize that the black hole, rather than being incredibly far from us, is actually heading towards our own solar system, and moving our way at considerable speed. Stranger still, it seems to be moving under its own will; it is an intelligent being itself. This age-old cosmic being reveals that it had been born seven billion years ago and had become a wandering entity, feeding on asteroids, planets and various space debris, projecting itself forward in space through the process. Through the billions of years of its existence across the expanse of time and space, this intelligent entity has learned of many ancient civilisations in the universe. The black hole eventually sends a message to the people of Earth; it "desires converse". The black hole is willing to share the knowledge it had gained throughout the ages in return for the chance to "chat" with the humans. But eventually, something about the nature of the life-form is revealed. It prefers to learn about people by having their minds uploaded to it and demands that the best and brightest of Earth be sent to it in this way. The three astronomer protagonists: Benjamin Knowlton; his cancer-stricken wife, Channing; and the British Astronomer Royal, Kingsley Dart, must save the Earth and all of humanity from annihilation at the hands of this entity that they dub the "Eater." |
The Gammage Cup | null | null | Slipper-on-the-Water is a Minnipin village in the Land Between the Mountains. Slipper-on-the-Water is special, as it is home to the Periods, descendants of Fooley the Balloonist. They hold high offices in Slipper-on-the-Water and have a "Council of Periods" that rules the village. Gummy, a carefree poet, along with Walter the Earl and Curley Green, are three Minnipins who shun the tradition-based existence of the Minnipins and do things such as wear different-colored cloaks and have different color doors. Walter the Earl finds a collection of Ancient Treasures which includes items of warfare like swords and armor. Muggles is a candymaker who runs the Fooley Museum. One night, she wakes up and sees what she at first thinks is the sunrise, but is actually fires on the Sunset Mountains. At first, she thinks that seeing the fires on the mountains was just a dream, but later on she talks to Gummy and realizes that it was not a dream. The mayor returns from the annual meeting of mayors with news that there will be a contest to find the most deserving of the twelve villages. The winning village will win the most valuable thing in the valley: The Gammage Cup. The villagers participate in the contest. A few people decide to repudiate the contest as well as the fact that they are kicked out of the village, and leave. le, they explore the old mines in the Sunset Mountains and hear an odd tapping sound which soon emerges is the sound of the Minnipins' enemy, the Mushrooms. Mingy is taken prisoner and Gummy is hit by a poisonous spear. Walter the Earl warns the village of the threat and gathers an army to fight the Mushrooms. A fierce battle ensues. As the Mushrooms flee back into their tunnel, Mingy sets a heap of sleeping mats on fire, making it impossible for the Mushrooms to escape into the Land Beyond the Mountains. In escaping the flames, the Mushrooms are defeated by the Minnipin army. An antidote for the poison is discovered and all the injured Minippins are cured. On their way back to the village, Gummy and Curly Green announce their engagement, as do Mingy and Muggles. The villagers hang garlands and streamers to celebrate the safe arrival home of the soldiers and the five outlaws, who are now respected, and paint all the doors of the houses of different colors. Ltd. gives a speech and so does Muggles, someone strikes up a song and everybody goes out into the meadow beyond the village to celebrate. While the villagers celebrate, the three judges of the contest arrive. Witnessing the happy scenes, they decide that Slipper-on-the-Water is the most deserving village and leave the Gammage Cup in the town square. |
Lord of the Nutcracker Men | Iain Lawrence | null | The story is told by the 10-year old protagonist, Johnny Briggs, who receives an army of toy nutcracker men from his father, a toymaker. The battles that take place during the first World War seem eerily similar to the battles that Johnny enacts with his nutcracker soldiers, and Johnny eventually comes to think that he is controlling the outcome of the war with every battle that he plays out. The part of the story taking place in France where Johnny's father has enlisted is told mainly through letters sent back home to his family. Through the letters it is possible to tell that the novel takes place from around October 25 until December 26, 1914. At the beginning of the book Johnny and his family live in London, however Johnny is sent to live with his Aunt Ivy in the town of Cliffe soon after his father enlists. His mother moves to the town of Woolwich, also sending letters to Johnny every chapter, to help support the war by getting a job making weaponry in a factory. A main theme of the book is the pointlessness and irrationality of war. After the protagonist, Johnny Briggs, misses school for two days in order to have more time to build his Guy Fawkes, he is forced to spend every Wednesday and Saturday afternoon at his teacher's house. There, his teacher, Mr. Tuttle, tutors him on classic literature, mainly the Iliad. They both draw direct parallels between the events of World War I and the events of Homer's novel. It is during the beginning of the book that he is bullied, but when saved by Sarah is entirely ungrateful and says "a girl for a friend is like no friend at all." This is why he leaves the school. When she saves him from being thrown in the fire he starts to see her as a friend. At the beginning of the book, Johnny's father appears enthusiastic about going to war, so much that at the beginning he is frustrated that he lacks the half-inch of height required to enlist. After the required height is lowered, he joins the war and is moved to the front line afterward. As the war continues, it takes its toll on Johnny's father's health, physique, and mentality. Johnny's father sends his son a newly whittled and painted soldier with every letter, but his creations appear increasingly grotesque throughout the book. This is reflected in the model of himself that he had sent. The brown paint of his clothes turns a moldy green, the wide grin on its face fades to a grim, mournful expression, a hairline crack comes down his chest, and a knothole begins to form in its chest. The book comes to a close when Johnny stops playing with his nutcracker soldiers, and brings them together for the Christmas Truce of 1914. The war continues without Johnny's interference, and his father returns four years later in 1918. Johnny's mother dies from sulfur poisoning in 1923, demonstrating that some of the most valiant sacrifices of World War I came not from the front lines, but from the work force at home. |
Henry and June | Anaïs Nin | 1,986 | At the end of 1931, Nin finds herself dissatisfied with being a timid, faithful wife to her banker husband, Hugh Parker Guiler. Nin and her husband contemplate the possibility of opening their relationship, and determine that it would threaten their marriage. However when Anais meets June Miller, she is magnetically drawn to her and perceives June to be the most beautiful and charismatic woman she has ever met. Nin pursues an extremely intense, ambiguous, sexually charged friendship with her. When June leaves Nin becomes involved with Henry, and begins an uninhibited sexual and emotional affair with him, which prompts an intellectual and sensual awakening. A friendship is formed between the two that was maintained throughout both artist's lives. |
The Thief and the Dogs | Naguib Mahfouz | 1,961 | Said's world revolves around Nabawiyya, his former wife, and Sana', his daughter. Once in love with the former, she has now betrayed him by marrying his friend 'Ilish. Central to the making of Said Mahran is also Ra'uf 'Ilwan, his one-time criminal mentor, who used the same revolutionist rhetoric, but now, being a respected journalist and businessman, is in seeming opposition to Said, whose outlook hasn't changed. These perceived betrayals throw the protagonist into the utmost confusion and his initial calculation in revenge becomes ever more a wild flailing against the whole world. Only Nur, a prostitute, and Tarzan, a café-owner, provide Said with any respite from his anger and the world at large which is closing in on him, yet in time even they cannot help him. |
Reliquary | Lincoln Child | 1,997 | The story picks up where the epilogue of Relic left off. Two headless skeletons are found in the Humboldt Kill. When further decapitated bodies follow, there is suspicion of a second Mbwun monster. Major characters from the original book team up with new ones to solve the puzzle. The mystery soon leads underground to the Mole people, and even deeper towards enigmatic beings called the Wrinklers. Soon, they realize that the Wrinklers are led by Frock, who has taken a modified version of the Mbwun plant to regain the use of his legs. He also gave the drug to the people who were to become the Wrinklers. After going underground, the group kills them with an explosion, vitamin D infused water and a flood. |
The Secret of Hanging Rock | null | null | The chapter opens with Edith fleeing back to the picnic area while Miranda, Irma, and Marion push on. Irma looks down and compares the people on the plain below to ants. When the girls walk past the monolith, they feel as if they are being pulled from the inside out and get dizzy. After they leave it behind, they lie down and fall asleep. A woman suddenly appears climbing the rock in her underwear shouting, "Through!" and then faints. This woman is not referenced by name and is apparently a stranger to the girls, yet the narration suggests she is Miss McCraw. Miranda loosens the woman's corset to help revive her. Afterwards, the girls remove their own corsets and throw them off the cliff. The recovered woman points out that the corsets appear to hover in mid-air as if stuck in time, and that they cast no shadows. She and the girls continue together. After the women experience dizziness, the group encounter a strange phenomenon described as a hole in space that influences their state of mind. They see a snake crawling down a crack in the rock. The woman suggests they follow the snake and takes the lead. She transforms into a small crab-like creature and disappears into the crack. Marion follows her, then Miranda, but when Irma's turn comes, a balanced boulder [the hanging rock] slowly tilts and blocks the way. The chapter ends with Irma "tearing and beating at the gritty face on the boulder with her bare hands". |
The Riddle-Master of Hed | Patricia A. McKillip | 1,976 | The Riddle-Master of the title is Morgon, the Prince of Hed, a small, simple island populated by farmers and swineherds. He has three stars on his forehead, which no one has been able to explain. As the book opens, his sister, Tristan, discovers that he is keeping a crown hidden under his bed, and he must explain that he won it in a riddle-game with a ghost, the cursed king Peven of Aum. When Deth, the High One's harpist, finds out, he explains that another king, Mathom of An, has pledged to marry his daughter Raederle to the man who wins that crown from the ghost. Morgon sets forth to claim his bride accompanied by Deth, but while at sea, his ship is sunk by mysterious shapechangers. Shipwrecked, Morgon loses his memory and the power of speech. When Deth finally finds him again, and he recovers his memory and speaking ability, he resolves to travel to ask the High One about the shapechangers. The High One's home, located in the far north on Erlenstar Mountain, is seldom visited. As Morgon and Deth travel the length of the realm, they are repeatedly attacked by the shapechangers, and Morgon learns more and more dangerous knowledge about his three stars and the great powers that come with them. He also comes to know personally the land rulers of Ymris, Herun, Osterland, and Isig. The book ends as a cliffhanger, with Morgon discovering who is posing as the High One. All three books were collected into the volume Riddle-Master: The Complete Trilogy in 1999. |
The Dain Curse | Dashiell Hammett | null | The detective known only as The Continental Op investigates a theft of diamonds from the Leggett family of San Francisco. The plot involves a supposed curse on the Dain family, said to inflict sudden and violent deaths upon those in their vicinity. Edgar Leggett's wife is a Dain, as is his daughter Gabrielle Leggett. The detective untangles a web of robberies, lies and murder. It is discovered that young Gabrielle Leggett is also involved in a mysterious religious cult and is addicted to drugs. Gabrielle escapes from the cult and marries her fiancé, but bloodshed continues to follow them. The Continental Op protects Gabrielle, and helps her recover from her morphine addiction. He finally discovers the reason behind all the mysterious, violent events surrounding Gabrielle and the Dains. The novel is structured in three parts, each concerning different mysteries, Part One: "The Dains", Part Two: "The Temple" and Part Three: 'Quesada". |
Aurora Leigh | null | null | Aurora describes her childhood in Florence, growing up as the daughter of a Tuscan mother and an English father. Her mother died when she was four, leaving her father to raise her. He was a scholar, and imparted to her knowledge of Greek and Latin and a love of learning. Her father died when she was thirteen, and she was sent to England to live with his sister, her aunt, in Leigh Hall, her family’s ancestral home. Her aunt tried to educate her in what she considered a ladylike manner, but Aurora discovered her father’s old library and read scholarly books on her own. This book starts on Aurora’s twentieth birthday. Her cousin, Romney Leigh, proposes marriage to her. He is skeptical about her poetic ability, telling her that women do not have the passion, intellectual capacity, or redemptive qualities to be true artists. Because of this, and because she feels that he is too wrapped up in his social work and ideals to be a good husband, she angrily rejects him. Aurora’s aunt chastises her for refusing him, telling her that because he is the male heir, he will inherit all of the estate and Aurora will be left with nothing. Shortly afterwards, her aunt dies. Romney attempts to give Aurora money, but she refuses it, deciding to go to London to make her living as a poet. This book opens in Aurora’s London apartment. She has been writing small popular poems for magazines, which have earned her an enthusiastic following among romantic young men and women, but she is dissatisfied. The great works of art of which she felt she was capable have arrived stillborn – she has the inspiration, but somehow cannot get it onto the page. While she works, frustrated, a visitor arrives for her, a Lady Waldemar. She is beautiful but sharp and sarcastic, and Aurora does not like her. Lady Waldemar explains to Aurora that she is in love with Romney, so much so that she lowers herself to do charity work with him, but Romney has decided to marry instead one of his lower-class ‘projects,’ Marian Erle. She wants Aurora to go speak to Marian and then to Romney and convince them of their foolishness. Aurora, partly out of curiosity and partly concern for Romney, goes to visit Marian and hears her life story: Marian’s drunken mother tried to sell her into prostitution, and to escape it she ran away and became ill, eventually being taken into a poor hospital. There Romney found her and assisted her in getting work as a seamstress. Marian continues her story, relating how Romney continued to aid her and ultimately proposed marriage to her. Aurora asks her if she is sure he truly loves her, to which Marian replies that Romney loves everything. She assures Aurora that despite her lower-class status, she will be a loving and devoted wife to him. Before Aurora can answer, Romney enters Marian’s room. He and Aurora awkwardly trade words, and she tells him she approves of Marian. He walks her home, and during their conversation she becomes confused about her own feelings for him. A month passes, and it is time for Romney and Marian’s wedding – but Marian sends a letter in her place to the ceremony, telling Romney that she is not good enough for him. The crowd at the wedding assume that Romney has seduced and abandoned her, and attack him. Romney is devastated, and searches for Marian for days, but cannot find her. He and Aurora have a conversation about their respective disappointments with their missions; Romney can neither make a dent in the poverty he sees all around him nor gain the respect of the people he tries to help, while Aurora still has not succeeded in writing a real work of Art. Aurora discusses her further attempts to write. She tells how she is determined not to be constricted by her woman’s role but is doubtful that the modern age presents opportunities for epic poetry. As the book continues, she grows more and more desperate, crying out to her muses and gods for inspiration. She confides that she has not seen Romney Leigh for almost two years, but she has heard that he has turned Leigh Hall into a refuge for the poor. At a stifling, insipid evening party at one of her well-born friend’s houses, she learns that Romney is engaged to marry Lady Waldemar, and bitterly reflects that “He loved not Marian, more than once he loved/Aurora.” She decides that to find inspiration, she must travel to Italy, her mother’s land, and in order to get the money sells some of her father’s old books, as well as her own unfinished manuscript. This book begins with Aurora in France, presumably on a stop-over on the way to Italy. She wanders Paris with her head in the clouds, enjoying the atmosphere of history and the beauty that surrounds her. Suddenly, she catches a glimpse of a familiar face – it is Marian Erle. Frantically, Aurora follows her, losing her in the crowd eventually, but not before seeing that Marian is carrying a child. She is shocked, but resolves not to judge her harshly and tries for a week to find her, finally running into her by chance at a flower market. Marian takes her to her poor room, where she shows Aurora her baby boy. Aurora reproaches Marian for being promiscuous, but Marian angrily replies that far from it, she was attacked and raped and left pregnant. She explains to Aurora that Lady Waldemar convinced her that Romney did not truly love her, and sent her to France with her lady’s maid. The lady’s maid left her in a brothel, where she was raped and almost driven insane, but she managed to escape. Marian continues to tell Aurora her story: she was taken in by a kind lady as a maid, but was summarily fired when her pregnancy became apparent. Despite this, she could not bring herself to be unhappy: she was overjoyed that out of her dreadful experience, she could have the wonderful experience of motherhood. Aurora, after hearing Marian’s dreadful story, apologizes profusely to her for misjudging her and offers her a ‘marriage’ of sorts – she will protect Marian and her son and take them to Italy with her. Marian gratefully accepts. Aurora decides not to inform Romney that she has found Marian, but writes an angry letter to Lady Waldemar, telling her she knows of her disgraceful conduct towards Marian. Marian’s presence, however, constantly brings Romney to Aurora’s thoughts. She is surprised when a friend writes to her to congratulate her on her book – the manuscript she sold to get to Italy. She decides that perhaps it was better than she thought. She finds no particular inspiration in Italy, however, finding instead constant bittersweet memories of her childhood. Several years have passed. Aurora, Marian, and the boy are living in a villa in Florence. Suddenly, Romney Leigh arrives, having discovered their whereabouts through a friend of Aurora’s. Aurora, believing him to be married to Lady Waldemar, is cold with him. He tells her that he has read her book and believes it to be good and true Art, and tells her that he has reconsidered the judgmental strictures he passed on her previously. He relates to her the sorry failure of his attempts at social reform: after he converted Leigh Hall into a refuge, stories went around the village that it was a prison and a mob burned the whole thing to the ground. Aurora expresses her sympathy, but tells him she still cannot think well of his wife. Romney is surprised, and tells her that he is not married to Lady Waldemar, although he has a message from her to Aurora. Aurora tears it open, and reads it. Aurora reads Lady Waldemar’s letter, which claims that she did not intend to hurt Marian, only to remove her. Her scheme did not work; even after Marian was gone, Romney did not love her. She tells Aurora, in a vitriolic tone, that she, by her letter forcing Lady Waldemar to tell Romney that Marian lived, has doomed him to a loveless life with her, when he is truly in love with Aurora. Aurora, somewhat shocked both by the letter’s contents and the angry rhetoric, dazedly asks Romney what he will do now, and he answers that he will marry Marian and raise her child as his own. Marian refuses him, however, stating that she prefers to remain as her child’s only guardian and devote her life to him, rather than a husband, and that she has realized that what she thought was love for Romney was rather hero-worship. She leaves, urging Romney to talk to Aurora. They converse, and forgive each other for any wrongs they have done to each other over the years. Romney admits to Aurora that he is blind. Aurora, in tears, confesses to Romney that she loves him, and has finally realized it; and also realizes that, in loving him, she will be able to complete herself and find her poetic muse once more. The poem ends with Aurora and Romney in a loving embrace, as she describes the landscape for his unseeing eyes in Biblical metaphors. |
Red Prophet | Orson Scott Card | 1,988 | Lolla-Wossiky, a troubled, one-eyed, whiskey "Red", leaves General Harrison's fort and heads north in order to find his "dream beast", the spirit that can save him from the pain of his memories. On his journey, he meets Alvin Miller and assists him in making an ethical decision that will shape his life forever. In appreciation, Alvin heals Lolla-Wossiky painful memories, allowing him to give up alcohol and become in touch with the land once again. Lolla-Wossiky grows into "the Prophet" although he prefers to be known as Tenskwa-Tawa. Lolla-Wossiky preaches both pacifism and separatism, believing that "Reds" should live west of the Mississippi and "Whites" should live east of it. Meanwhile, Lolla-Wossiky's brother, Ta-Kumsaw, tries to rally "Reds" behind his belief that their land should be defended violently. When Alvin Miller and his older brother Measure travel to the place of his birth (where Alvin is expected to become apprenticed to the Hatrack River blacksmith) the two brothers are captured by 'Reds' (Native Americans) sent by William Henry Harrison to intentionally create conflict. Ta-Kumsaw, sent by Lolla-Wossiky, rescues the brothers from torture and death. Measure leaves the "Reds" only to be captured by William Henry Harrison's men and subsequently beaten to the brink of death. Ta-Kumsaw accompanies Alvin to the holy site of Eight-Face Mound where they meet up with Taleswapper, an old friend of Alvin. Using the spiritual powers of the Eight-Face Mound, Alvin is able to heal Measure from afar. Measure is then able to stop some of the slaughter of Lolla-Wossiky's followers by villagers and William Henry Harrison's men over the alleged kidnapping and murder of Alvin and Measure Miller. |
Mr Pye | Mervyn Peake | null | Mr. Pye travels to the Channel Island of Sark to awaken a love of God in all the islanders. His landlady on the island, Miss Dredger, quickly becomes a devout follower of his teachings. and even agrees to allow the person she hates the most, Miss George, to stay in her house. As Pye does good works he gradually feels a stinging feeling on his back. On further investigation he discovers that he has started to grow angel's wings, and after consulting with a Harley Street doctor, he concludes the best thing to do is to stop doing good deeds, and instead does bad deeds. He engages in some deliberately malicious acts, and after a time this results in him growing horns on his forehead. He is unable to decide what to do, but eventually decides to reveal his horned condition to the islanders, who chase him to the edge of a cliff, which Pye flies off using his wings. |
Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates | Tom Robbins | null | Invalids ... follows Switters, our wheelchair-using protagonist, across four continents, in and out of love and danger. Through Switters, Robbins "explores, challenges, mocks, and celebrates virtually every major aspect of our mercurial era." (Quote from the hardcover book jacket.) Robbins has stated in numerous interviews that in this book he was trying to deal with contradiction. But rather than eschewing his contradictory nature, as is typical Western practice, Switters embraces it. He's a CIA agent who hates the government. He's a pacifist who carries a gun. He's as much in love with his seventeen-year-old stepsister as he is with a forty-six-year-old nun. Switters feels that the core of the universe, the heart of existence, is light and dark existing together. One is not separate from the other, they just exist. This is the core of "Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates", along with an interest in the Lady of Fatima and a squawking parrot. The title of the novel comes from Arthur Rimbaud's A Season in Hell, in which he daydreams about becoming one of "... ces féroces infirmes retour des pays chauds." |
Appointment with Death | Agatha Christie | 1,938 | Holidaying in Jerusalem, Poirot overhears Raymond Boynton telling his sister: "You do see, don't you, that she's got to be killed?" Their stepmother, Mrs. Boynton, is a sadistic tyrant who dominates all the younger members of her family, and who attracts the strong dislike of a group of people outside the immediate family. But when she is found dead, Hercule Poirot proposes to solve the case in twenty-four hours, even though he has no way of even proving whether it was murder. |
A Dance with Dragons | George R. R. Martin | 2,011 | On the Wall itself, Jon Snow has been elected the 998th Lord Commander of the Night's Watch; but the young man has enemies, both in the Watch and beyond the Wall. After making a peace with the wildlings, he lets them through in large numbers, despite objection from his fellow brothers, and enforces a conscription upon them to reinforce the Wall against the Others. The Red Priestess, Melisandre, whom Stannis Baratheon left behind, shares many of her visions with Jon, telling him repeatedly that he has enemies in the Watch and warning him of daggers in the dark. Her prophecy comes to fruition when Jon is attacked by his brothers and stabbed several times. The narrative closes with Jon either losing consciousness or dying. Meanwhile, in the far north beyond the Wall, Bran Stark's search for the Three-eyed Crow leads him to the secret cave where the last surviving Children of the Forest dwell, the magical non-human original inhabitants of Westeros. As Bran, Hodor, and the Reeds take shelter in the cave, they meet the "Three-eyed Crow", whom they call the "Last Greenseer". He is a former human member of the Night's Watch, who has been sitting on an underground weirwood throne for so long that its roots have fused into his body. He explains to Bran that he has been appearing to him as the Three-eyed Crow in his dreams so that he could lead him here, and train him in greensight. Bran learns that there is truth to the belief that the sacred weirwoods are the eyes and ears of the Old Gods: the trees are capable of seeing and hearing all around them, and recording it in their memory for centuries. They also allow a greenseer at one weirwood to see and hear events going on at another in the present, and communicate through them. Using his increasing powers of greensight Bran sees memories of his father Ned Stark at Winterfell's godswood in the past, and communicates with Theon Greyjoy at the godswood in the present. Meanwhile, having killed his father Tywin, the dwarf Tyrion Lannister is smuggled to Pentos by Varys, where he is sheltered by Magister Illyrio. Tyrion is sent south; on the journey, it is revealed Varys and Illyrio have hidden the presumed-dead Prince Aegon Targaryen, with the intention of reinstating him as the rightful King of Westeros. The self-styled Aegon VI was raised by Jon Connington, a former Hand of the King under King Aerys and old friend of Prince Rhaegar, whom Aerys exiled due to his failure in Robert's Rebellion. In the intervening years they have risen to command the Golden Company, the largest and most skilled mercenary army in the Free Cities, which was founded a century ago by House Blackfyre, a cadet branch of House Targaryen. After traveling with Aegon halfway across Essos, Tyrion is kidnapped by Jorah Mormont, who intends to deliver him to Daenerys in appeasement after she banished him for initially selling information to her enemies and his indiscretion of his sexual interest in her. Later, Tyrion and Jorah are shipwrecked and sold by slavers to a Yunkish merchant as a part of a jousting dwarf grotesquerie. After reaching Meereen, Tyrion escapes in the mass confusion of the plague ravaging the Yunkai'i army, and signs on with the Second Sons mercenary group and plans to switch their support to Daenerys. In Braavos, the girl once known as Arya Stark undergoes the training of the guild of assassins known as the Faceless Men. The potion that made her blind is revealed to only have a temporary effect, as part of a stage in the training during which she must learn to rely on her hearing. After successfully killing her first target by poisoning a merchant, she is officially entered into the assassins' guild as an acolyte, to continue her training. In the far east, Daenerys Targaryen, believed by most to be the sole heir of House Targaryen, has conquered the city of Meereen, but struggles to maintain peace within the city and prevent military defeat at the hands of her many enemies and attempts to stop the spread of a plague, known as the pale mare, from entering the city. In addition, although her dragons are still growing, they have already become very dangerous - killing livestock and people - so she reluctantly confines them to a cage with the exception of the black dragon Drogon, who manages to evade capture. Daenerys marries the noble Hizdahr zo Loraq, despite her intense infatuation and strong sexual relationship with the mercenary Daario Naharis, hoping this will stop a series of insurrectionist murders and avert a planned attack by Yunkai and Volantis. Despite the plague-infected refugees outside, the fighting pits are opened shortly after the wedding, at Hizdahr's insistence. Daenerys happens to avoid an attempt to poison her in her private box at the fighting pits. The games are interrupted when Drogon, drawn by the smell of blood, attacks the fighting pits. In an attempt to stop the bloodshed, Daenerys climbs on Drogon, who flies away from the chaos in the pit. Drogon lands outside the city and slaughters 200 soldiers before flying away again to his lair with Daenerys still on him. After Hizdahr is implicated in the poisoning, Barristan Selmy removes him from power with the assistance of the Unsullied and Meerenese loyal to Daenerys. Having ventured across the world in a failed attempt to court Daenerys, Quentyn Martell, Prince of Dorne, attempts to steal one of the remaining dragons out of desperation. Instead, he suffers fatal burns and both dragons are unleashed upon the city. Meanwhile, Drogon flies Daenerys to the Dothraki Sea where Dany, starved and ill from being stranded in the wilderness, eventually encounters the khalasar of Khal Jhaqo, a former Bloodrider to Khal Drogo who betrayed her after Drogo's death. The War of the Five Kings in Westeros seems to be winding down. In the North, King Stannis Baratheon has installed himself at the Wall and attempts to win the support of the northmen. This is complicated by the fact that the Lannisters have installed Roose Bolton of House Bolton (loyal to the Iron Throne after the events of the Red Wedding, during which Roose personally killed Robb Stark) as Warden of the North, and much of the west coast is under occupation by the Ironborn. On the advice of Jon Snow, Stannis seeks and receives the support of the hill clans and captures Deepwood Motte from Asha Greyjoy, taking her captive in the process. In gratitude for liberating Deepwood Motte, House Glover and House Mormont join Stannis' army. A representative of the Iron Bank of Braavos arrives at the Wall, to bring news that the Iron Bank has officially had enough of Cersei deferring payment on the loans the Iron Bank is owed, and is switching its support from the Lannisters to Stannis. Despite the fact that House Manderly told Cersei that they executed Davos Seaworth on her orders when he arrived in White Harbor, this is revealed to be a lie, intended to ensure the release of Manderly's last son and heir from Lannister captivity. Lord Wyman Manderly had Davos dragged away in view of representatives from House Frey, but then secretly placed him in gentle imprisonment. It is implied that when the ruse is complete, after the Freys send letters to Cersei stating that Davos is dead, the Manderlys execute the Freys. Lord Wyman explains to Davos that the Manderlys and other Northern vassals intend to feign submission to the Boltons, Freys, and Lannisters while plotting their revenge. Wyman informs Davos that he has discovered that Osha the wildling took Rickon Stark to hide on the remote island of Skagos, which is inhabited by savage clans who only hold nominal allegiance to the North. Wyman explains to Davos that they are in need of a skilled smuggler to retrieve Rickon, and that once the Northern bannermen see that a male Stark heir still lives, they will rally against the Boltons and join Stannis' cause. Meanwhile, Theon Greyjoy is revealed to not be dead: he was kept as a prisoner in the Dreadfort's dungeon for over a year while Ramsay Bolton horrifically tortured and disfigured him, flaying his skin and cutting off several of his fingers and toes. Theon has since been driven into complete submission by the torture, and Ramsay forces him to take on the identity of his servant "Reek". Ramsay's father Roose Bolton leads the main Bolton army up from the south towards Moat Cailin, along with several thousand Frey allies. Ramsay secures their passage by sending Reek, now "playing" the role of Theon, to negotiate with the few Ironborn who still holds Moat Cailin into surrendering. Reek succeeds, but Ramsay flays all the Ironborn anyway. When Roose arrives with Ramsay's bride Arya Stark, Reek recognizes her to be actually Sansa's friend Jeyne Poole. The Boltons are also aware of her identity, but merely see the marriage as a way to legitimize their claim of the North. The wedding is held at Winterfell, and to convince the North that the bride is actually Arya, Reek is forced to assume the role of Theon again to represent the lord of Winterfell and give away the bride. After the wedding, Ramsay horrifically abuses Jeyne physically and sexually. Reek sinks to his knees before the heart tree in Winterfell's godswood, and begs for forgiveness and the strength to survive. He hears Bran through the weirwood calling him "Theon", which helped bolster his spirit somewhat. He is approached by a disguised Mance Rayder and his spearwives and is asked to help them free "Arya." He escapes with Jeyne by leaping out a tower window, but Mance and his spearwives are left behind. Reek and Jayne are then captured by Stannis Baratheon's forces nearby and are delivered to the main camp. There, Reek is reunited with his sister Asha. Ramsay's torture has so badly mutilated Reek that Asha cannot at first recognize her own brother. With increased strength from his new Northern allies, Stannis chooses to push south to confront the Boltons at Winterfell, but his army becomes snowbound as the weather continues to worsen. Cersei Lannister, imprisoned by the Faith of the Seven, confesses to several of the less grave charges against her, such as adultery by sleeping with her cousin Lancel Lannister. However, she stops short of admitting that she murdered King Robert, or that her children are actually the product of incest. This is enough that the Faith is willing to release her from imprisonment, though she still must stand trial for the charges she has not confessed to. However, as a condition of her release, she is forced to make a penance walk by being marched under escort naked from the Great Sept of Baelor to the Red Keep. Cersei tries to maintain her dignity but the smallfolk of King's Landing, who have suffered greatly due to Cersei and the war she is responsible for, pelt her with rotten vegetables and insults; by the time she reaches the Red Keep she is crying and crawling on her hands and knees. However, Cersei has one last spark of hope: the unethical ex-maester Qyburn has perfected his "champion" for Cersei, "Ser Robert Strong", by conducting human experimentation on Gregor Clegane and others. An eight foot tall behemoth, completely encased in armor, never taking it off to eat or use the privy, more than a few characters including Kevan suspect that "Robert Strong" is some sort of Frankenstein's monster cobbled together from the corpse of Gregor Clegane and other prisoners. The silent Robert Strong is named to Cersei's Kingsguard, and will be her champion in the trial by combat to settle the Faith's charges against her. In the Riverlands, having negotiated the bloodless surrender of Riverrun, Jaime Lannister arrives with his army at the siege of Raventree Hall. The seat of House Blackwood, Raventree Hall is the last castle of the Riverlords who supported Robb Stark that has not surrendered to the Lannisters. Negotiation goes much easier than at Riverrun, as the Blackwoods were just holding out for better terms, and didn't want to surrender to their age-old rivals House Bracken, who bent the knee to the Lannisters and were leading the siege. Jaime offers House Blackwood peace on generous terms, bloodlessly ending the siege, and the last stronghold of Robb Stark's short-lived kingdom in the Riverlands dips its banners. The Stark-Lannister war in the Riverlands is nominally over, but the region has been so devastated that brigands holding no allegiance now roam most of the broken countryside. Jaime sets about restoring order, when Brienne of Tarth bursts into his camp tent, telling him that she has found Sansa Stark and she is in danger from Sandor Clegane. This appears to be a trap laid by Lady Stoneheart (the reanimated Catelyn Stark), given that Sansa is safe in the Vale of Arryn, Sandor is presumed dead, and Brienne was last seen on the verge of being executed by Stoneheart's Brotherhood Without Banners. Meanwhile, after Tyrion convinces Aegon that Daenerys would rather learn of her nephew from his conquest, rather than by him showing up and demanding recognition, Aegon Targaryen and Jon Connington land in the Stormlands with the Golden Company, a mercenary army, in order to recover the Iron Throne. They land in the Stormlands and quickly capture four castles with little resistance, with the intention of marching on Storm's End. Varys, still in King's Landing, sneaks in and murders Kevan Lannister and Grand Maester Pycelle. Revealing his support for Aegon, Varys killed Kevan to prevent him from fixing the damage Cersei had caused in her attempts to build Tommen's power base. Varys declares that with Tommen back in Cersei's control, the kingdoms of Westeros will spend their strength fighting each other while Aegon prepares to conquer the Seven Kingdoms. |
Pyongyang | Guy Delisle | null | Delisle arrives in Pyongyang, bringing, in addition to the items that he was authorized to bring into the country, a copy of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, that he judged appropriate for a totalitarian state, CDs of Aphex Twin and reggae, and presents like Gitanes cigarettes and Hennessy cognac. Delisle encounters former colleagues working at SEK Studio on an adaptation of Corto Maltese comics. He also meets foreign diplomats, NGO workers in the World Food Programme, and businessmen, such as French engineers installing an HDTV transmitter. During his two month visit, he stays at the Yanggakdo Hotel, and visits other foreigners in the Koryo Hotel. Accompanied by his guide, he visits the massive statue of Kim Il-sung, the Pyongyang Metro, the legation quarter, the Diplomatic Club (former Romanian embassy), the Arch of Triumph, the Juche Tower, the International Friendship Exhibition, the USS Pueblo, the enormous Ryugyong Hotel, the Taekwondo Hall, the Children's Palace, and the Museum of Imperialist Occupation. Delisle is surprised by things such as reverse walking, the absence of disabled and elderly people, North Korean music propaganda, the cult of personality for past leader Kim Il-Sung and his son Kim Jong-Il, the required presence of his translator and guide, nearly-expired water from the South, Coca-Cola and kimjongilias. He also notes the extreme level of apparent brainwashing in the citizens of Pyongyang. When questioned regarding the lack of disabled people in Pyongyang, his guide asserts, and seems to genuinely believe, that North Korea has no disabled, and that the children of the "Korean race" are all born healthy, strong and intelligent. |
Asterix and the Magic Carpet | null | null | In the opening scenes, in the Gaulish village inhabited by Asterix and his friends Chief Vitalstatistix is trying to give a speech, when he is interrupted by the bard Cacofonix, who is testing the acoustics of his new hut. This causes it to rain; a pivotal point in this comic. A small, dark-skinned man, Watziznehm the fakir suddenly falls from the sky. He had been brought off of his flying carpet by Cacofonix' downpour. Watziznehm explains that he is searching for a way to make it rain in his country, a kingdom in India because if it doesn't rain in 1001 hours, Princess Orinjade, daughter of Rajah Wotzit, will be executed as a sacrifice to the gods. This prophecy is actually part of an evil scheme by Grand Vizier Hoodunnit. Vitalstatistix agrees to send the rain-making Cacofonix to India, accompanied by Asterix, Obelix and Dogmatix. The group sets out slightly disgruntled, as Cacofonix is not allowed to sing and Obelix isn't allowed to bring a whole cart-load of roasting wild boar with him. The next day, they encounter the pirates. Obelix throws out all of the ship's booty on the grounds that it is just junk and not food. The captain hurriedly calls for all the food to be brought and the Gauls and the fakir leave with it, paying with just one small coin. Meanwhile Hoodunnit reveals to his henchman that if it doesn't rain he will have the Rajah executed, and then if it still doesn't rain it won't matter as he will be Rajah himself. The carpet flies over Rome, where the Gauls say hello to a feverish Julius Caesar, causing him to go into a further delirious state. Cacofonix insists on singing, to the point that Watziznehm jumps off the carpet in horror. Without a fakir to steer it, the carpet plummets into the sea, where they are picked up by a Greek merchant's ship. Watziznehm has fallen into a jug of wine. To sober him up, Cacofonix sings yet again, causing a storm and grounding the ship on a tiny island but Obelix and Asterix free the ship easily. After flying over Athens and Tyre, they enter another thunderstorm. A bolt of lightning strikes the carpet and Watziznehm is forced to make an emergency landing in a Persian village, where a carpet seller refuses to fix Watziznehm's or sell one of his own carpets. However, after saving the Persians from Scythian raiders, the Persian gives one of his carpets to the Gauls. The Gauls arrive in India with exactly 30 hours, 30 minutes and 30 seconds left in which to save Orinjade, but Cacofonix has lost his voice during the journey and cannot sing. Rajah Wotzit's doctors proclaim that to regain his voice, Cacofonix must take an overnight bath in elephant milk. The Gauls take Cacofonix to elephant-man Howdoo's home and set up the bath, leaving him to sit in it. The evil Hoodunnit, however, sends his henchmen to kidnap the bard, and take him to an ancient elephant meeting-place and graveyard, and leave him to the elephants. When Watziznehm, Asterix and Obelix set out to pick up the bard, they are stopped by Owzat, Hoodunnit's fakir sidekick. While Watziznehm and Owzat shoot curses at each other, Asterix and Obelix escape and go to Howdoo's, only to find that he has disappeared. Dogmatix picks up the smell of elephant milk, and after being held up by tigers, monkeys and a rhinoceros, not to mention Hoodunnit's henchmen, they arrive at the elephant graveyard to find Cacofonix alive and well; his elephant-milk smell led the elephants to believe that he was one of them. They return quickly with the help of Watziznehm, who has finally defeated Owzat. Asterix sky-punches Orinjade's executioner into the air and saves her in the nick of time. Hoodunnit is defeated. Cacofonix can speak again because of the dose of magic potion he had taken, and sings Singin' in the Rain at the considerable top of his lungs, causing it to rain at last. At the victory feast in the palace, Obelix muses that now their fellow villagers might be having their traditional banquet, this time without him. And back in the village, some of the Gauls begin to express their desire to have the bard back, since it hasn't been raining for some time now. This includes Fulliautomatix the blacksmith who usually uses his hammer to knock Cacofonix out, but now appears to be missing him. |
Firefox Down | Craig Thomas | null | As with the first novel, the book focuses on the efforts of Mitchell Gant to steal the fictional prototype MiG-31 Firefox Soviet aircraft. At the climax of Firefox, Gant engaged in combat with a second MiG-31; the second novel begins mere moments later, with Gant discovering that his aircraft sustained damage in the dogfight and is losing fuel rapidly. After a brief engagement with two Soviet MiG-25s, Gant lands the Firefox onto a frozen Finnish lake. Upon fleeing the lake, Gant is captured by the KGB and taken back to the Soviet Union. The West must then mount a desperate attempt to recover the Firefox from the lake, repair it, and return it to flyable condition before Soviet forces can recapture or destroy it. At the same time, Gant attempts to escape the Soviet Union. Dmitri Priabin (a KGB officer with a minor role in Firefox) has an expanded role in its sequel; his lover has been working for the Americans under the codename Burgoyne, forcing Priabin to choose between recapturing Gant and saving the woman. Unlike its predecessor, Firefox Down did not become a feature film. The book, however, depicts the MiG-31 from the movie on the cover and the text of the novel describes it as black, as it was in the movie, rather than the original silver. |
Heartbeat | Sharon Creech | 2,004 | The book follows a girl named Annie. She loves running and drawing, as well as her relationships with her best friend Max, her grandfather and the imminent birth of her brother, Joey. Annie is going through a lot in her life and running seems to help her with all the changes going on in her life. Through all of this, she learns about herself, her always moody friend Max, and her family too! |
Canal Town | null | null | The novel is set in the 1820s in the town of Palmyra, New York, near Rochester, located on the Erie Canal. The novel opens in 1820, when the construction of the Erie Canal had just begun, but has not reached Palmyra, and most of the town is looking forward to the economic boom the Canal is expected to bring. During the course of the book, Adams depicts the changes in the daily life brought about by the construction of the canal. By the close of the book, citizens in Palmyra are regularly and casually travelling to Rochester via packet boat on the canal, or to New York by canal packet to Albany and thence by steam packet down the Hudson. On publication, a New York Times review by Catharine Brody noted that the book recalls the Erie Canal novels of Walter D. Edmonds, whom Adams acknowledges in his introduction. In fact, Edmonds allowed Adams to use his notebooks as background for the novel. The book is constructed around a single plot device, a case that a Dr. David Little reported to the Albany County Medical Society in the early 19th century. Brody called the incident "a truthful old-wives' tale." The chief protagonist is a young doctor, Horace Amlie. He is intelligent and dedicated, willing to treat both wealthy and indigent, and willing to accept barter in lieu of cash when necessary. He knows of the latest advances in medical science, such as vaccination against smallpox, and comes into conflict with an established doctor who prefers older treatments such as bleeding. Brody called him "an Arrowsmith in a high beaver hat." Amlie visits a settlement called Poverty's Pinch, treats the sick, and pays respectful attention to an old woman named Quaila Crego who practices folk medicine. Work on the canal is constantly interrupted by sickness and fever among the workers. He asks Crego whether the fever has broken out in the Pinch and takes notice when she says "It will, when the black moskeeter stands on her head." Amlie's dedication brings him into melodramatic conflict with landowners who resent his efforts to enforce public sanitation, and with a wealthy and powerful landowner named Genter Latham. Amlie becomes acquainted with a spunky adolescent girl named Araminta Jerrold and her best friend, Genter Latham's daughter Wealthia. Araminta admires Amlie and it comes as no surprise to the reader when she and Horace are married later. A good portion of the plot turns on a romantic situation involving Genter Latham's daughter, Wealthia. It seems obvious to the reader that Wealthia is having an affair with a dashing canal boat operator, Silverhorn Ramsey. She is also engaged to one Kinsey Hayne. Dr. Amlie perceives that Wealthia is pregnant, and assumes that the father is Hayne. Amlie is concerned about the possibility that Wealthia may seek "assistance" from folk healers in Poverty Pinch, or may travel to Rochester for an "illegal operation." Eventually he informs Wealthia's father, who is furious at the aspersions cast on his daughter. Nine months elapse and there is no birth. Amlie is bewildered because he was certain of his diagnosis, and equally certain that Wealthia has not had an abortion. New York Times reviewer Brody says that the reader will "probably stay up the rest of the night" to discover "the resolving of a first-class medical mystery." Meanwhile, Latham resolves to ruin Amlie financially and run him out of town. He succeeds in having Amlie's license to practice medicine revoked. Through a loophole in the law, the revocation is unenforceable on the water of the canal itself, and Amlie manages to eke out a precarious living travelling up and down the canal in a boat, seeing patients only on board his vessel. Without Amlie's public-health efforts, sanitary conditions in Palmyra deteriorate, and there is an epidemic of typhus, to which Wealthia falls victim and dies. Unable to stand not knowing how he could have been mistaken in his diagnosis, Amlie and a collaborator exhume Wealthia, and discover that she has experienced a rare condition, called a lithopedion or "stone baby," in which a fetus dies in the womb but becomes calcified rather than being expelled. Amlie confronts Latham with this evidence, Latham acknowledges Amlie's integrity, numerous complications are quickly resolved in the closing pages, and Amlie and his wife Araminta live happily ever after. |
The Footprints of God | null | null | The story revolves around a supercomputer being built in a secret government lab working on a project called Trinity. When one of the project's scientists dies, David Tennant, the ethical caretaker, discovers that he had been killed for his refusal to accept the ultimate project's aim, a merger of the human mind and the machine, in order to produce an unrivalled super computing machine. Tennant subsequently tries to piece together the truth behind the project while he and his psychiatrist Dr. Rachel Weiss are pursued around the globe. Tennant suffers from a series of regression episodes, which are considered to be seizures by his doctor, who says they are caused by overexposure to a super-MRI scan. During these episodes, he has strangely vivid dreams, in which he witnesses the beginning of the universe (the Big Bang) and the history of mankind. Subsequent dreams seem to be memories of Jesus of Nazareth, something that Tennant, an atheist, finds strange and bewildering. They take a bizarre turn when he sees himself as an NSA assassin sent to kill him, and also as his dead friend, Andrew Fielding, in his last moments. In the end, it seems that someone was in fact showing him these dreams, to tell him something. |
Under and Alone | William Queen | 2,005 | William Queen was a nearly 20-year ATF veteran as well as a motorcycle enthusiast when, in 1998, a “confidential informant” contacted Queen's superiors, offering to help place an agent inside the San Fernando Valley chapter of the Mongols. Queen's work was soon to become the most extensive undercover operation into a motorcycle gang in the history of American law enforcement. |
Mindstar Rising | Peter F. Hamilton | null | The focus of the novel centers around the growth of the company Event Horizon, founded by Julia's grandfather Philip Evans. Beset by industrial saboteurs, the company seeks help in the form of ex-military Mindstar Brigade turned private detective Greg Mandel. The company is leading the way in rebuilding a 21st century England after the People's Socialist Party (PSP), a tyrannical communist government, had first crushed the country and then collapsed, leaving it in shambles. Initially hired to solve a mystery involving missing stocks from a zero-g satellite production facility, he is then re-hired to find the source of attacks on a stored personality of Philip Evans after the industrialist's death. |
Blood Fever | Charlie Higson | 2,006 | Blood Fever begins with a prologue during which a young girl named Amy Goodenough is aboard her father's yacht in the middle of the Mediterranean when she becomes witness to a band of pirates under the command of Zoltan the Magyar who board the yacht. Zoltan's men ransack the vessel and in the process murder Amy's father who was unwilling to part with his priceless possessions. When Amy fails to get revenge by throwing a knife at Zoltan and hitting him in the shoulder, she is taken prisoner, but swears she will one day succeed in achieving vengeance. Following the adventure SilverFin, James Bond is back at Eton where he is now a member of a secret risk-taking club known as the Danger Society. As summer vacation looms, James is given the opportunity to go to Sardinia on a field trip with one of his professors, Peter Haight and a colleague, Cooper-ffrench. While there Bond would also be able to visit his cousin, Victor Delacroix (a relation of Monique Delacroix, James deceased mother). Prior to leaving, Bond learns of the tragedy that took place on the Goodenough's yacht from his friend, Mark Goodenough, Amy's brother who attends Eton. Bond is also witness to a mysterious group whose followers are marked on both of their hands with an 'M' (double M), which James eventually learns is the mark of the Millenaria, a defunct secret Italian society that has had plans throughout history to restore the Roman Empire. Once arriving in Sardinia, James and his classmates begin a tour of the country to learn its history, during which Bond is poisoned (though the reader is not aware of it at the time) and almost killed. To get away and relax, Bond departs from his classmates to spend time with his Cousin Victor, his artist friend Poliponi, and his teenage servant Mauro. While there Victor is host to the Count Ugo Carnifex, a man who is later identified as the leader of the reorganized Millenaria that plans once again to restore the glory of the Roman Empire. Carnifex achieves the funding for such a task, as well as for his palace located high in the mountains of Sardinia, and his lavish lifestyle, by hiring pirates such as Zoltan the Magyar to plunder valuable items; however, Carnifex is a fraud who cannot actually afford to compensate his "employees". Additionally, when Zoltan arrives at Carnifex's palace, Carnifex declares ownership over Amy Goodenough, much to the great annoyance of Zoltan, whom during his travels to Sardinia had formed a unique and strange bond with Amy. Later Bond is once again reunited with his classmates who are now in a town near Carnifex's palace. During one night, Bond sneaks into the palace and finds Amy's cell, but is unable to rescue her and instead informs Peter Haight. Things go bad, however, when Haight reveals himself to be a loyal servant of Carnifex and had earlier attempted to poison and kill James for asking too many questions about the Millenaria. Carnifex subsequently tortures James by allowing the mosquitoes to have a field day (Carnifex betting that at some point one of them will be a carrier of malaria) while James is stripped of his shirt and strapped down, thus preventing him from escaping, killing any mosquitoes feeding and scratching itches, bringing the pain to a maximum. Bond is later rescued by Mauro's sister, Vendetta, who kisses him consistently. Having put up with Carnifex for as long as he could bear, Zoltan turns against Carnifex by flooding his palace leaving it in ruins. Carnifex's sea plane is swept away by the water and flies straight into the count, killing him. Just prior, Bond sneaks into the palace with the help of Vendetta, much to her dismay, to rescue Amy. Vendetta is reluctant to let Bond go and attacks him. Bond convinces her not to follow and, for good measure, he gives her a tongue kiss of his own. After the destruction of the palace, Bond and Amy return to Victor Delacroix's villa, but are ambushed on the way by Peter Haight. Bond and Amy are saved, however, by Zoltan the Magyar who gives his life for their protection in the process. The grief-stricken Amy hugs Bond for comfort. Amy and Bond arrive at Victor's villa. After skinny dipping and lying on the beach, they go up together. However, Jana Carnifex, Ugo's sister, is waiting for them. Bond tricks her, however, by jumping off the rock, while Victor distracts her. She slips and falls into a bed of sea urchins, where she finally dies from the pain and poison. As Bond and Amy wade to the surface, Amy suddenly steps on a sea urchin. Bond knows exactly how to remove it. |
The Riddle of the Sands | Robert Erskine Childers | 1,903 | Carruthers, a minor official in the Foreign Office is contacted by an acquaintance, Davies, asking him to join in a yachting holiday in the Baltic Sea. Carruthers agrees, as his other plans for a holiday have fallen through. He arrives to find that Davies has a small sailing boat (the vessel was named Dulcibella, a reference to Childers's own sister of that name), not the comfortable crewed yacht that he expected. Davies gradually reveals that he suspects that the Germans are undertaking something sinister in the German Frisian islands, based on his belief that he was nearly wrecked by a German yacht luring him into a shoal in rough weather. Carruthers and Davies sail back to the Frisian Islands and spend some time exploring the shallow tidal waters of the area, moving closer to the mysterious site where there is a rumoured secret treasure recovery project in progress. They are watched by a German navy patrol boat, which warns them away from the area. Taking advantage of a thick fog, Davies navigates them covertly through the complicated sandbanks in a small boat to investigate the site. They find that it is actually the centre of a German plan to invade England. The invasion plan is master-minded by a renegade Englishman, but Davies has fallen in love with his daughter and he does not want to hurt her by revealing her father's treason. Eventually they manage to escape with the information and the invasion plan is foiled. |
The Italian Girl | Iris Murdoch | 1,964 | Edmund Narraway returns to his family home, an old rectory in the north of England, for the cremation of his mother, Lydia. His brother, Otto, probably drunk, starts giggling during the service, and has to be taken outside. Edmund is disgusted rather than scandalised, yet he immediately finds himself fascinated by Otto's daughter, his own niece, who is now a teenager and, for the first time since Edmund last saw her, sexually mature. After the service Isabel, Otto's apparently neurotic wife, attempts to involve Edmund in her small and frustrated life. He at first refuses. When Edmund later talks to his self-pitying brother, he detects evidence of a sexual tension between Otto and his apprentice David Levkin. Isabel, Otto and Flora all implore Edmund to stay and help them, each for a different reason. In each case, Edmund seems at first untempted, reluctant to get involved, and aware of his own impotence against their troubles. It is finally Flora who gives Edmund a real reason, or excuse, to stay. She confides in him that she is pregnant by another student, and has only him to rely on for assistance. One by one, each character in the house manages to enveigle Edmund in a series of confessions, exposés and almost farcical in flagrante delicto discoveries. Edmund, though sexually aloof and anodyne now seems, somewhat contradictorily, highly prone to getting involved and seeing himself as an integral part of everyone else's problem, if not the means to a solution. He cuts a slightly preposterous and contemptible figure, ever more so as each character, led by David Levkin and Flora, respectively devilish and vituperative, make evident their disgust for him. Midway through the story we have learnt that Otto is having an affair with Elsa, David's sister; Isabel and her daughter Flora have both had affairs with David, and it is he who made Flora pregnant; 'Maggie', the Italian girl, whose actual name is Maria Magistretti and who was nursemaid to Otto and Edmund, had been having a lesbian affair with Lydia, their recently deceased mother and, it transpires, she is the sole beneficiary of Lydia's will. After all these 'secret' relationships have been revealed, Otto's response is to send David and Elsa Levkin packing. Elsa, in despair, reacts by setting fire to herself and the house. She dies, the house survives. At this surprising turn of events Otto and Edmund now seem reconciled, perhaps in misery, perhaps in astonishment. Similarly, Otto and David act civilised towards each other, and Edmund and David begin to talk honestly and respectfully to each other for the first time. David departs, leaving instructions for Elsa's funeral. The fire and Elsa's death seem to have had a cathartic effect on everyone. Isabel finds her independence and leaves Otto. She joyfully announces that she too is pregnant by David. Flora, who ran away from home at the climax now returns to look after her rather helpless father Otto. Maggie generously agrees to split the inheritance equally with Edmund and Otto, and allows Otto to keep the house. The fire damage, incidentally, is all covered by insurance. To crest this unexpected wave of redemption Edmund discovers that he has always actually been in love with Maria and she, conveniently, has always been in love with him. The book closes with them preparing to travel by car to Rome. |
Set This House on Fire | William Styron | 1,960 | The day after Peter Leverett met his old friend Mason Flagg in Italy, Mason was found dead. The hours leading up to his death were a nightmare for Peter - both in their violence and in their maddening unreality. The events were ignited by a conflict between Flagg and a self-destructive painter. "What this country needs... what this great land of ours needs is something to happen to it. Something ferocious and tragic, like what happened to Jericho or the cities of the plain - something terrible I mean, son, so that when the people have been through hellfire and the crucible, and have suffered agony enough and grief, they’ll be people again, human beings, not a bunch of smug contented cows rooting at the trough." - William Styron, from Set This House on Fire |
Nothing But the Truth | Edward Irving Wortis | 1,991 | Philip Malloy is a track-obsessed ninth-grader at Harrison High School in Harrison, New Hampshire. He has an English teacher, Margaret Narwin, and is doing very poorly in her class, he is given a D for his grade and is not allowed to try out for the track team. He does not tell this to his parents, and instead pretends that he no longer has an interest in trying out for the track team. Philip causes distractions in Narwin's class such as singing the national anthem. Eventually he is suspended from school by Dr. Joseph Palleni, the school's vice principal. Ms. Jennifer Stewart, a reporter that was interviewing Mr. Griffin, Philip Malloy's neighbor, who was running for school board, was interested in Philip's story about suspension and talks to the school superintendent, Dr. Albert Seymour (who was unaware of any policy against singing the national anthem but is not aware of the context), the principal Dr. Gertrude Doane (who received a short memo on the subject), the assistant principal, Dr. Joseph Palleni (who is defensive about his level of involvement), and Miss Narwin (who verifies the facts of the story without providing additional detail or commentary). The story runs in a local paper, and is used as a campaign issue by Mr. Griffen about how a student was suspended for being "patriotic." The story is then picked up by a national newswire as well as a radio station and the school is flooded with telegrams in support of Phillip and against Miss Narwin. The school tries to respond, going through sequential levels of bureaucracy until its statement has become half-truth, putting the blame fully on Miss Narwin. The superintendent makes a deal with Mr. Griffen that they will encourage Miss Narwin to retire in return for his support of a budget which is on the same ballot. It is revealed how great of a teacher Miss Narwin is, as Philip is ostracized by his peers for forcing her removal. At the end of the novel, Philip transfers to another school, Washington Academy, which does not have a track team, and Miss Narwin moves in with her sister in Florida.When his new teacher at Washington Academy asks him to lead the class in the national anthem and Philip breaks down crying and confessing "I don't know the words." The theme of distortion of the truth and people's willingness to disregard the truth to protect themselves is not only accomplished through the storyline, but also through Avi's unique style. Nothing but the Truth which is a documentary novel, pulls together many different nonnarrative elements, such as memos, conversations, letters,diary,and phone conversations. Although these pieces are said to contain “facts,” it is apparent to the reader throughout the novel that there is much discrepancy between these sources. Since these sources contain flaws, the real “truth” is not revealed by the end of the book. |
Yōtōden | Takeshi Narumi | null | The story takes place during Japan's great civil war Sengoku period, beginning in the summer of 1581 and ending two years later. In the anime, the historical warlord Oda Nobunaga is really an evil demon killing everyone who stand in his way. An ancient prophecy says three mystical Demon Blades from three different ninja clans can end Nobunaga's unholy campaign. The story follows Kasumi no Ayanosuke, a young kunoichi (female ninja) who has escaped her village's annihilation, in her heroic efforts to reunite these three sacred weapons use them to kill Nobunaga. |
Titus Groan | Mervyn Peake | 1,946 | As the book starts, two important events occur in the castle: Firstly, an heir is born to Lord Sepulchrave, Earl of Groan and the monarchical ruler of Gormenghast, and his wife, Countess Gertrude. He is named Titus and put into the care of the old nurse, Nannie Slagg. Nannie Slagg is an ancient, tiny woman who serves as the nurse for the infant Titus and Fuchsia before him. She is somewhat senile and has an inferiority complex. Her first duty is to go to the dwellings of the Bright Carvers just outside the walls of Gormenghast to choose a wet nurse for Titus (Gertrude has no interest in raising him). Keda, the widow of a well-respected Carver who has recently lost a child from her late husband, volunteers to take on the role. Keda comes to live in the castle for a time helping to raise Titus. Later, she leaves the castle walls and is impregnated by one of her previous two suitors. The suitors promptly kill each other in a duel for her hand in marriage. On the same day as Titus' birth, an ambitious kitchen boy of seventeen by the name of Steerpike escapes from the kitchens and the grossly fat, sadistic Chef, Abiatha Swelter. Lord Sepulchrave’s chief servant, Mr. Flay (Swelter’s archenemy), comes upon Steerpike who has become lost in the confines of the castle, and takes him through the castle (large parts of which are uninhabited) to a room outside the quarters of the Earl and the Countess. Here, Steerpike takes the opportunity to spy on the Groan family. Despite having led him there, the fiercely loyal Flay is angered by Steerpike’s eavesdropping and locks him in a small room. Steerpike, however, escapes out of a window, risking his life above a sheer drop. He manages to climb up onto the roofscape of Gormenghast, and from there begins his rise to power. After spending a long time walking and clambering on the roof searching for a means to enter the castle, Steerpike manages to climb in through a window- and ends up in the secret attic of Lady Fuchsia Groan. Fuchsia is Titus’ fifteen-year-old sister, who has the large area of long-abandoned attic space all to herself. A little later, Steerpike accompanies Fuchsia to the house of Dr. Prunesquallor, and becomes his apprentice for a while. Dr. Alfred Prunesquallor is the castle's resident physician. He is an eccentric individual with a high-pitched laugh and a grandiose wit which he uses on the castle's less intelligent inhabitants. Despite his acid tongue, he is an extremely kind and caring man who also is greatly fond of Fuchsia and Titus. (In a few places in the text, Dr. Prunesquallor is given the first name of Bernard, but this was an error by Peake.) He lives with his sister Irma Prunesquallor. Though she is anything but pretty, she is considerably vain. She desperately desires to be admired and loved by men. In this position, Steerpike is able to come into close contact with members of the Groan family, in particular Lord Sepulchrave’s twin sisters, Cora and Clarice Groan. The sisters are not very bright and are power hungry and resentful, believing that Countess Gertrude holds the position that they rightfully deserve. Steerpike manages to use the twins' ambition for his own ends. He promises them power and influence, and convinces them that they could achieve their goal by burning down Sepulchrave’s beloved library. Steerpike prepares meticulously for the act of arson. He arranges for the burning to happen when the entire Groan family and their most important servants are inside the library for a family gathering (Steerpike intentionally failed to tell the twins that they were invited as well, strengthening their feeling of bitterness towards Sepulchrave and Gertrude). He intends to lock the doors to prevent an escape, and then come through the window and save everyone inside from the fire, appearing as a hero and possibly strengthening his position and granting him more power in the castle. Everything goes according to plan: The entire Groan family (including the Earl and his heir) and most of the retainers are saved. Sourdust, the old Master of Ceremonies, dies of smoke asphyxiation and all the books in the library are destroyed in the flames. This comes as a great blow to Sepulchrave, a rather melancholic man, to whom the library was the only joy in his otherwise monotonous life, dominated by the ritualistic duties he must perform every day, every week, every month and every year at appropriate times. Steerpike hoped to become Master of Ritual (a very prestigious job in Gormenghast) after Sourdust died, but the title, like so many things in the castle, is hereditary, and so goes to Sourdust’s seventy-four-year-old son Barquentine, who has lived almost completely forgotten in a remote part of the castle for sixty years. He is lame in one leg, hideous, and unbelievably dirty. Barquentine is a consummate misanthrope who only cares for the laws and traditions of Gormenghast. During the weeks following the burning, Lord Sepulchrave becomes increasingly insane, starting to believe that he is one of the Death Owls living in the Tower of Flints (the tallest tower in the castle). Flay learns that Swelter intends to kill him. Flay had hit him across the face with a chain before Titus’ christening, escalating a mutual loathing into plans for vengeful murder. Flay observes Swelter practicing the blow with a large cleaver, and so prepares himself for an attack, acquiring a sword for his protection, in case Swelter should ever attempt to murder him while he is sleeping in front of his master’s door. Things happen differently though: Steerpike, now a full-time retainer of the twins, having quit Doctor Prunesquallor’s service, angers Flay by sarcastically imitating Sepulchrave’s madness. Flay loses control and hurls one of the countess’ white cats at Steerpike. At that moment, the Countess enters the room, and seeing that one of her beloved cats has been abused, immediately banishes Flay from Gormenghast. Flay is forced to learn how to survive outside the castle, and he sets up various homes in the nearby forest and on Gormenghast Mountain. Having a strong attachment to the castle, and feeling a need to watch over Steerpike and to protect Titus, Flay returns secretly to Gormenghast during the night. Four nights after Titus’ first birthday, Flay finds Swelter wandering the castle with a meat cleaver. Swelter does not know of Flay’s banishment, and expects him to be sleeping where he has always slept up until now. Flay follows him to just outside Sepulchrave’s door, where Swelter discovers that Flay is not there, and soon realizes that he has been followed. Flay lures Swelter to the Hall of Spiders (making use of the fact that Sepulchrave — who is by now quite insane — is sleepwalking), and there they fight a long duel. Eventually, Flay kills Swelter. Lord Sepulchrave arrives on the scene, and decides that Swelter’s body should be taken to the Tower of Flints. After helping Sepulchrave carry the body to the tower, Flay is ordered to stay where he is. The mad Earl babbles about possible reincarnation, bids Flay farewell, and then drags the body into the tower by himself and is attacked and eaten by the starved Death Owls, along with Swelter’s remains. After the disappearance of the Earl and the chief cook (the exiled Flay is not able to tell anyone what has happened), Steerpike leads a search for them. Naturally, their remains are not found, but Steerpike is able to gain a good knowledge of all the rooms in the castle. Flay lives in the mountains, making two caves and a shed for himself- living in seclusion but adept as a naturalist. He later witnesses Keda's suicide as she throws herself off a ledge. Initially just one of a number of minor background characters Keda's story shows some of the world outside the castle and her choices, journey and resolution are among the most emotive parts of the story. Nine days after Sepulchrave's disappearance, Steerpike has a conversation with Barquentine. The Master of Ceremonies tells Steerpike that Titus is now to become Earl of Groan, despite the fact that he is only one year old. He also gives Steerpike the position of his assistant and heir to his post, since Barquentine does not have a child. As the apprentice to the Master of Ceremonies, Steerpike has a good, stable position in the castle. Steerpike fears that Cora and Clarice are too careless and may tell others that he convinced them to burn down Sepulchrave’s library. Steerpike dresses as a ghost and convinces the twins they will die if they ever speak of the fire. By this stage, Steerpike has considerable influence in the affairs of Gormenghast, even if he is not yet a recognized figure of authority. He still has to influence people to do his work for him. Despite this, both the Countess and Dr Prunesquallor are disturbed and uneasy about all that has happened, and disturbed about Steerpike's sudden rise. Yet neither is able to connect Steerpike as the cause of the tragic events, as he was their apparent savior from the fire in the library. Soon afterwards, the “Earling” takes place, and young Titus is officially made Earl of Gormenghast. In a ridiculously elaborate ceremony on a nearby lake, little Titus holds aloft the sacred symbols of his status - the stone and ivy branch, and to the horror of observers, promptly drops them both into the lake. The scene is silent except for the shout of Titus and for the shout of Keda's unnamed baby, with a surrogate parent across the lake with the Bright Carvers. |
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