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Anino ng Kahapon

The setting of the novel was during the final years of Spanish colonialism. The main characters of the novel are Modesto Magsikap and Elisea Liwayway. Magsikap is a vigilante who kills two suitors of Liwayway, his girlfriend. Magsikap’s first crime was the killing of Sergeant Cruz, the first suitor of Liwayway. Magsikap was imprisoned for the homicide. A group of bandits invaded the town where Magsikap was imprisoned, including the jail where Magsikap was confined. Magsikap returned to his own hometown after learning about the death of his father. There Magsikap murders Lt. Rosca, the second suitor of Liwayway. Magsikap’s two brothers were put in jail. To escape his pursuers and the Spanish authorities, Magsikap flees to the United States. From the United States, Magsikap continued communicating with Liwayway through letters. After five years, Magsikap returns to the Philippines. After his trip, Modesto became convinced of the "benevolent presence" of the United States in the Philippines.

Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself

David Lipsky

Lipsky, who received a National Magazine Award for writing about Wallace in 2009, here provides the transcript of, and commentary about, his time accompanying Wallace across the country just as Wallace was completing an extensive "book tour" promoting his novel Infinite Jest. The format captures almost every moment the two spent together – on planes and cars, across the country — during the specific time period when Wallace was becoming famous; the writers discuss literature, popular music and film, depression, the appeals and pitfalls of fame, dog ownership, and many other topics.

Ang mga Anak Dalita

The characters of the novel include Ata, Teta, Pedro, and a factory owner. Ata is a poor woman. Teta is Ata’s daughter. Pedro is Ata’s lover. The factory owner in the novel is the “avaricious” and “lustful” boss of Ata. The factory owner tried to rape Ata, but she was able to escape. During a conflict with the laborers, Ata’s daughter Teta saves the factory owner from being killed by the factory workers. In the end, Teta turns out to be the daughter of the factory owner. The theme of the novel is similar to Mariano’s other novel Ang Tala sa Panghulo ("The Bright Star at Panghulo").

Maganda pa ang Daigdig

The novel is about Lino Rivera, a gardener, who lost faith in an "oppressive social system" in the Philippines. Lino was accused of committing robbery and homicide. Lino escapes from prison to live a life of a fugitive. He defended an “enlightened landlord” against the Hukbalahap of Central Luzon and against former guerillas who were active during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines. Convinced by Colonel Roda, Padre Amando, among other "kindhearted people", Lino comes down from the mountain, turning his back from living the life of a fugitive.

Daluyong

Daluyong begins where Francisco’s novel Maganda pa ang Daigdig ("The World Be Beautiful Still") ends. Lino Rivero, a former ranch worker, is given an opportunity to own a portion of land by the priest Padre Echevarria. Lino becomes an avatar who, through his efforts and good will, is able to free himself from the oppressive "tenant farmer" system. Apart from the "waves of changes" that might happen due to agrarian reform and because of the hope of the Filipino lower class for a good future, Daluyong tackled the "waves of forces" that prevents such changes and hopes from being realized.

Waterloo Bridge

Robert E. Sherwood

Unable to find work in London at the height of World War I, American chorus girl Myra Deauville resorts to prostitution to support herself. She meets her clients on Waterloo Bridge, the primary entry point into the city for soldiers on leave. During an air raid, she meets fellow American Roy Cronin, a member of the Canadian Army, and he joins Myra in her apartment. Describing herself simply as an unemployed chorus girl, Myra gains Roy's sympathy, and he offers to pay her overdue rent. After he departs, Myra returns to the streets. The following morning, Roy returns to visit her, and landlady Mrs. Hobley lets him into her apartment. There he meets Myra's friend and neighbor Kitty, who tells him Myra needs someone to love and protect her. Myra later berates Kitty for interfering and rejects her advice to marry Roy to ensure a better future for herself. Roy brings Myra to visit his mother Mary and sister Janet in their rural home, where he proposes to Myra, who later that night tells Mary the truth about herself. Mary is sympathetic but implores Myra not to marry Roy. The following morning, Myra slips aways and returns to London by train. Eventually Roy visits her and asks her to explain her abrupt departure. Because he is on the verge of returning to the battlefields in France, he begs Myra to marry him immediately. She agrees, but escapes from her apartment through a window while he waits for her in the hallway. Seeking the rent, Mrs. Hobley enters and, believing Myra has run off to avoid her financial obligation, reveals her true profession to Roy. Although shocked, Roy searches for Myra and eventually finds her on Waterloo Bridge, where he tells her he still loves and wants to marry her. The military police insist Roy join a truck of departing soldiers or be considered a deserter, and once he secures Myra's promises to marry him upon his return, he departs. The air raid sirens sound, and as Myra seeks shelter, she is killed by a bomb.

Angel Angel

The Irises, a typical suburban family in Connecticut, are thrown into disarray upon the discovery of the patriarch's extra-marital affair. With his absence in the marital home, his wife, Augusta, struggles to understand or come to terms with the betrayal and takes to her bed for weeks. Her two sons, Matthew and Henry, face their own demons and are little help to their mother. However the introduction of Henry's sassy live-in girlfriend forces the family out of their emotional downward spiral.

The Sweetest Dream

Doris Lessing

In 1960s' Hampstead, London, the large home of Julia Lennox is a gathering place for an assortment of young and old characters. Frances Lennox finds herself living with her mother-in-law, Julia after her husband Johnny, a communist leader has abandoned her and his two sons, Alex and Colin to continue an affair with a glamorous "comrade". The arrangement is difficult owing to the natures of both women, Frances is independent-minded and Julia betrays her German background and is more rigid. However both women are united in their disapproval of Johnny. Rather than working, Johnny's priorities are travelling and staying at hotels in communist countries and all the while continuing with his affairs. Frances later gives up her theater ambitions for a more lucrative position on a liberal newspaper. The Lennox household becomes filled with the classmates and dropout friends of her two sons now in secondary school. Frances acts as an earth-mother figure to the adolescents, offering a communal atmosphere so different to their strict family homes. Johnny maintains a presence in the household, occasionally appearing to the benefits of free meals and the captive audience that the estranged adolescents provide at the kitchen table. Communist member, Rose Trimble is also a regular addition until she turn gutter-press journalist and attacks Frances and Julia, branding them "imperialists". Other colourful characters that abound in the household include Johnny's anorexic daughter, two of Johnny's wives; political refugees as well as a newly-arrived young black boy Franklin, from Zimlia, Africa. Meanwhile Colin and Andrew make their transition into adulthood. Colin becomes a novelist and Andrew, a graduate of the London School of Economics, becomes an illustrious international finance figure, working with the corrupt African leaders and other Third World countries in order to help funnel money to their poverty-stricken nations. However Andrew is blind to the scale of the leaders' corruption and misuse of funding. Sylvia becomes a doctor, and finds herself at a mission in Zimlia where the locals live in dire poverty and are crippled by the spread of AIDS. The new black leader of Zimlia and his wife are immensely wealthy, and his ministers, as are his ministers such as the adult Franklin. These ministers continue to line their pockets as farms are expropriated from the nation's white farmers. Sylvia returns to England with two black boys when her hospital in Zimlia is shut down. The boys move into the Lennox home where Frances is now in her early seventies, and shares the home with Colin and his family. Eventually a now impoverished Johnny returns to the home, as communism is replaced by capitalism in the countries he once visited.

The Stars in the Bright Sky

Alan Warner

The story starts at Gatwick Airport in London, where Manda, Chell, Kylah, Finn, Kay and Ava have met to go on a joint holiday. They have not yet agreed upon a destination, planning to do so at the airport before booking a low-cost last-minute deal. This plan is hindered when it becomes apparent that Manda has lost her passport, and much of the narrative takes place in the airport lounges and bars that the group are confined to for several days. The main themes explored through the characters' interactions are social class and friendship.

Labor Day

Joyce Maynard

Henry, a man in his early 30s, recounts his thirteenth year. As Labor Day weekend approaches, 13-year-old Henry sees no reason why this weekend should be any different. He expects it to be as lonely as the rest of the summer, only watching television, playing with his pet hamster and fantasizing about his female classmates. Henry shares his life in New Hampshire with his wounded divorcee mother, Adele. Adele's agoraphobia means that the family survive on unedifying tinned foods and frozen meals. However, on the Thursday before Labor Day weekend, Henry persuades his mother to go on a shopping trip. It is there that they meet an unkempt man who is bleeding from his forehead and agree to his request for a ride in their car. This mysterious man, Frank, admits that he is a convicted murderer that has escaped prison. Despite his past, Frank makes the claim that the mother and son have "never been in better hands". Indeed, Frank teaches Henry how to throw a baseball, change a flat tire and to bake. Meanwhile Adele and Frank, long love-starved, become infatuated with each other, and Adele emerges from her depression.

Van de koele meren des doods

Frederik Willem van Eeden

The novel relates the story of Hedwig Marga de Fontayne, the scion of a wealthy family, whose sexual frustration manifests itself as a death drive. sexually frustrated, Hedwig marries but then runs off to England with a piano player. A child is born but dies quickly, and Hedwig goes to Paris, where she becomes a prostitute to support her morphine addiction. Destitute and descending into madness, she is admitted to the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, to the psychiatric ward where a friendly nurse helps her beat her addiction. She returns to the Netherlands, and spends her last years with a family that formerly farmed on the family's lands.

Sementes no Gelo

Andre Vianco

Several Brazilian couples have frozen embryos in a hospital. When these embryos become ghosts highly dangerous, Detective Tani, along with his ex-girlfriend, Lizete, see themselves threatened. This childrens are crazy by a mother, and will kill everyone who wants to stop them. pt:Sementes no Gelo

The Paperboy

Pete Dexter

Hillary Van Wetter has been jailed for the murder of an unscrupulous local sheriff, Thurmond Call. Call had previously stomped Wetter's handcuffed cousin to death. Wetter is now on death row and awaiting execution. In prison Wetter receives correspondence from Charlotte Bless, a woman he has never met but who has fallen in love with him and is determined that he should be released and that they should marry. Bless provokes immense sexual tension in any situation, given her beauty and presence. Bless attempts to prove Wetter's innocence by enlisting the support of two investigative reporters from a Miami newspaper hungry for a salacious story: the ambitious Yardley Acheman and the naive, idealistic Ward James, who hails from the small town where Van Wetter is imprisoned and has mixed feelings about returning home. The evidence against Wetter is inconsistent and the writers are confident that if they can expose Wetter as a victim of redneck justice then their story will be a potential Pulitzer Prize winner. However, tricks of the journalist's trade are played, corners are cut, facts are fudged, small inconsistencies are ignored, and Yardley sleeps with Charlotte. With the newspapermen's support, Wetter is released from prison and the pair win the Pulitzer Prize. It soon becomes apparent that the writers misjudged Wetter. After marrying Charlotte, Wetter murders her. Consumed by guilt, Ward commits suicide.

As Cool As I Am

Fromm, Pete

The protagonist and narrator is Lucy, a self-confessed tomboy that is considered one of the guys with her masculine haircut and attitude. She gets on well with her father but is frequently separated from him for months on end when he works in Canada. Her relationship with her mother is easy-going provided she keeps the house tidy. Her mother's lenience even allows her daughter to drive her car, even when she is too young to apply for a license. As Lucy turns 14, she becomes more in tune with her sexuality and her family dynamics. She develops a type of friends with benefits relationship with her best friend Kenny. She also ditches her toyboy image, embraces make-up and grows out her hair. She begins to realise that her parents marriage is not as solid as she had imagined. She realises that her father's extended stays abroad are not typical of other fathers. Furthermore she realises that her mother does not pine for her father as much as she does herself. In fact, her allegiance to her father is tested when she discovers her mother is enjoying a romance with a colleague. She pro-actively seeks sexual satisfaction after she is left with a void when Kenny has to move away. She also begins to realise that there is more to her father's extended stays in Canada than she had previously imagined.

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making

Catherynne M. Valente

An unseen narrator relates the story of September, a twelve-year-old girl from Omaha, Nebraska. September's father is a soldier at war in Europe and her mother works all day building airplane engines in a factory. One day a Green Wind visits her and she accepts his offer to take her to the great sea that borders Fairyland. September meets a gnome who gives her the ability to see Fairyland as it truly is before pushing her into that world. September's adventures continue in Fairyland, where she meets witches who give her the task of finding and returning their spoon, which was stolen by Fairyland's evil queen who calls herself the Marquess. She teams up with A-Through-L, a wyvern who believes his absent father to have been a library and thus considers himself a "Wyverary", a wyvern and library hybrid. When they find the Marquess, she hands over the witches' spoon in return for September's promise to retrieve a special sword from a casket in the Worsted Wood. September meets Saturday, a marid, and with A-Through-L they head for the Worsted Wood, where September finds the casket. The "sword" inside varies depending on the interests of the finder's mother, so September found not an actual sword, but a wrench because of her mother's work as a mechanic. As September escapes the Worsted Wood with the wrench, Saturday and A-Through-L are kidnapped and she sets about finding them. She must circumnavigate Fairyland in a ship of her own making to land at the Lonely Gaol, a jail at the bottom of the world. There, she learns the Marquess's full story and that she wants September to use the wrench to permanently separate Fairyland and the human world. September refuses and frees her friends from the Gaol. She uses Saturday's marid powers to wish everything well again, just before her time in Fairyland runs out—until the next spring, when she is bound by law to return.

Silence

Becca Fitzpatrick

When silence is all that's left, can the truth finally be heard? Nora can't remember the past five months of her life. After the initial shock of waking up in a cemetery and being told that she has been missing for twelve weeks-with no one knowing where she was or who she was with-she tries to get her life back on track. Go to school, hang out with her best friend Vee, and dodge her moms creepy new boyfriend. But there is a voice in the back of her head, an idea that she can almost reach out and touch. Visions of angel wings and unearthly creatures that have nothing to do with the life she knows. And the unshakeable feeling that a part of her is missing. Then Nora crosses paths with a sexy stranger, whom she feels a mesmerising connection to. He seems to hold all the answers...and her heart. Every minute she spends with him grows more and more intense until she realises she could be falling in love. Again. The noise between Patch and Nora is gone. They’ve overcome the secrets riddled in Patch’s dark past bridged two irreconcilable worlds faced heart wrenching tests of betrayal, loyalty and trust and all for a love that will transcend the boundary between heaven and earth. Armed with nothing but their absolute faith in one another, Patch and Nora enter a desperate fight to stop a villain who holds the power to shatter everything they’ve worked for and their love forever.

The Fault in Our Stars

John Green

Narrator Hazel Grace Lancaster, a sixteen-year-old girl with terminal cancer, was pulled out of school at thirteen and rarely socializes with people her age. After being diagnosed with clinical depression, she joins a support group for children with cancer where she meets Augustus Waters, a seventeen-year-old boy in remission from osteosarcoma. Hazel introduces Augustus to her favorite novel, the fictional Peter Van Houten's An Imperial Affliction, about another girl with cancer who nevertheless lives a good life—until the novel ends mid-sentence. Hazel's attempts to contact Van Houten have always been futile, but Augustus—who also takes interest in the novel—contacts Van Houten via email. The author promises to answer any questions about the book if the two come to Amsterdam. Augustus uses a "Wish" he received because of his previous poor health to take Hazel and her mother to Amsterdam. Van Houten presents himself as a rude alcoholic. Hazel finds his comments and demeanor troubling, and leaves Van Houten's home, followed by his assistant, who quits out of anger. The group then visits Anne Frank's house, where Augustus and Hazel share a passionate kiss. They decide to go back to Augustus's hotel room, where they sleep together. Soon after this, Augustus reveals that he recently had a PET scan that found new tumors. In the remaining weeks of his life back in Indianapolis, Hazel sees Augustus slowly deteriorating, and begins to break down mentally- lashing out at her parents and avoiding friends. Augustus asks to have a funeral that he can watch, so approximately eight days before his death, Hazel and Isaac, a cancer patient in remission who had both of his eyes removed, share their eulogies with Augustus. When Augustus finally dies, Hazel has expected it for some time, but she is still crushed. At his funeral she does not give the eulogy she gave him previously, deciding that "funerals are for the living". To her bewilderment, she finds that Peter Van Houten has attended Augustus's funeral and, as he tries to reconcile with her, Hazel realizes that he wrote An Imperial Affliction because of his own experiences. She is revealed to be correct, and learns that he lost his daughter to cancer when she was eight years old. Hazel talks to Isaac, and he mentions that Augustus said he was writing something for Hazel, but Isaac did not know what it was. Hazel believes that it was the alternate ending Augustus had promised to write for An Imperial Affliction. She searches his room, her room, and any other place she believes it could be, before finally coming to the conclusion that the piece he wrote was not for her, but perhaps for Peter. She emails his assistant who promises to look for it, and subsequently Hazel learns through an email that the missing pages of Augustus's notebook were actually a eulogy he had written for her, and intended Peter to proofread. At the very end of the novel, Augustus's letter to Van Houten reads, "You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers." To this, Hazel replies, "I do, Augustus, I do."

And the Land Lay Still

James Robertson

The novel’s narrative is shaped around the portfolio of the late photographer Angus Pendreich. His son Michael is involved in the establishment of a new exhibition of his renowned father’s work. The book focuses on the characters presented in these photographs, which span post-war Scotland across geographies and social classes from the homeless to senior politicians. Their disparate stories present a collage that highlights the highs and lows of modern Scottish society.

Voyeurs & Savages

Meynard, during his research on Philippine-American relations, was able to produce historical documents – an assemblage of articles, letters, pamphlets, brochures, e-mails among others. Through these documents, Meynard Aguinaldo was able to "peep" through the lives of other people, whether Filipino or American. Armando Aguinaldo, in turn – in a scene from the novel – secretly watched his nephew Meynard Aguinaldo and the daughter of Cornelius James when the dating couple were copulating inside one of the suites of his beach resort. The ending of the novel presents a scene where Cornelius James and Rowena – the grandfather and the granddaughter – was holding a "storytelling session". The exchange of stories is the bridge that fills the gap between the two people's past and present.

An Embarrassment of Riches

In 1994, to his homeland the Victorianas because of his father's death. Ong intends to uncover the identities of his father's murderers. In addition to this circumstance, Tantivo was also summoned to return to Victorianas by his old friend Jennifer "JaySy" Suarez. Suarez – a middle aged woman belonging to the 20 to 30 year-old generation - wants Tantivo to manage her presidential campaign, timed after the demise of General Azurin, the dictatorial leader of Victorianas. Suarez is a politician with Maoist inclinations. Suarez won but her political rule was brief. On one hand, Brother Mike Verano, a charismatic preacher and healer, leads the Victorianas Moral Restoration Army using violence for the cause of morality. Then, Alfonso Ong – a wealthy, shrewd and shady character – builds his alternative city of the future on an island off the coast of Victorianas. The novel ends with Tantivo leaving Victorianas – going back in exile – but with a renewed sense and sagacity after the altercations and travails he experienced in the island nation. During Tantivo's stay in the Victoriana's, he found out that Jennifer Suarez is his half sister, and that his real father is Alfonso Ong. Tantivo left the Victorianas with Jennifer Suarez, leaving their beloved nation in political, socio-economic, and religious turmoil.

Death by China

Navarro and Autry describe the cyberattacks on the United States emanating from China as the dawn of a 'new cold cyberwar'.

Double Dexter

Jeff Lindsay

The book begins with Dexter being observed in the act of dismembering a pedophile by an unknown witness who evades Dexter's attempt to apprehend them. Meanwhile, an undercover cop is found in the front seat of his car, every bone in his body broken. Dexter's sister, Deb, begs Dexter to help her solve the case. Dexter, at this point, is unable to help. There is a taco wrapper found near the body. Another police officer is found in front of a fountain near the water. He is also significantly pulverized. Rita, in the interim, has started drinking wine and is suspicious of Dexter heading out every night. He says he is running, when in actuality, he is searching for the person who witnessed his playtime. Dexter has also been contacted through a blog by the person who is watching him. The Shadow, as Dexter calls him, tells Dexter that he knows who he is, and he will be killed in a horrible fashion soon enough. Debra catches the cop-killer and arrests him. Later, Camilla Figg, who works with Dexter in Miami Metro and has a crush on Dexter, is murdered in a fashion similar to the police officers. This is the Shadow, trying to set up Dexter, which he admits to in his blog to Dexter. Dexter is the prime suspect, and Rita accuses him of sleeping with her. Dexter asks his brother Brian to intervene, and Brian, unbeknownst to him, kills the wrong man. Eventually, the Shadow follows Dexter to Key West, where he proceeds to kill another police officer and leave him in Dexter's suite. The Shadow takes Astor and Cody to an island to set a trap for Dexter. But Dexter gets to the island first and confronts the Shadow. The Shadow runs with Astor in his arms onto a boat and sets off with Dexter managing to barely get on the boat as well. A fight ensues and Astor and Dexter eventually subdue the Shadow, tossing him overboard where he is eaten by a shark. Deb meets Dexter back in Key West, and everything is set to order. fr:Double Dexter it:Doppio Dexter pt:Double Dexter

Pools of Darkness

Jim Ward

The city of Phlan has vanished, and its citizens defend themselves from the minions of Bane. Adventurers Ren, Shal, and Tarl band together with the sorceress Evaine to stop them.

Solstice Wood

Patricia A. McKillip

As a bookseller in California, Sylva Lynn has a comfortable life away from her family. But after receiving word that her grandfather has died, she reluctantly returns to New York for the funeral. When the old magic protecting their house from the fay fails, Sylva's cousin is kidnapped and replaced with a changeling. Like her relative the courageous Rois Melior, the hero of Winter Rose, it is only Sylva, who is part fairy herself, who is able to cross the border into the other realm to rescue him and return peace to their ancestral home

Harimau! Harimau!

Mochtar Lubis

Seven dammar collectors from Air Jernih village, Pak Haji, Sutan, Sanip, Talib, Buyung, and Pak Balam, venture into the forests of Sumatra, led by the dukun Wak Katok. However, upon departure Buyung realizes that he has forgotten to check his kancil trap and returns to Wak Katok's. Upon his arrival, he removes the kancil from the trap and goes to a nearby stream to have a drink. At the stream, he meets Wak Hitam's young wife Siti Rubiyah, who is crying. After comforting her and giving her the kancil, they have sex two times. It is Buyung's first time. Buyung later arrives at the camp in the evening, just before maghrib prayers. The following day, the dammar collectors go hunting and shoot a deer. After shooting it, they hear the roar of a tiger. Hurriedly they carve up the dear, then bring it to their next camp. That evening, while defecating, Pak Balam is attacked by a tiger. Although Wak Katok manages to frighten the tiger by firing his rifle, Pak Balam is seriously injured. He tells the others of prophetic dreams he had, and concludes that God is punishing them for their sins. Pak Balam then admits his sins, as well as some of Wak Katok's. Due to his sins being brought to light, Wak Katok begins worrying that the others have lost faith in him. To prevent that, Wak Katok divines that the tiger attacking them is not supernatural or sent by God, much to the other's relief. The next morning, they abandon some of their dammar and continue on their way back to Air Jernih, carrying Pak Balam. Around midday, Talib is attacked while urinating and severely wounded. Although they are able to frighten the tiger away, the dammar collectors are unable to stop Talib from succumbing to his wounds; he dies soon after admitting that he has sinned. Frightened by Talib's fate, Sanip confesses both his sins and Talib's. They establish camp and spend the night uneasily, worried that the tiger will attack. Due to Pak Balam's worsening condition, the next day the dammar collectors are unable to continue their journey. Instead, after burying Talib, Wak Katok, Buyung, and Sanip go to hunt the tiger. After following the tiger's tracks for most of the day, they realize that it has doubled back and is going to their camp. Meanwhile, at camp, Sutan snaps due to Pak Balam's continuous admonition to repent his sins and attempts to strangle him. After being stopped by Pak Haji, Sutan runs away into the forest, where he is attacked by the tiger and killed. Pak Balam also dies from his wounds and is promptly buried. The following morning the remaining dammar collectors leave to hunt the tiger, taking a path through a thicket. They walk for hours, and eventually Pak Haji realizes that they are lost. After Buyung saves his life from a tree viper, Pak Haji confides in him and they decide to watch Wak Katok more closely. Not long after, they confront Wak Katok, saying that he is only making them more lost. Wak Katok snaps, and threatens to shoot Buyung unless he confesses his sins. Buyung is unwilling, and Wak Katok prepares to shoot him. However, they are interrupted by the approach of the tiger. Wak Katok tries to shoot him, but his rifle misfires because the gunpowder had become wet. Using fire, Buyung and the others manage to frighten the tiger away. Sanip tells the others that he saw Wak Katok rape with Siti Rubiyah; Wak Katok counters that he paid her, and she would have sex with anyone willing to give her something. Wak Katok becomes more unstable and tells the others to go into the darkness, threatening to shoot them. Unwilling to face the tiger, Buyung, Pak Haji, and Sanip attempt to ambush Wak Katok. Although they succeed in stopping him and tying him up, Wak Katok shoots Pak Haji in the process. Before he dies, Pak Haji tells Buyung "before you kill the wild tiger, you must kill the tiger within yourself." The following morning Buyung and Sanip bury Pak Haji, then take the bound Wak Katok hunting for the tiger. Although Wak Katok threatens them, they refuse to release him and discard the talismans he gave them. Around midday they find the remains of Sutan, and bury them.

Jalan Tak Ada Ujung

Mochtar Lubis

Guru Isa, a school teacher, lives in constant fear. The Indonesian war for independence is raging, and before that the Japanese occupiers had created terror amongst the populace; his fear is so great that for years he has become unable to have an erection. However, due to his obligations as a school teacher he attends a youth's meeting, where they discuss the revolution. Unable to say no, he is asked to become a courier and deliver letters and weapons within Jakarta. Not long after, Guru Isa meets a young guerrilla named Hazil. Due to their mutual interest in music, the two become friends and Guru Isa begins to feel more relaxed. As they work together for the revolution, Guru Isa becomes uneasier. Not long after delivering weapons outside of Jakarta, Guru Isa falls ill with malaria. Hazil assists Guru Isa's wife, Fatimah, with his care. Eventually, Guru Isa is able to leave the house and teach again. However, during this period Fatimah, disappointed by Guru Isa's impotence, begins having an affair with Hazil. Guru Isa learns of this after finding Hazil's smoking pipe under a pillow in the bedroom and becomes furious, but is unable to confront Fatimah or Hazil. Instead, he distances himself further from everyone and becomes even less self-confident. A while later, Guru Isa and Hazil are tasked with throwing a grenade at a crowd of soldiers dispersing from a movie theatre. Although they succeed in their mission, not long afterwards Hazil is captured. Although Guru Isa initially intends to leave Jakarta, he decides to face the consequences for what he has done. After being captured by the Dutch forces and staying silent through torture, Guru Isa meets with Hazil in the prison and learns that he had confessed "after just a slap to the head". Overcoming his fear and regaining his self-confidence, Guru Isa is able to have an erection again.

Senja di Jakarta

Mochtar Lubis

Raden Kaslan, a member of the Indonesia Party, is told by the party leader Husin Limbara to raise funds for the next election. To do so, Kaslan creates fake companies to handle licensing the import of goods with his second wife Fatma, son Suryono and himself as directors. Through this fraud, they raise much money for themselves and the party. At his father's urging, Suryono quits his job at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and soon becomes rich. He also becomes very promiscuous, having sex with high-class prostitutes, married women, and his own stepmother. Meanwhile, honest government workers like Idrus are unable to compete. Idrus receives little compensation, and his materialistic wife Dahlia is having an affair with Suryono. The wong cilik, including prostitute Neneng, coachman Pak Ijo, and garbagemen Saimun and Itam live in hunger, ignored by the upper class. Despite the inequality, academics and cultural observers do nothing but discuss the social woes; they never take action. Eventually, opposition newspapers uncover the corruption and fake companies used by the Indonesia Party. This causes the president to disband the cabinet and some members of the Indonesia Party to join the opposition. Raden Kaslan is arrested, while Suryono and Fatma get into a car accident while trying to escape; Suryono dies of his wounds. Despite the fall of the Indonesia Party, the poor still suffer.

Homo sapiens

Stanisław Przybyszewski

The protagonist is a writer, Erik Falk, an émigré from Congress Poland, residing in bohemian Berlin of the early 1890s. The plot of the first novel, Uber Bord, revolves around his attempt to steal a fiancée of a friend. In the second novel, Unterwegs, Falk attempts to seduce a pious sixteen-year-old. In the last novel, Im Maelstrom, Falk has to balance his official family and a mistress, both with his children. He also becomes increasingly involved with radical socialist and anarchist circles.

The Tower at Stony Wood

Patricia A. McKillip

At the wedding of King Regis Aurum of Yves to Lady Gwynne, knight Cyan Dag of Gloinmere learns a terrible secret: his king is marrying an imposter, and the real Lady Gwynne is imprisoned within a tower in the magical land of Skye. As Cyan Dag begins his quest to free her, Thayne Ysse, the son of the defeated king of Ysse, sets of on his own search. To rebuild Ysse's army, Thayne searches for a tower of gold guarded by a dragon. In a third tower near the village of Stony Wood oblivious to her family's concern, Melanthos watches and embroiders a woman ensconced in her own tower. Cyan, Thayne, and Melanthos lives entangle and weave together, and it is only through helping each other that they are able to free themselves.

Desperate Characters

Paula Fox

Sophie and Otto Bentwood are a middle-aged, middle class, childless Brooklyn Heights couple trapped in a loveless marriage. He is an attorney, she a translator of books. Their existence is affected not only by their disintegrating relationship but by the threats of urban crime and vandalism that surround them everywhere they turn, leaving them feeling paranoid, scared, and desperately helpless. The film details their fragile emotional and psychological states as they interact with each other and their friends.

Get Rich Click

Marc Ostrofsky

Get Rich Click! is a comprehensive source of information from one of the world's most successful Internet entrepreneurs. It differs from other "make money online" books by not offering a system or one specific path to riches. The author draws on his business background to explain the internet as a new medium for business. His research looked at the internet as a whole and attempts to distill the infinite internet business models into different internet industries. The book follows this research logically by devoting chapters to different internet industries (e-commerce, search, advertising, affiliate marketing, domain names, social media, and others). In addition to research, the book is interspersed with case studies from successful internet entrepreneurs in many of the aforementioned internet industries. In an effort to bridge the virtual and physical world, the majority of these case studies contain QR codes which take a reader to a video interview with the people featured in the case studies. Furthermore, each chapter contains Marc’s new ideas and thoughts on how to profit in any particular internet industry. Several themes are consistently presented through the book: "Learn More, Earn More"™ is seen throughout the book as a reference to the critical task of continuous learning in the internet’s ever changing landscape. "Know your strengths, hire your weaknesses" also appears throughout the book. In typical context it is urging the reader to focus on his/her core competencies while leveraging outsourced talents to handle the rest.

A Beautiful Friendship

David Weber

In the early 37th century, the Harrington family moves from the planet Meyerdahl to the newly founded Star Kingdom of Manticore. Their eleven-year-old daughter, Stephanie, is unhappy with this change as their new home, the planet Sphinx, seems to have little to offer. However, she changes her mind when the hunt for an unknown force that keeps stealing celery from the colonists' greenhouses leads her to an encounter with a new sentient species: a treecat, a six-limbed arboreal mammal going (unknown to Stephanie) by the name of Climbs Quickly. The two young beings instantly share a telepathic connection that future generations will come to call "bonding". This empathic linking is involuntary and nearly instantaneous, like love at first sight. Soon, the two unlikely companions have to face off against a number of enemies, as the people of Sphinx begin to realize – sometimes unwillingly – that they will have to share their new home with another intelligent race that was here first. :Note: Another plot summary can be seen in the Teacher's Study Guide that Baen has produced.

Finn the Half-Great

The story takes place in Ireland and revolves around the story of Fionn mac Cumhaill, commonly known as Finn McCool in Irish folklore. It also includes elements from Norse, Japanese and English mythology.

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin

Erik Larson

The book covers the career of the American Ambassador to Germany, William Dodd, particularly the years 1933 to 1937 when he and his family, including his daughter Martha, lived in Berlin. The Ambassador, who earned his Ph.D. in Leipzig 40 years earlier, was initially sympathetic to Germany's new Nazi government and believed reports of brutality and anti-semitism to be exaggerated. Martha, separated from her husband and in the process of divorce, became caught up in the glamor and excitement of Hitler's Germany and had a series of liaisons, possibly sexual, including among them Gestapo head Rudolf Diels and Soviet attache (and secret NKVD agent) Boris Vinogradov. She defended the regime to her sceptical friends. Within months of their arrival, the family became aware of the evils of the Nazi party. Dodd periodically protested against it. President Roosevelt was pleased with his performance while State Department officials found him undiplomatic and idiosyncratic. The title of the work is a loose translation of Tiergarten, a park in the center of Berlin.

Asylum

Patrick McGrath

A beautiful woman, Stella Raphael, lives an unimaginative family life: she runs the household and takes care of her son Charlie while her husband Max works as a deputy superintendent at a maximum security psychiatric hospital. This all changes when she becomes romantically involved with Edgar Stark, an artistic talented patient who restores the old Victorian conservatory. Edgar is committed for the violent murder of his wife but this does not influence Stella's feelings. Then Edgar escapes from the institution wearing Max's clothes and takes a hiding in a shabby building in London which he uses as an atelier. Stella's love for him grows stronger and while in London for "shopping" she manages to get back in contact with Edgar via his artist friend Nick. Her visits become more and more frequent and it starts to become suspicious so she decides to leave her family permanently. The asylum wants to keep this potentially scandalous situation out of the papers but informs the police. At first Stella enjoys the underground art life but Edgar starts to become violent and jealous as he sculpts a rather morbid bust of her head. He thinks she wants to go back to Max and fears being poisoned by her. So Stella, realizing the danger, finds shelter at Nick's place but she has to flee again as Edgar tries to locate her. As she feels her love again, she returns to Edgar's atelier where she gets arrested by the police who have lost track of Edgar. Stella reunites with her family. Max is fired from the asylum due to the affair, so they move to the Welsh countryside where Max can work for another mental hospital. She now has to gain the trust of her son and Max, but she doesn't make much of an effort as she is still in love with Edgar despite his disturbing behaviour. As the family gets more depressed Stella has simple sex with her neighbour to pass the time waiting for her lover to find her. Her hope for reunion with Edgar is strengthened when he is arrested by the police near their house. During a school trip with her son she fails to help him as he drowns in a swamp. She is found guilty of infanticide and institutionalised at the asylum where Max used to work. The asylum is now run by Peter Cleave, who wants to help her cure from her Medea complex their friendship to evolve into a marriage. She seems to agree, but Peter doesn't take into account that her love for Edgar - also in the hospital in solitary - still reigns. Stella commits suicide using the pills she didn't swallow as she can't be somebody else's lover. Peter keeps the head sculpture in black bronze of Stella that Edgar made in his desk's drawer.

An Evening of Long Goodbyes

Paul Murray

An Evening of Long Goodbyes is about a 24-year old wealthy layabout who prefers to watch Gene Tierney movies in his chaise longue, with a gimlet in hand, rather than go out and find a job. Charles Hythloday is a Trinity College dropout living with his sister, Christabel ("Bel"), in their parents' mansion, Amaurot (named after the capital city of More's Utopia). There are only two things that Charles loves more than the film actress, Gene Tierney; his home and his struggling actress sister. While Charles loves his childhood home, Bel notices it makes people become phony, and wants out of the mansion. Charles argues that his time is well spent building a folly in the back garden and perfecting sprezzatura, the art of acting like a gentleman while making it appear like one is doing nothing at all. Charles dreams of a return to a time when men wear top coats and women have white gloves. But the fantasy ends when the bills pile up and the bank threatens to repossess the house. Charles devises a plan to blow up the folly, fake his death, use the insurance money to save Amaurot and move to South America. His plans go awry when he finds out that his Bosnian maid, Mrs P, has her children living in the folly. The folly explodes and a large stone gargoyle falls on Charles's head, putting him into a coma for a few weeks. He dreams of living in Chile with W. B. Yeats, where they spend their time perfecting sprezzatura, drinking gimlets, wearing sombreros, and tending the vineyard. Eventually, Charles is forced to work in a Latvian factory. In his spare time, Charles pens a play entitled There's Bosnians in my Attic! A Tragedy in Five Acts. The Latvian factory suddenly upgrades, swindles its employees out of their wages, leaving Charlie and hundreds of immigrants jobless. In order to make some fast cash, Charles lays down all his winnings on the local underdog, An Evening of Long Goodbyes, who narrowly wins the race despite being severely injured in the process. Affected by the little dog's plight, Charles decides to give him to Bel to smooth their rift. Charles is shocked to learn that Bel is planning a trip to Chekhov's home town in Russia to study The Cherry Orchard, her favorite play. The next morning, however, Bel drives her car into a wall at full speed, smashing through the windshield and flying into the sea. The circumstances surrounding her death are strange and mysterious, and life for everyone in the house falls into disarray. Charles takes a night job, sweeping the floor of a factory. He has begun writing a novel describing his fall from wealth, and that he likes his new life, in a way. One night, he finds Bel's mobile phone and receives a mysterious call from her. She says that she might come back to him one day, and Charles ends his story walking out into his decayed Ireland, bleakly anticipating her return.

The Painted Garden

Noel Streatfeild

Crabby Jane Winter is furious when her family plans to spend the winter in California, leaving her dog in London. However, her father really needs a holiday to get over his writer's block. In California, Jane meets a movie producer who realises that her disposition makes her perfect to play Mary in a film version of The Secret Garden. The novel shows the process of filmmaking from a child actor's perspective.

Vertical

Rex Pickett

The continuing story of the characters from Sideways, Miles and Jack, and takes place seven years after the original novel. It is set in Oregon wine country. Miles, who has found success with a novel that has been turned into a movie, is invited to be master of ceremonies at the International Pinot Noir festival in the Willamette Valley in Oregon. He takes advantage of the opportunity to go on a road trip to drive his mother (who, after a stroke that put her in a wheelchair, was forced to move to an assisted-living home) to her sister in Wisconsin. Jack's life has gone to pots, his marriage has ended, and he joins the road trip, along with a Filipina caretaker (and the mother's dog).

The Bourne Dominion

Eric Van Lustbader

:For a more detailed background of the main character, see Jason Bourne. Jason Bourne is searching for an elusive cadre of terrorists planning to destroy America's most strategic natural resources-and needs the help of his longtime friend, General Boris Karpov. Karpov, the newly appointed head of Russia's most feared spy agency, FSB-2, is one of the most determined, honorable, and justice-hungry men that Bourne knows. But Karpov has made a deal with the devil. In order to remain the head of FSB-2, he must hunt down and kill Bourne. Now, these two trusted friends are on a deadly collision course. From the Colombian highlands to Munich, Cadiz, and Damascus, the clock is counting down to a disaster that will cripple America's economic and military future. Only Bourne and Karpov have a chance to avert the catastrophe-but if they destroy each other first, that chance will be gone forever.

On Canaan's Side

Sebastian Barry

The novel is narrated by the 89 year old Lily Bere, the sister of the character Willy Dunne from A Long Long Way and the daughter of the character Thomas Dunne from The Steward of Christendom, as she looks back on her life, having lived through the Irish War of Independence and escaped to Chicago with her boyfriend Tadg Bere.

Jamrach's Menagerie

Carol Birch

At the age of eight, Jaffy Brown encounters a tiger escaped from the menagerie of Charles Jamrach, wandering about London's East End. Taken up in the tiger's jaws, he is rescued by Jamrach himself, who then offers Jaffy a job. Jaffy loves working at the menagerie and becomes friends with another employee, Tim Linver. He falls in love with Tim's sister and the three of them grow up together on the streets of London. Several years later, when Jaffy is sixteen, he and Tim are dispatched by Jamrach to the Dutch East Indies, aboard a whaling ship. Under the charge of Jamrach's seasoned field agent, Dan Rymer, they have been sent to capture a "dragon" for the menagerie. The crew successfully capture the dragon, but on the return voyage it is set loose by Skip, one of the ship's mad crewmen, and after it bites a crew member they are forced to drive it overboard. Later the vessel is struck by a waterspout and sunk, leaving only a dozen men alive, stranded in the Pacific Ocean in two whaleboats. The two boats make for the coast of Chile, and as the crew gradually begin to die of starvation, thirst and exposure, they resort to cannibalism. Eventually only Jaffy, Tim, Skip and Dan are left alive, and they draw straws to see who will be killed and eaten. Tim draws the short straw, and Jaffy kills him, an act which will haunt him for the rest of his life. Eventually Skip also dies, and by the time Dan and Jaffy arrive in Chile they are half-dead with exhaustion and half-mad from grief and anguish. In the book's coda, Jaffy returns home, faces Tim's family, and goes through a long period of depression and ennui. He eventually returns to life as a sailor, and in his retirement constructs a bird menagerie of his own.

Switched

Amanda Hocking

The story begins with a prologue entitled "Eleven Years Ago", in which Wendy recounts her sixth birthday party. She expresses contempt at the gifts of fragile porcelain dolls she does not want. She throws a tantrum at seeing her mother has bought her a chocolate birthday cake, to which her mother asks what sort of child she is. Wendy's mother claims she is not her daughter, and attempts to take her life with the knife she had been using to cut the cake. In the modern day, we see Wendy as a troubled young woman who struggles in school and has forced her brother, Matt, and aunt, Maggie, to uproot their lives and move away when she is expelled from school yet again. She soliloquises that she has a power of persuasion and thus demonstrates on a threatening teacher. She approaches the mysterious and fellow new-student Finn Holmes after class and asks why he always stares blankly at her. Finn conforms her host mothers threats and says she has to come back to forening she refuses until 2 enemy tribe called vittra attack her, finn comes in and saves her taking her back to forening . There, Wendy meets her real mother, Elora, who informs her that she is actually the princess of the tribe, and is the highest rung of society. She meets Rhys and Rhiannon, both something the Trylle call "mänsklig". Whilst wandering the halls of the Palace, Wendy breaks into a locked room stocked with many undisplayed photos. She recognizes in one of them a sad Elora with a male baby, then realizes one contains herself, wearing a white gown and an injured leg, an horrified expression on her face. Finn discovers her and tells her that Elora's Trylle power consists of precognition that she can only utilise through painting. Finn tells her of the societal rules of the Trylle; whilst the Princess, Queens and Marksinna (nobles) are the highest, the Trackers and mänsklig are considered even lower than the peasantry. Finn reveals that Elora and his father had once had an affair, to which Wendy expresses disbelief that Elora could show an emotion other than anger. Finn begins to tutor her in the history and etiquette of the Trylle so that Wendy can properly handle her future role as Queen and not embarrass Elora. He warns Wendy that she cannot become involved with Rhys past a platonic level as it would "corrupt" the bloodline of the royalty, and the strong powers held by the royals would cease to exist. Finn reveals that the mänsklig are the children taken in place of the changelings, that live with the family who swap the children, and Rhys is the mänsklig left in Wendy's place. An introductory ball is scheduled to be held in Wendy's honour which Finn prepares her for. Elora tells Wendy that she will be choosing a more appropriate name for her Trylle life. Wendy says that she does not want to and will not, much to Elora's annoyance. Elora speaks with Finn and he resigns. Wendy finds him before he goes and the two share a kiss. Finn says that he cannot allow her to proceed. The next night at Wendy's ball, the Vittra attack, forcing the Trylle that possess helpful powers to retaliate. Jen, the member who had previously injured Wendy when trying to kidnap her, rounds on her. Rhys attempts to help her escape but is knocked unconscious. Finn returns, almost losing his life to aid the princess. Tove, a young Markis, uses psychokinesis to save Finn's life and successfully get rid of Jen. Elora and the Trylle inside the ballroom manage to quell the Vittra threat and the three return inside. Finn and Wendy reunite, until Elora informs Wendy that Finn has left, having been transferred once more. Wendy reacts angrily and uses her persuasive powers on Rhys to get him to drive her home to Matt and Maggie, his biological family.

The Marriage Plot

Jeffrey Eugenides

The story concerns three college friends from Brown University—Madeleine, Leonard, and Mitchell—beginning in their senior year, 1982, and follows them during their first year post-graduation.

The Ice Princess

Camilla Läckberg

The droplets of H20 have turned to icy crystalline in her hair. Her lower torso is frozen solid, forever in the bathtub of ice-so begins The Ice Princess. Genius is suffering-the characters that we all take for granted did not come easy; In Camilla’s initial synopsis for her first novel, Detective Inspector Mellberg was described thus: “Particularly unpleasant and incompetent". Erica Falck has returned to her family home in Fjällbacka after her parents demise-she is sorting through the effects whilst trying to work on a biography of Selma Lagerlöf, a Swedish author-the first female writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. This barely registers either in the plot or in Erica's cold-heart beyond an occasional tear - a walloping deus ex machina-but she continues nonetheless. Police tests show that the young woman’s demise occurred long before she was propped in the tub so that the liquid would freeze around her as the temperature dropped far below freezing inside her apartment( A Swedish domicile without central-heating would quickly lose heat in such a subzero climate (-29 max) being by the coast would lower the temperature even faster). In this particular fiction, exactly when the furnace became out-of-order is a timely hubris to the alleged suicide. At the prompting of Alex's parents Erica embarks on a writing project about their daughter but Erica's serious breakthrough comes when she meets a police officer who is also investigating the mystery; together the two uncover secrets that many in the town would prefer never came to light. Erica and Patrik’s fascination gives way to deep obsession—and their dalliance grows into uncontrollable magnetism. Erica visualizes a memoir about the beautiful but tragic Alex, one that will answer questions about their missing friendship.

The Russian Concubine

The story begins in 1917 when a five-year-old Lydia Ivanova Friis and her Russian mother Valentina Ivanova escape from Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution after her Danish father Jens Friis was arrested by the police, they are later reunited fleeing the Bolsheviks, where it is then believed that Jens was killed at their hands. Eleven years later in 1928, Junchow, China, Lydia is sixteen and works as a thief with the help of Mr Liu, a pawnbroker, to support her mother. During one of Lydia's escapades where she finds herself in trouble, she is saved by a Chinese teenager named Chang An Lo. An Lo is a freedom fighter and a Communist rebel. He eventually becomes romantically involved with Lydia after she saves his life when he defends her honour. They begin to face trouble when Lydia is kidnapped and tortured by a member of the Black Snakes, who happens to hold a grudge against Chang An Lo. She is later rescued by Alexei Serov, who happens to be her half-brother.

The Beginning of Infinity

David Deutsch

Deutsch views the enlightenment of the 18th century as near the beginning of an infinite sequence of purposeful knowledge creation. Knowledge here consists of information with good explanatory function that has proven resistant to falsification. Any real process physically possible is able to be performed provided the knowledge to do so has been acquired. The enlightenment set up the conditions for knowledge creation which disrupted the static societies that previously existed. These conditions are the valuing of creativity and the free and open debate that exposed ideas to criticism to reveal those good explanatory ideas that naturally resist being falsified due to their having basis in reality. Deutsch points to previous moments in history, such as Renaissance Florence and Plato's Academy in Golden age Athens, where this process almost got underway before succumbing to their static societies' resistance to change. The source of intelligence is more complicated than brute computational power, Deutsch conjectures, and he points to the lack of progress in Turing test AI programs in the six decades since the Turing test was first proposed. What matters for knowledge creation, Deutsch says, is creativity. New ideas that provide good explanations for phenomena require outside-the-box thinking as the unknown is not easily predicted from past experience. To test this Deutsch suggests an AI behavioural evolution program for robot locomotion should be fed random numbers to see if knowledge spontaneously arises without inadvertent contamination from a human programmer's creative input. If it did Deutsch would concede that intelligence is not as difficult a problem as he currently thinks it is. Deutsch sees quantum superpositions as evidence for his many worlds quantum multiverse, where everything physically possible occurs in an infinite branching of alternate histories. Deutsch argues that a great deal of fiction is close to a fact somewhere in the multiverse. Deutsch extols the usefulness of the concept of fungibility in quantum transactions, his universes and the particles they contain are fungible in their interactions across the multiverse structure. Deutsch explains that interference offers evidence for this multiverse phenomenon where alternate histories affect one another without allowing the passage of information, as they fungibly intertwine again shortly after experiencing alternate events. According to Deutsch, our perspective on any object we detect with our senses is just a single universe slice of a much larger quantum multiverse object. Deutsch speculates on the process of human-culture development from a genetic basis through to a memetic emergence. This emergence led to the creation of static societies where innovation occurs, but most of the time at a rate too slow for individuals to notice during their life times. It was only at the point where knowledge of how to purposefully create new knowledge through good explanations was acquired that the beginning of infinity took off during the enlightenment. His explanation for human creativity is that it evolved as a way to faithfully reproduce existing memes, as this would require creative intelligence to produce a refined rule set that would more faithfully reproduce the existing memes that happened to confer benefit (and all the other memes too). From this increased creative ability, the ability to create new memes emerged and humans thus became universal constructors and technological development accelerated. Deutsch criticizes Jared Diamond's resource luck theories as to why the West came to dominate the other continents outlined in his book Guns Germs & Steel. For Deutsch the sustained creation of knowledge could have arisen anywhere and lead to a beginning of infinity, it just happened to arise in Europe first. Deutsch extols the philosophical concept of optimism where although problems are inevitable, solutions will always exist provided the right knowledge is sought out and acquired.

The Power of Six

Pittacus Lore

The story is told by various members of the Garde: Number Four (John Smith), who is on the run with Sam, Six, and Bernie Kosar (aka Hadley, a Lorien Chimæra), and Number Seven (Marina), who's hiding at Santa Teresa, a convent in Spain. While John, Number Six and Sam try to stay ahead of the Mogadorians while searching for the other surviving Loric, Number Seven searches for news of John after his heroic battle at the school that came at the end of I Am Number Four. Marina is introduced in the story right from the start. She lives in a religious community for children in need. Along with her is Adelina and a few friends she has at the school in Santa Teresa, Spain. Marina greatly dislikes the school. After failing to adapt to life on Earth and blend in, Number Seven, Marina, and her Cêpan, Adelina, went to the Santa Teresa convent/orphanage and had been living there for 10 years. Adelina has given up hope of Lorien rising and has tried to adapt to life as a nun. She has hidden Seven's Chest and has all but ignored her. Annoyed by Adelina's attitude, Marina has been searching for the now legendary Number Four in order to unite the Garde, but so far, without any success. At the beginning of the book she is five months away from her eighteenth birthday, when she will be able to leave the orphanage. When a seven-year-old named Ella is brought in Marina instantly becomes good friends with her. Ella helps her find her Chest and Marina drugs Adelina to open it. When she does, they are tracked down by the Mogadorians and barely escape. Adelina finally acknowledges her wrongs and sacrifices herself to save Marina. Marina meets a man named Crayton who explains that Ella is Number Ten, and who is also an Aeternus, having the ability to change her age to that of an age she has already lived. They meet with Six and kill their pursuers. Héctor, a human who is friends with Marina and knows about Lorien, dies in the process. The group of Marina (Seven), Six, Ella, and Crayton resolve to find the other numbers so they can band together. John wakes up in the motel that he arrived in at the end of I Am Number Four with Six and Sam. They attempt to remain unnoticed (as Four is in the FBI Ten Most Wanted List) and replace their license plate with another driver's before driving through Tennessee. In Tennessee, they are pulled over by a policeman who asks them why they are driving with a license plate that belongs to another vehicle. The officer then realizes who they are, and calls in additional help. Six uses her legacy of controlling the elements to create gale force winds that allow them to escape. Four, Six, and Sam head to Florida, where they all begin training. Four speculates that Sam has a crush on Six. At first Sam denies it, but eventually admits that he does. Four knows he has a crush on Six too, but tries to push those feelings away because he wants to love Sarah. Six convinces Four to open his chest. While going through the items in the chest, Four shows Sam the Solar System item. Because Seven touches her transmitter (unaware of what it is), the Solar System morphs into Earth with Santa Teresa displayed by a red dot. Seven is heard screaming at Adelina. Four opens his letter from Henri in private, and learns that not only are the nine Garde members actually going to be the next nine elders, but that Sam may be correct about his father's alien abduction, and that his father was assigned to Four and Henri to teach them Earth's ways. Four shows Sam the letter and Sam begins to cry upon learning about his father's fate. Later that night, Four and Six are both suffering from sleep insomnia and decide to take a walk. Six uses her invisibility legacy to help them remain unseen. They almost share a kiss, but Four pulls away because he refuses to think he has feelings for anyone other than Sarah. When they return home, their house explodes after the Mogadorians learn their location because of Four opening his chest. Sam saves some items and hides in the pool, but a short battle with the Mogadorians ensues where the Mogadorians are defeated, but not before taking Four's chest. Sam, thinking that his father left something for them in Paradise, forces the group to return. They retrieve a stone tablet and some papers, but are unable to decipher their meaning. Four secretly meets up with Sarah. Upon their reunion, they hug and kiss. Sarah briefly checks her phone and John asks who she is texting so late at night. She tells him it's Emily, and they go back to their conversation. Sarah repeatedly tries to persuade Four to turn himself in, but he refuses each time. The FBI shows up and takes Four and Sam as prisoners. Six helps them escape, and Four realizes that Sarah was actually texting the police and not Emily. The group decides to split up after Four and Sam decide that they want to go retrieve Four's chest in West Virginia, Sam only because he hopes to find his father, while Six decides to go to Spain to rescue Seven. When Four and Sam drop Six off at the airport, she kisses Sam on the cheek to say goodbye which makes him blush. Four and Six share a passionate kiss on the lips to say goodbye. Four tells Six that Sam has a crush on her, to which she says that she has a crush on him too. Four, confused, tells her that she thought she liked him, to which she says that since Four loves her and Sarah, it's only fair that she can love Sam and Four. She gives them an address to which they are supposed to rendezvous in two weeks and she departs. Sam puts the address in his pocket, and they head off for West Virginia. Six arrives at Santa Teresa to assist in her battle with Seven, and helps her defeat the Mogadorians. She finds out that a second ship left after the one that carried the other Lorics to Earth, and carried another member of the Garde, Ella, or Number Ten. Six, Seven, Ten, and Crayton, Ten's substitute cêpan, head out to find other members of the Garde. Once at the end of the road in West Virginia, Sam and Four follow a map left by Six until they reach the Mogadorian cave. Four uses a Xlitharis to transfer Six's invisibility legacy to himself, although he will only have the legacy for one hour. Right when the legacy expires, they receive the chest along with another chest (that is later revealed to belong to Nine). Four uses fire to defeat many Mogadorians, and the main power goes out which allows Four and Sam to rescue Nine. Sam is determined to find his father, who he thinks is among the prisoners, and Four and Nine have no other choice but to leave him there after a force field separates them. Four realizes that the rendezvous point address is with Sam, but Nine tells him not to worry and that if the rendezvous is meant to occur, then it will. Four tells him to head north, and they begin driving.

Torn

Amanda Hocking

The start of the book begins almost exactly where the end of Switched left off, with Wendy and Rhys running away from the palace in the Trylle's Förening. The two arrive at the home and Wendy attempts to explain to her "host brother" Matt that Rhys is his brother. He reacts with disbelief yet she tells him that she cannot tell him where she has been or Finn's part in it all.While in the midst of trying to understand what has happened, Matt finds a disliking towards Rhys. Later that night, Finn visits her and attempts to convince her to return to Förening with him. She refuses as another tracker, Duncan, shows up with the same goal. Wendy tells both that she will not return to Förening and they leave. Two Vittra members, Loki and Kyra, attack the house as Finn and Duncan leave and take the three to the Vittra palace to the King, in which Wendy is left badly injured by Kyra.While taken as prisoner by the Vittra, Wendy is severally injured and Matt asks a guard to bring in a doctor to heal her. There (after being healed by a female Vittra), Wendy practises her power of persuasion on Rhys with an unusual side effect. She is taken to the King named Oren who informs her that he is her father and the woman who healed her her step-mother, a result from a prior union with Elora in an attempt to unify the Trylle and the Vittra. Loki allows the three to escape with help from Tove, Duncan and Finn and they return to Förening. At Förening, Wendy begins classes with Tove, the skilled Markis who possesses grand powers of psychokinesis, to strengthen and control her own power. She is also assigned Duncan as a bodyguard. One night, Elora alerts everyone nearby to the appearance of a Vittra on their perimeter. It is revealed to be Loki, and Wendy insists on imprisoning him instead of executing him. Wendy's powers begin to grow stronger as does Matt's relationships with Rhys and young Marksinna Willa. Using her more-controlled powers, Wendy manages to get the location of Finn from Duncan and visits his family home where his mother raises Angora goats and his father is also a tracker. Finn shuns her on the grounds of the prejudice surrounding such a relationship. Wendy confronts her mother about what Oren told her in her stay at the Vittra palace, to which Elora tells Wendy of her past and the arranged marriage between Wendy's father and her. Elora says that her parents thought of it as a good idea, so she did it without question. She tells Wendy that she has arranged her marriage to Tove to which Wendy objects. Elora begins to bleed from her nose and collapses, later informing her that she is dying from her precognition painting. Wendy learns that the powers used by the trolls age and drain them. Wendy eventually accepts the proposal and the two become engaged. Wendy then finds that Loki has escaped now that Elora's hold on him has weakened and he asks her to escape both the Vittra and the Trylle with him, knowing she is not happy. Wendy does not accept and instead turns her time to learn the "dead language" of the Trylle so that she can better help the commune. Finn helps her with this until they experience a brief romantic interlude which Finn's father interrupts. Finn leaves, embarrassed and tells her that duty over love was the best choice for him. The book ends with Tove giving an engagement ring to Wendy and they enter their engagement party together.

Gaffers' Row

The story follows the fortunes of Rhys Morgan and his family from 1924 through the strikes and depression of the 1920s and 1930s and the hostilities of 1939 -1945. The lives of the villagers of Pentre Bach are dominated by the whims of the colliery manager who doubles as the chapel minister and contributes to the hardship of the community by abusing his position to pursue his sexual aspirations. Rhys Morgan is haunted by the death of his sister Moira who died when he was sixteen and because of his self reproach he refuses to discuss it. For the love of his wife Nerys he sets aside many of his idealistic principles, and tries to concentrate on doing the best for his family. Events set the Colliery Manager and Rhys Morgan on a collision course, and as World War II draws to a close the feud has repercussions for the whole Morgan family.

The Texas-Israeli War: 1999

Howard Waldrop

Sol Inglestein is the commander of a tank squadron of Israeli mercenaries fighting for the United States government, promised land for their efforts. Their tanks, Centurions, which Sol designed, are powered by nuclear reactors and armed with Gatling lasers. His squadron is ordered across the Red River into Texas to take part in an assault on the Dalworthington metro area; his mercenaries dance the horah as they wait to cross the river. Encountering only light resistance, they push towards Dallas. Sol leads the column in his tank, the Wrath of Jehovah. Master Sergeant William Brown, a Vietnam veteran commanding an armored car, is part of General Wilson's Union army simultaneously advancing on Dallas from Texarkana. Separated from his column's heavy armor when the Texans dynamite the dam holding back Lake Ray Hubbard, his contingent comes under heavy artillery fire as they near Dallas. With only his car remaining, Brown sights the source of the fire: a Texan heavy cruiser, the Judge Roy Bean, brought up a canal to Dallas. Meanwhile, Sol's tank squadron, alerted by Brown, ambushes and sinks the ship. Sol is then given a new assignment: he will lead a push into the heart of Texas to rescue President Clairewood. Guided by Major Mistra, a Texas National Guard officer who defected to the Union, Sol will lead a column masquerading as Texan mercenary armor. Sol's girlfriend, Myra Kalan, also a tank commander, will separately lead the remaining Centurions south. Splevins, the CIA agent conducting the briefing, warns them that President Mallow's agents may try to sabotage the mission. Shortly thereafter, a squad of soldiers attempts to assassinate Sol and Myra. Sol's brigade, along with Brown, departs for Fort Deaf Smith, a former prison near Crystal City where Clairewood is being held. En route they encounter a band of Indians with the Volkswagen logo painted on their chests. Mistra convinces the Texan units guarding Crystal City that they are Israeli mercenaries fighting on the Texan side, and they are ushered into the Fort to refuel and await new assignment. Myra's tanks follow a parallel route to Sol's. They are nearly struck by a tornado and are attacked by a Texan infantry patrol, who are dispatched by one of the tanks. They arrive in position in the hills above Fort Deaf Smith, but Myra is captured while scouting. Despite playing the innocent she is tortured by the Sons of the Alamo chief at the fort, Kiburn, but is rescued from this mistreatment by the Texan commanding officer, General Fowler. Meanwhile, General Wilson's Union forces have been advancing south towards Houston to draw the Texans away from Crystal City. Increased pressure from Cuban amphibious landings at Galveston and on Padre Island cause the Texan armored brigades to begin hurried preparations to leave Fort Deaf Smith. At this point, Sol's forces strike. Faking a chemical weapons alert, they destroy the few planes remaining to the Texan Air Force and break into the prison where Clairewood and Myra are being held. Kiburn is killed, and as they escape Fowler destroys one of their tanks but he is also killed. Mistra is shot during the escape. As they leave, the mercenaries destroy much of the remaining Texan armor. The column evades further Texan forces and makes its way to Albuquerque, from where Clairewood returns to Pittsburgh, the American capital, unannounced until Mallow encounters him in the President's office. Clairewood celebrates with Sol, Myra, and Brown over bottles of Coca-Cola, no longer manufactured in the United States but now imported from Israel.

Jamayah: Adventures on the Path of Return

T.L. Orcutt

Set against the Aquarian optimism and affluence that dawned the new millennium in 1995 San Diego, Jamayah: Adventures on the Path of Return is a paranormal and mystical adventure marbleized with humor. Baby-boomer Bob Kramer arrives in mid-life crisis with a job loss and recent divorce. Jamayah, an unlikely cosmopolitan guru, mysteriously recruits Bob as an initiate on the Path of Return, a fusion of wisdom traditions tempered toward paranormal mastery and cosmic awareness. The progressively intense challenge is how Bob will reconcile his scientific skepticism in a paranormal and mystical adventure that embraces a strip bar, demands trusting synchronicity in the face of homeless humility, and a past life regression realizing the horrors of war. Three of the four initiations on which the story unfolds, in this first novel of The Path of Return Trilogy, focus on experiencing the optimal possibilities of human awareness: (1), mastering paranormal ability to explore an altogether different universe from the homogenized world view that is anchored in materialistic reality, (2), experiencing humility and trusting intuition and synchronicity, and (3), unattached observation of life in the moment. In the end, Bob returns to ordinary life, but feels detached, alone, and indifferent, a malaise Jamayah reframes as having passed a sacred rite of passage.

The Two Pound Tram

The main story begins in 1937 when brothers Wilfred and Duncan Scrutton run away from their home at Ferring near Worthing on the Sussex coast and travel to London. Wilfred the narrator recounts how they had seen an advert in the Daily Mail which said 'Trams surplus to the requirements of the London Omnibus and Tramcar Company for sale at their depot at Acton, London for £2 each.' They pool their resources and travel to the depot where they are told that trams were indeed for sale but had to be collected and could not be delivered to Sussex. The only candidate was an old horse-drawn tram and they manage to secure a horse called Homer from a retired rag and bone man. Unfortunately the depot had no destination boards for Sussex but they had one for Canterbury for which they set off via the Old Kent Road accompanied by Homer's companion - a dog called Tiger. They gained fare-paying passengers at Harbledown and began a regular if slow service between there and Canterbury, and also acquire a conductor called Hattie. Rival companies eventually force them to move on due to the lack of a PSV operators license and they travel back to Worthing where they gain the support of the wealthy resident of Goring Hall who inspired by their determination funds the purchase and transport of an electric tram from Acton which they renovate and put into service in Worthing town centre. The second half of the novel concerns events during World War II, the brothers volunteering for both the LDV and ARP and Hattie for the VAD.

The Fourth Apprentice

Victoria Holmes

The Fourth Apprentice takes place approximately six moons (months) after the end of Sunrise during greenleaf (summer). The book opens at the monthly full moon Gathering. The four warrior Clans are suffering due to a drought, which has been especially hard on RiverClan, whose main prey are fish. Leopardstar, leader of RiverClan, accuses the other Clans of stealing fish from the shrinking lake. She claims that RiverClan has whole ownership to the lake, and therefore, all that was in it, as her Clans' territory. The other Clans are outraged by this plan, but Firestar allows them to patrol in order to prevent a battle. Dovekit and Ivykit afterward become apprentices with Lionblaze as Dovepaw's mentor and Cinderheart as Ivypaw's. Dovepaw expresses some of her powers by noting how she sees and hears cats from all the way across the lake. Later, Dovepaw speaks of seeing brown animals up the river building a dam out when she was in the forest, but no other cat believes her. Lionblaze speaks to her, and realizing that she is the third cat of the prophecy, although Dovepaw does not take this fact well. Dovepaw's is revealed to be one of the Three and her special power is to see and hear things very far away, like clairvoyance. Dovepaw and Lionblaze tell Firestar that Dovepaw receives a dream from StarClan the animals called beavers are building a dam upstream that blocks the river. Dovepaw receives a dream from Yellowfang, ThunderClan’s old medicine cat, and is told a prophecy: After the sharp-eyed jay and the roaring lion, peace will come on dove's gentle wing. Lionblaze creates a plan to travel up the stream and find a way to unclog it and bring the water back, a journey that would include a patrol from each Clan, and Firestar agrees. All four Clans end up joining the journey, each sending two cats. Lionblaze and Dovepaw are chosen for the trip, and meet up with Toadfoot and Tigerheart of ShadowClan, Whitetail and Sedgewhisker of WindClan, and Rippletail and Petalfur of RiverClan. Ivypaw is immediately jealous and unhappy of that her sister is chosen to go on the journey, and becomes cranky back at the camp. The chosen cats set off on the journey, traveling up the quiet stream-bed until when they encounter a pen of rabbits that are owned by Twolegs, but before they can eat them, three kittypets named Seville, Jigsaw, and Snowdrop confront them. They leave the rabbits eventually, and soon travel up to the beaver's dam. The cats, after first finding the dam, meet a loner named Woody, who seems to refuse to help them, though later on gives in. They plan an attack on the beavers, but the beavers prove too strong, badly wounding the cats and killing Rippletail. Meanwhile, back in ThunderClan, Poppyfrost, heavy with Berrynose's kits, becomes worried that Berrynose does not love her, as he forces her to stay in the nursery, and disappears. Jayfeather follows her to the Moonpool, spotting Breezepelt following her too. Jayfeather attempts to comfort Poppyfrost, but is interrupted when Breezepelt shows himself again, attacking Jayfeather. Breezepelt declares that he will not stop and that the rule of killing a medicine cat no longer affects him. Another cat, unknown to Jayfeather (Brokenstar), aids Breezepelt in the attack, but Honeyfern comes to Jayfeather's rescue and chases them off. She tells Jayfeather that she is proud of Poppyfrost and Berrynose, and that Berrynose truly does love Poppyfrost, and he is only terrified of losing her. Yellowfang then appears and Jayfeather is told that the power of the Dark Forest is rising, and that there will be a war between StarClan and the Dark Forest. StarClan needs a power greater than they are: the three prophecy cats. At the dam, the patrol creates a plan try and get rid of the dam. However the plan needs more cats so Lionblaze and Dovepaw set out to find Seville, Jigsaw, and Snowdrop, the kittypets they met earlier. The kittypets agree and with their help, the dam is successfully unclogged and the Clan cats return to their Clans. Poppyfrost gives birth to her kits, and Jayfeather sees Tigerstar, Hawkfrost and Brokenstar watching over them as if they want to take the kits away. At the conclusion of the novel, Jayfeather tells Lionblaze about Breezepelt's attack towards him, and Lionblaze is shocked. Jayfeather also tells him about the tom that aided Breezepelt, and Lionblaze confesses meeting Tigerstar in his dreams in the past. They realize that Breezepelt must have been recruited by Tigerstar to help fight in the war between StarClan and the Dark Forest. Tigerheart, Lionblaze says, was also seen using a move Tigerstar had taught to him in his nightly visits, and so is also believed to be being trained.

Mardock Scramble

Tow Ubukata

Taking place in a futuristic city called Kamina City, Rune Ballot is a young prostitute who was taken in by the notorious gambler Shell Septinous. One night, Shell abandons Rune and attempts to murder her in an explosion. However, she is rescued and transformed into a cyborg by Dr. Easter. An Artificial intelligence in the form of a Mouse accompanies her to adapt to her new life. Rune is trained to use the advanced technology fitted on her to defend herself against Shell's attempts to have her killed to stop her from testifying against him.

The Fat Years

The novel is set in the near future of 2013, where China has entered a "Golden Age of Ascendancy," while Western nations have stagnated after a second economic crisis in early 2011. Lao Chen, a Hong Kong expatriate and writer living in Beijing, finds himself enjoying the atmosphere of prosperity and contentment. Though suffering from writer's block, he makes a modest living off renting apartments and attends monthly film screenings held at a restaurant owned by his friend Jian Lin (and attended by an insomniac Politburo member named He Dongsheng). Lao gradually find himself pulled into events by his old friend Fang Caodi, who is frantically searching for the missing month of February 2011 (with official records and public memory jumping from January to March), and his former flame Wei Xihong (known as "Little Xi"), a former public security bureau lawyer who now acts as an Internet activist. Lao's feelings of contentment begin to vanish as he listens to Wei and Fang's partial recollections of February 2011 and discovers that any available literature about the Cultural Revolution and political issues of the 1980s (including the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989) are either highly sanitized or unavailable. Lao and Fang eventually follow Wei to the township of Warm Springs, where she is helping a house church negotiate with the local government. After Lao confesses his love to Wei, they return to Beijing. After another film screening at Jian's restaurant, Lao is inadvertently pulled into a kidnapping of He Dongsheng by Fang, Wei, and Zhang Dou (an aspiring guitarist who also recalls February 2011), who are determined to understand the meaning of the missing month. After Dongsheng and the others agree their situation means they will "live or die together" (with Dongsheng's disappearance automatically throwing suspicion onto Lao, but Dongsheng admitting his kidnapping would throw cause suspicion of revealing state secrets), they begin to discuss China's present situation. Dongsheng explains that, with growing challenges to the Communist Party's legitimacy and authority, the decision was made in the midst of the financial crisis to enact his "Action Plan for Ruling the Nation and Pacifying the World." For one week, all government services and forces were forbidden to intervene without express permission, with widespread upheaval and rumor mongering only ending with the reentry of the People's Liberation Army and armed police. The restoration of order and ensuing crackdown helped cement the necessity of the Communist Party in the public mind. Dongsheng further explains that the Chinese government was able to save their economy with intrusive measures such as the conversion of large percentages of national bank savings accounts to expiring vouchers; large-scale deregulation; strengthening property rights; crackdowns on corruption, counterfeit consumer goods, and "misinformation," and price controls (citing those by Walther Rathenau in World War I Germany and in World War II America). This is coupled with a foreign policy calling for a "Chinese Monroe Doctrine," with East Asia developing under Chinese direction; advocating non-interventionist economic cooperation and political stability in Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia; and even signing a non-aggression pact with Japan. Backing up these challenges to American hegemony is a new "first use" nuclear weapons policy. Dongsheng even reveals that the general atmosphere of contentment is due to the controlled addition of the drug MDMA into the public's drinking water and bottled drinks and that the missing month of February 2011 is simply a case of social amnesia. After unsuccessfully arguing with Dongsheng over the benefits of liberal democracy, Fang, Zhang, Wei, and Lao release him and part ways in the early morning.

Collateral Karma

T.L. Orcutt

For ten years, Jamayah, a mysterious mystic from Argentina, has instructed Rickshaw Lubowski (formerly Bob Kramer in Jamayah: Adventures on the Path of Return), wisdom teachings oriented toward paranormal command and cosmic awareness. After completing three initiations along the Path of Return, Rickshaw feels as if he knows everything he needs to know. Collateral Karma opens after Rickshaw has ditched the Path of Return in search of more tangible things - like sex, drugs, occultism, and sorcery. He realizes his vulnerability after becoming the target of a curse cast by an evil leader of a ceremonial cult called The Alliance, a sorcery coterie of the Order of Aldabaoth, who practice ritual sex and black magick. Rickshaw’s descent into the world of sensation and desire has generated collateral karma that incurs freakish nightmares all too real, starting with the obsessively expected death of his new fiancé. Realizing his grave mistake for running around in the playground of the Devil and driven to desperation, Rickshaw attempts to reconnect with his teachings and powers to no avail. Spiritually lost and adrift in a world that spins him out of control, he can only hang on while everything around him begins to crumble. Seeking help wherever he can find it, he meets a blind fortuneteller who seems to know more about his destiny than anyone should and with whom he falls in love. Only when Rickshaw truly believes that he has lost touch with himself and reality does his mentor, Jamayah, appear. Together, they join forces to confront the evil intentions of Aleister, the leader of The Alliance. With the help of two Native American shamans, one a Navaho and the other a Chiricahua Apache, Jamayah and Rickshaw use all their powers to attempt to save not only Rickshaw’s life, but Jamayah’s as well. In the end, Jamayah requires Rickshaw to complete a fourth initiation. Now discovering that Raoul, Jamayah’s son, and Crystal Meadows, Carmela’s daughter, have been on the Path of Return and have already completed this initiation as well, in spite of his common sense, Rickshaw is compelled to undergo the initiation. Called cascading boulders in trance, this initiation is about completely trusting in the universe at the risk of physical death.

The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True

Richard Dawkins

Most chapters begin with quick retellings of historical creation myths that emerged as attempts to explain the origin of particular observed phenomena. These myths are chosen from all across the world including Babylonian, Judeochristian, Aztec, Maori, Ancient Egyptian, Aboriginal, Nordic, Hellenic, Chinese, Japanese, and other traditions. Chapter 9 includes contemporary alien abduction mythology and Chapter 4 omits mythology altogether as Dawkins says that really small phenomena were unknown to primitive peoples prior to the invention of advanced optical magnification equipment, any texts they believed to be divinely inspired having failed to mention such useful knowledge as beyond human experience at the time. Dawkins also revisits his childhood and recalls his initial thoughts on these various phenomena or those thoughts expressed by his young contemporaries. Dawkins gives his critique of many of the myths, such as when he points out that much myth involves some god's symbolic transgressive act performed just once, with Dawkins saying that such one-time acts would be inadequate to explain the mechanism as to why the phenomena continue to happen in unbroken cycles. In the opening chapter Dawkins explains that although mythic narratives and make-believe are fun parts of growing up, reality with its fundamental capacity for beauty is much more magical than anything impossible. The Fairy Godmother from Cinderella cannot magically turn a pumpkin into a carriage outside the bounds of fiction, the reason being that such objects as pumpkins and carriages in reality possess internal organization that is fundamentally complex. A large pumpkin randomly reassembled at the most minute level would be much more likely to result in a featureless pile of ash or sludge than a complex and intricately organized carriage. In the subsequent chapters Dawkins addresses topics that range from his most familiar territory, evolutionary biology and speciation, to physical phenomena such as atomic theory, optics, planetary motion, gravitation, stellar evolution, spectroscopy, and plate tectonics, as well as speculation on exobiology. Dawkins admits his understanding of quantum mechanics is foggy and so declines to delve very far into that topic. Dawkins declares that there was no first person, to make the point that in evolutionary biology the term species is used to demark differences in gene composition over often thousands of generations of separation rather than any one generation to the next. To illustrate this he uses the example of family photographs. If, hypothetically, there existed a complete set of photographs of all one's direct male ancestors arranged in order of birth date (or hatch date) from youngest to oldest stretching back millions of generations, from one generation to the next one would not perceive much difference between any two pictures—looking at a picture of one's grandfather or great-grandfather one is looking at a picture of a human—but if one looked at the picture 185 million generations back one would be looking at a picture of some kind of fish. Dawkins stresses this point by saying the offspring of any sexually reproducing life form is in almost all cases the same species as its parents, with the exception of unviable hybrids such as mules. The last two chapters cover a discussion on chaos and the human psychology behind so-called miracle claims such as the Our Lady of Fátima and Cottingley Fairies examples. Dawkins presents philosopher David Hume's argument that miracle claims should only be seriously accepted if it would be a bigger miracle that the claimant was either lying or mistaken. Dawkins continues, saying miracle claims written down in texts subsequently deemed sacred are not exempt from this standard.

Azab dan Sengsara

Merari Siregar

Amiruddin, the son of a village leader in Sipirok, falls in love with his cousin Mariamin, the daughter of a formerly-rich family. Having been friends since childhood, Amiruddin and Mariamin promise to get engaged once Amiruddin has a job. In order to find a job, Amiruddin goes to Medan; upon finding a job, he sends a letter to his parents, Mariamin, and Mariamin's parents declaring that he wishes to marry her. Although Mariamin is thrilled and both mothers agree, Amiruddin's father Baginda Diatas disagrees with the proposal; Baginda Diatas wishes for his son to marry a woman from an equally rich and respected family. After taking his wife to a dukun (who, as previously arranged, says that Amiruddin will be met with disaster if he marries Mariamin), Baginda Diatas convinces her that Amiruddin should not marry Mariamin. They instead choose another, wealthier, girl from the Siregar marga to be Amiruddin's wife. Baginda Diatas escorts her to Medan to marry Amiruddin, much to Amiruddin's disappointment. Pressured by adat, Amiruddin marries her and tells Mariamin that he cannot be with her; Mariamin is heartbroken. A year later, Mariamin is engaged to Kasibun, a divorcé from Medan. After being brought to Medan, Mariamin discovers that Kasibun has a sexually transmitted disease and attempts to avoid his advances; her attempts are met by torture at Kasibun's hands. The torture becomes worse after Amiruddin visits one day, causing Kasibun to become jealous. Taking advice from Amiruddin, Mariamin reports Kasibun to the police and receives permission to divorce him. Returning to Sipirok, Mariamin dies alone.

The War of the Worlds

H. G. Wells

After ten paragraphs of introductory remarks the narrative opens in an astronomical observatory at Ottershaw where explosions are seen on the surface of the planet Mars, creating much interest in the scientific community. Later a "meteor" lands on Horsell Common, southwest of London, near the narrator's home in Woking, Surrey. He is among the first to discover that the object is an artificial cylinder that opens, disgorging Martians who are "big" and "greyish" with "oil brown skin," "the size, perhaps, of a bear," with "two large dark-coloured eyes," and a lipless "V-shaped mouth surrounded by "Gorgon groups of tentacles." The narrator finds them "at once vital, intense, inhuman, crippled and monstrous." They briefly emerge, have difficulty in coping with the Earth's atmosphere, and rapidly retreat into the cylinder. A human deputation (which includes the astronomer Ogilvy) approaches the cylinder with a white flag, but the Martians incinerate them and others nearby with a heat-ray before beginning to assemble their machinery. The narrator takes his wife to safety in nearby Leatherhead, where she has relatives, and then returns to Woking. He discovers the Martians have assembled towering three-legged "fighting-machines" (Tripods), each armed with a heat-ray and a chemical weapon: the so-called "black smoke". These Tripods wipe out the army units positioned around the crater and attack surrounding communities, moving toward London. Fleeing the scene, the narrator meets a retreating artilleryman, who tells him that another cylinder has landed between Woking and Leatherhead, cutting the narrator off from his wife. The two try to escape via Byfleet, but are separated at the Shepperton to Weybridge Ferry during a Martian attack on Shepperton. One of the Martian fighting machines is brought down in the River Thames by British artillery as the narrator and countless others try to cross the river into Middlesex, while the Martians escape. Our hero is able to float down the Thames toward London in a boat, stopping at Walton. More cylinders are landing across Southern England, and a panicked flight of the population of London begins. This includes the narrator's brother, who flees to the Essex coast after Black Smoke is used to devastate London. The torpedo ram HMS Thunder Child destroys two tripods before being sunk by the Martians, though this allows the ship carrying the narrator's brother and his two female travelling companions to escape to the continent. Shortly after, all organised resistance has ceased, and the Martians roam the shattered landscape unhindered. Red weed, a Martian form of vegetation, spreads with extraordinary rapidity over the landscape wherever there is abundant water. At the beginning of Book Two, the narrator and a curate from Walton take refuge in a ruined building in Sheen. The house is nearly destroyed when another Martian cylinder lands nearby, trapping them in the house for almost two weeks. The curate, traumatised by the invasion, sees in the Martian creatures heralding the advent of the Apocalypse. The narrator's relations with the curate deteriorate, and he eventually knocks him unconscious to prevent his loud ranting, but not before he is heard by a Martian, who captures him with a prehensile tentacle and, the reader is led to believe, drains him of his blood; blood transfusion is the Martians' form of nourishment. The narrator escapes detection by hiding in the coal-cellar. The Martians eventually depart, and the narrator is able to head toward Central London. He once again encounters the artilleryman, who briefly persuades him to cooperate in a grandiose plan to rebuild civilization underground. But after a few hours the narrator perceives the lunacy of this plan and the overall laziness of his companion and abandons the artilleryman to his delusions. Heading into a deserted London, he is at the point of despair and offers his life to the aliens when he discovers that the invaders have died from microbial infections to which they had no immunity, since "there are no bacteria in Mars." The narrator realises with joy that the threat has been vanquished. The narrator suffers a brief breakdown of which he remembers nothing, is nursed back to health, and returns home to find his wife, whom he had given up for dead. The last chapter, entitled "Epilogue," reflects on the significance of the invasion and the "abiding sense of doubt and insecurity" that it has left in the narrator's mind.

The Magician King

Lev Grossman

Bored with ruling the magical realm of Fillory with his co-rulers Eliot, Janet and Julia, the magician king Quentin looks for an adventure to give his life some meaning. He commissions a ship and travels with Julia, his distant and damaged former love interest, to the Outer Island to collect back taxes from the region. Once there, Quentin stumbles across a fairy tale regarding seven golden keys. The search for one of the keys on a nearby island accidentally sends Quentin and Julia back to Earth with seemingly no way to return to Fillory. The attempt to return becomes Quentin and Julia's new, unintended quest. On Earth, Quentin and Julia team up with Josh and his friend Poppy, who try to aid them in their return. Along the way, their journey grows more complicated as they discover an even deeper quest with dire implications for magic users everywhere, and the four magicians are drawn into Fillory to help in the fateful search for the golden keys. Julia's backstory unfolds in parallel to Quentin's current adventures. Starting with her failed entrance exam to Brakebills, the elite magical college Quentin attended, Julia founders in depression, desperately seeking anything that can bring magic back into her life. After years of painstaking research and working her way up the hierarchy of a secret society of hedge witches, Julia eventually attains enough magical skill to catch the eye of an elite group of genius-level magicians who practice magic outside the closed world of the magical colleges. The group becomes like a family to her and trains her further in the magical arts. Things go awry, however, when the group decides on a powerful summoning in an attempt to further their magical learning, and the subsequent events leave Julia transformed.

Sitti Nurbaya

Marah Roesli

In Padang in the early 20th century Dutch East Indies, Samsulbahri and Sitti Nurbaya–children of rich noblemen Sutan Mahmud Syah and Baginda Sulaiman–are teenage neighbours, classmates, and childhood friends. They begin to fall in love, but they are only able to admit it after Samsu tells Nurbaya that he will be going to Batavia (Jakarta) to study. After spending the afternoon at a nearby hillside, Samsu and Nurbaya kiss on her front porch. When they are caught by Nurbaya's father and the neighbours, Samsu is chased out of Padang and goes to Batavia. Meanwhile, Datuk Meringgih, jealous of Sulaiman's wealth and worried about the business competition, plans to bankrupt him. Meringgih's men destroy Sulaiman's holdings, driving him to bankruptcy and forcing him to borrow money from Meringgih. When Meringgih tries to collect, Nurbaya offers to become his wife if he will forgive her father's debt; Datuk Meringgih accepts. Writing to Samsu, Nurbaya tells him that they can never be together. However, after surviving Meringgih's increasingly violent outbursts, she runs away to Batavia to be with Samsu. They fall in love again. Upon receiving a letter regarding her father's death, Nurbaya hurries back to Padang, where she dies after unwittingly eating a cake poisoned by Meringgih's men on his orders. Receiving news of her death by letter, Samsu seemingly commits suicide. Ten years later, Meringgih leads an uprising against the Dutch colonial government to protest a recent tax increase. During the uprising, Samsu (now a soldier for the Dutch) meets Meringgih and kills him, but is mortally wounded himself. After meeting with his father and asking for forgiveness, he dies and is buried next to Nurbaya.

In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays

Bertrand Russell

The following is the summary provided by Bertrand Russell in the preface of the book: "This book contains essays on such aspects of social questions as tend to be ignored in the clash of politics. It emphasizes the dangers of too much organization in the realm of thought and too much strenuousness in action. It explains why I cannot agree with either Communism or Fascism, and wherein I dissent from what both have in common. It maintains that the importance of knowledge consists not only in its direct practical utility but also in the fact that it promotes a widely contemplative habit of mind; on this ground, utility is to be found in much of the knowledge that is nowadays labelled 'useless.' There is a discussion of the connection of architecture with various social questions, more particularly the welfare of young children and the position of women. "Passing further away from politics, the volume, after discussing the characteristics of Western civilization and the chances of the human race being vanquished by insects, concludes with a discussion of the nature of the soul. The general thesis which binds the essays together is that the world is suffering from intolerance and bigotry, and from the belief that vigorous action is admirable even when misguided; whereas what is needed in our very complex modern society is calm consideration, with readiness to call dogmas in question and freedom of mind to do justice to the most diverse points of view."

Rumours of Rain

Martin, the narrator, a rich South African businessman, recalls the events of a weekend which settled the future of his family farm: he wants to sell it although he has promised his father on his death-bed that he will never do so, and although his brother wants to take it over. So he visits the farm for a weekend to tell his mother she will be "evicted". For the trip, he calls off a meeting with his lover Bea, who leaves him for that because she wanted to tell him that she is pregnant. It is a long drive to the farm and he does not often go there. He takes his son Louis along to get closer to him. Since Louis has come back from the Angolan War of Independence, he is traumatized and silent. The imagined good talk between them makes matters worse, though - the father begins by asking his son casually about his "trip to Angola", and when Louis finally opens up and talks about the atrocities of the war, they end up arguing about politics. The farm is extremely drought-stricken, and Martin's mother has invited a water diviner to look for an underground stream. Martin thinks this is ridiculous. When he then visits the family graveyard for one last time, loses his glasses, so that from then on the egocentric man is in every sense of the word "blind” to the events happening around him. At night, a black worker murders his wife and is taken to prison, leaving a baby and older children behind. This is regarded by the whites as "typical” tribal behavior and helps Martin to underline his opinion that his mother should not run the farm on her own because it is too dangerous - although the real reason is that he will get a good price for the farm. The visit of a few neighbours, who are also farmers, shows that most people in the area are selling their land, which is regarded by those who stay on their family farms as treason. When Martin – still almost blind without his glasses – gets lost in the jungle on a short walk, almost not making it back to the farm where he was born and raised, it is obvious that he does not belong here. Father and son drive home. The farm will be sold and Martin's mother will live with their family although she and Martin's wife do not get along. Louis gets an ultimatum to find a job, after which he disappears and never comes back.

Imaginings of Sand

Kristien, the narrator, is a white academic who goes back to South Africa to visit her grandmother after an attack by black youths on the old lady which leaves her tied to bed. Before she dies, she wishes to tell Kristien the story of their Afrikaner family, a task which grandmother and granddaughter find very important. Memories of Kristiens past in London show that her life has been aimless until now; she has been passive towards things that happen to her, simply fulfilling the need to be away from South Africa and her parents (who had, during their lifetime, supported apartheid). Giving up her self-imposed exile is, at first, a resignation to Kristien, but gradually she learns that the country of her birth is changing towards the better. The first democratic elections are close, and through meetings with black and white people and the stories her grandmother tells her about their family's origins, which show almost only the female side of events and go back to a black foremother, Kristien learns to see South Africa as her home country. In the night before the elections, Kristiens sister kills her children, her violent, racist husband and herself to escape a life she can no longer bear to live. In the same night, the grandmother dies from the aftermath of the attack. Nevertheless, Kristien is optimistic about her future in South Africa. The family farm goes to the family of the black domestic worker.

The Cutting Room

Louise Welsh

The novel, set in Glasgow, revolves around the central character, Rilke, an auctioneer who has agreed to quickly process and sell an inventory of largely valuable contents belonging to a recently deceased old man in exchange for a considerable fee. While sorting through some of the possessions in an attic, he comes across a collection of violent and potentially snuff pornography that appears to document the death of a mysterious young woman. Starting with local pornography trade contacts, Rilke sets out to discover this woman's identity and uncover the story behind her appearance in the disturbing photographs.

Baby-Sitting Is a Dangerous Job

Willo Davis Roberts

Babysitter Darcy Ann Stevens gets a summer job babysitting three children from the rich Foster family. But the second day that Darcy babysits, they are kidnapped and driven to an old house. No one knows where they are, and the kidnappers are demanding ransom from the Foster parents to let them go. Darcy and the children have to outwit the kidnappers to escape.

Storm Born

Richelle Mead

Eugenie Markham is investigating her latest paranormal case, a shoe which her customer claims is possessed. Armed with a Glock, two athames and a wand, she fights with the creature inhabiting the shoe, a keres. During battle, the keres propositions Eugenie, also referring to her by her real name, rather than her alias Odile which she uses when dealing with paranormal creatures to protect her private life. Irritated by this, Eugenie is prompted to send the keres to the Underworld instead of her normal banishment to the Otherworld. Back in her car, her secretary Lara notifies her over the phone of Will Delaney who claims that his sister Jasmine was abducted by faeries (although Eugenie refers to them as "gentry") a year and a half ago. Eugenie agrees to take up the case, despite the dangers of a human crossing to the Otherworld. Returning to her flat, Eugenie relaxes in her private sauna and then settles down for the night with a favourite pastime; a jigsaw puzzle. She meets with Wil Delaney to discuss the abduction of his sister Jasmine, a frightened young adult with several irrational phobias. Believing that Jasmine may have been abducted by gentry because of the high fertility rate in human women, she travels to the park Wil believes Jasmine to have been kidnapped from. Eugenie senses a magical presence and Wil tells her that a sprite told him that his sister was being held by a king named Aeson. He also tells her that the sprite referred to her by her real name again, which irritates her further. Fearing a trap, Eugenie leaves undecided about whether to pursue the case. Eugenie visits her mother and her step-father Roland, who confirms the existence of Aeson but warns her not to travel to the Otherworld despite the safety of a young girl, which he justifies by stating that gentry kidnap human women all the time and "that's the way it is." Eugenie argues that she wishes to travel to the Otherworld to save Jasmine. She returns home, where her flatmate Tim is entertaining women, alleging his Native American heritage before leaving to a concert with them. After another puzzle, Eugenie decides to go to a bar in attempts to forget her decision over Jasmine and the Otherworld. Inside the bar, Eugenie begins flirting with a stranger named Kiyo(taka). He casually admits his attraction and desire towards her and that he is a veterinarian with five cats (four named after the riders of the apocalypse - the fifth named Mr. Whiskers) and two dogs. The two dance erotically and then head back to Kiyo's apartment. They sleep together twice, during which Kiyo scratches her on the back. They are woken in the middle of the night by a strange presence. Eugenie identifies it as an ice elemental from the Otherworld, but before she can attack, Kiyo does so instead. The ice elemental calls her by her real name and propositions her. Eugenie is able to reach her wand and banishes the ice elemental back to the Otherworld, leaving her and Kiyo to demand explanations from each other. He displays knowledge of the Otherworld and jumps off of the balcony when Eugenie threatens to banish him. Feeling betrayed by Kiyo, Eugenie orders room service under his name for vengeance and then returns home. She eventually decides to travel to the Otherworld to find Jasmine and investigate the strange actions of the creatures appearing in the human world, much to her mother's displeasure. Roland reassures her over the sexual soliciting of the creatures. Eugenie goes home and summons Volusian, her spirit servant who tells her that Aeson is king of the Alder Land and is too powerful for her to fight alone. He suggests that Eugenie ask help from Dorian, king of the Oak Land, but she rejects this idea because of her mistrust for all gentry. Instead, she summons two other spirits named Nandi and Finn, but they also believe an alliance with Dorian is the most practical. She refuses once more and decides to storm Aeson's castle to rescue Jasmine. Wil Delaney insists on accompanying her, Eugenie agrees believing it is his own fault if he is killed, taking Nandi, Finn and Volusian as well. They travel to a crossroad within the human world and travel to the Otherworld, finding themselves in the Rowan Land. After a confusing journey where Eugenie believes to have seen a fox watching her, they are attacked by horse-ridden guards, although the group fight they are outnumbered and captured. One of the guards, Rurik, identifies her as Eugenie Markham and he reveals himself as the ice elemental who attempted to rape her. She tells another guard, Shaya, that she demands to speak with King Dorian, and they reluctantly take the group to the castle. Eugenie and her group meet with King Dorian, who is unfazed by her demands and takes an immediate interest in her. He offers her hospitality and protection, inviting her to dinner but she refuses to eat. Eugenie notices how exhibitionist the gentry are, the dinner guests nervously challenge her and object to her casualness and lack of respect towards Dorian. However, the guests are intrigued when Eugenie brings up the topic of modern medicine, particularly fertility treatments and IVF. Dorian then escorts Eugenie to his bedroom to talk privately. Although she tries to inform him about Jasmine and Aeson, he tells her the story about the Storm King, a powerful warlord who ruled a vast area of the Otherworld. Dorian tells her that Storm King was killed by Roland Markham - Eugenie's step-father, and then agrees to send a spy to help her to infiltrate Aeson's castle. Curiously, Eugenie shows him the scratches given to her by Kiyo, and Dorian states that it is a means of tracking her. He then offers to fight by her side against Aeson if Eugenie agrees to sleep with him, but stating that she will eventually agree despite her current answer. Dorian introduces her to Gawyn, who travels with Eugenie and friends to Aeson's castle, but the guards are aware of her presence and capture her. Wil Delaney confesses to betraying Eugenie, giving her to Aeson in exchange for Jasmine. Aeson reveals his wish to "beget the heir" with Eugenie, and is surprised by her confusion to the reference. Aeson tells Eugenie that Storm King is her real father, and before he can take her away, a fox attacks him and transforms into Kiyo, although shocked Eugenie attempts to rescue Jasmine, but the girl attacks her and runs to help Aeson, who refers to Eugenie as "Storm Daughter" and suggests that she asks Roland who her real father is. Eugenie and her friends are forced to flee back to the human world. They awake in the human world, Eugenie tries to attack Wil, but instead dismisses him. She asks Finn what Kiyo is, and he replies that Kiyo is a half-kitsune. Volusian confirms Aeson's claim that Eugenie is the daughter of Storm King, who abducted her mother and impregnated her. In order to protect her, Roland killed Storm King when he attempted to take Eugenie away to the Otherworld. Volusian also tells Eugenie of a prophecy dictating that her first son will reconquer the human world, as was Storm King's vision, thus the reason for the propositions made by many of the Otherworld creatures. A few days later, Eugenie confronts Roland and her mother over the claims, they confirm it, telling her that Storm King lured her out to a crossroad to take her to the Otherworld, but she fought back. Roland then hypnotised her and repressed her memories. She goes to her car and sees Kiyo watching her in his fox form, angry at everybody's deceit, Eugenie leaves. In her private sauna, she recalls one of the suppressed memories about Storm King, waking up to a strange presence in her home. She is attacked by a Gray Man who attempts to rape her, but she escapes and defeats them, shortly after Kiyo storms into her home. She is angry at him for lying and believes that he slept with her to fulfill the prophecy, but retorts that they used contraception. He tells her that Maiwenn, the Willow Queen asked him to find her and mark her to make sure that the prophecy did not come true, as she is openly opposed to Storm King, unlike Dorian who openly supported him. Kiyo tells her that he will protect her from paranormal attacks, wishing to be friends if they cannot be lovers. After Kiyo leaves, she summons Volusian and he tells her to claim her heritage as the daughter of Storm King to intimidate those trying to attack her, and that King Dorian is helping to protect her, however they both suspect he has ulterior motives. Eugenie keeps contact with Kiyo, who watches over her as a fox. Her mother apologises to her and she forgives her, Eugenie asks her if she was ever happy with Storm King, but her mother tells her that she hated every second of her imprisonment, and that Eugenie inherited his violet eyes. Suddenly, the house is attacked by spirits who knock her mother unconscious and capture Eugenie. A mud elemental appears, threatening to kill her mother if she doesn't submit to him. Unexpectedly, the mud elemental and the spirits are killed by lightning which she unconsciously summons. Eugenie collapses, awakening to her mother, Kiyo and Queen Maiwenn - who is relieved that Eugenie has no desire to fulfill the prophecy. Wishing to control her magic, Eugenie travels to the Otherworld to ask Dorian to teach her. He tells her not to trust Maiwenn as she has no reason to keep her alive, whereas he wishes Storm King's heir to be born, and will protect her. He offers to teach her if she sleeps with him, she refuses and they agree to pretend to be lovers, Dorian kisses her and notes how she is tense around him. In the human world, Kiyo confronts Eugenie about the rumours and she explains the situation, he reveals that he and Maiwenn used to be a couple. They both travel to an astronomy group on a hill, afterwards they almost have sex in their parked car, but are attacked by a hybrid creature. Kiyo transforms into a giant fox rather than a smaller counterpart. Eugenie realises that the creature wishes to kill her instead, she defeats it but is injured and becomes annoyed when Kiyo doesn't immediately transform out of his fox form. She wakes up at home and Kiyo explains that being a "superfox" is harder to transform out of. Dorian travels to the human world to teach her magic. She fails to locate a bowl of water while blindfolded and bound with cords, causing it to rain instead. Dorian invites Eugenie to his Beltane ball, the day before she and Kiyo have sex in the shower, while sleeping Eugenie has a dream about Storm King, waking up flustered she proceeds to have sex with Kiyo without contraception. Eugenie attends the Beltane ball but is pestered by potential suitors, including Aeson who offers to swap her for Jasmine. He reveals to Eugenie that Maiwenn is pregnant with Kiyo's child, she breaks up with him out of anger. Meeting Dorian, she agrees to sleep with him to help rescue Jasmine, Dorian initially refuses out of belief that she is doing it to get revenge on Kiyo, but eventually agrees. However, he decides not to after realising that Eugenie doesn't want him and doesn't relax around him. Instead, they practice magical control and she is able to locate the water objects. The next day in the human world, they practice again but are attacked by water spirits who attempt to kill her, but Dorian is able to use his magic to defeat them. Suspicious, Eugenie travels to Maiwenn's castle to confront her, she warns her about threat's from Dorian's enemies. She visits Dorian and advances her magic abilities, they try to sleep together but Eugenie is still too uneasy. Late at night, she asks him to tie her up and they then sleep together, afterwards Dorian agrees to assist her in seizing Aeson's castle. Eugenie and Dorian's groups advance towards Aeson's castle, but they are suddenly ambushed. Aeson attacks her but Dorian steps in and is caught by Aeson's fire abilities. Cornering the attack group, Aeson is able to send Nandi to the Underworld, forcing Eugenie to call a surrender. Aeson continues to torture Dorian through burning, but Eugenie summons the water out of Aeson's body; blowing him up. Burnt and injured, Dorian tricks Eugenie into claiming the Alder Land as her own kingdom, transforming it into a replica of the Tucson desert. Jasmine appears and accuses Eugenie of stealing the land which was promised to her, and that she and Eugenie are half-sisters through the Storm King. Finn reveals that he allied with Jasmine, spread Eugenie's real name around and told Aeson of the coming attack. Furious, Eugenie banishes Finn to the Underworld. Jasmine summons water spirits and Eugenie works out that Jasmine sent the creatures to kill her instead of Maiwenn. Rurik, Shaya and the other guards fight against the spirits. Jasmine runs away as her group loses, but Kiyo is killed. Distraught, Eugenie travels to the Underworld to bring his spirit back to his body. Transfigured into a black swan, she flies through the Underworld, but she is attacked by the creatures she previously banished. Transformed back into her human form, she meets with her father, Storm King who tells her that Jasmine will willingly give birth to the heir even if Eugenie refuses. Aeson appears and tries to assault her, she submits and wakes up in a vision in which she is wearing Storm King's crown, overlooking an Otherworld army and holding a baby. Dorian appears at her side as her equal. The vision ends and she finds Kiyo, but is obstructed by the goddess Persephone. The goddess promises to give Kiyo's soul back if Eugenie will give up her love for him. Eugenie agrees, Kiyo's soul sent back to the Otherworld, at the last moment Persephone breaks the contract and sends her back as well. Back in the Otherworld, Eugenie confronts Dorian over forcing her to become queen of Aeson's kingdom. He tries to convince her to have an heir before Jasmine, and then tells Eugenie that he loves her as she loves Kiyo. She plans to ignore the land, he angrily tells her it is impossible and that the land is now the Thorn Land, and she the Thorn Queen. She returns home and patches up her relationship with Kiyo. Volusian appears and warns her about Dorian and Kiyo. The book ends when Eugenie drops a glass pitcher of water and is able to control both water and air, telling Tim that she wants to learn more.

The History of Orkney Literature

The book is the first examination and exploration of literary works from, or otherwise focused on, the islands of Orkney in Scotland. The published works of key Orcadian poets and novelists such as George Mackay Brown and Edwin Muir are prominently assessed. Hall also evaluates the myriad influences on the development of literature in Orkney, exploring the role of the archipelago's Nordic roots and its historical reliance on fishing, farming and foreign trade.

Stands a Shadow

Col Buchanan

The story picks up where the first book ended.Ash is in Q’os the capital of Lanstrada, the Mannian heartland. Staking out the Temple of Whispers perusing his personal vendetta to kill the Matriarch - Sasheen. The "Diplomat" Ché is also in Q'os.After the successful attack on the Rōshun he is beginning to question his own beliefs. Sasheen has made him her personal Diplomat and showing him the Head of Lucian which is kept alive by being immersed in a jar of Royal Milk also gave him his first taste of the Royal Milk which is a powerful narcotic. Ash attempts to assassinate Sasheen during a procession with a crossbow but doesn't go through with it as she's surrounded with glass, which ash suspects is strong enough that only explosives can break it. He follows her till she boards a ship and after much thought he follows her by diving into the water. Ché meets Guan,the priest on the flagship of the fleet heading towards Khos.Guan and his sister,Swan are part of Sasheen’s travelling entourage. Ash is hiding in the bilge of one of the ships staying alive by stealing food and water in the night not knowing where hes heading. Sasheen assigns Che a diplomatic task, to make an example of the lover of General Romano in retaliation to him slandering her son while intoxicated. The party reaches the island of Lagos,whose entire population was put to death on the orders of the Matriarch. While the General taking care of formalities as they near the harbor (Chir) Che goes to his room and strangles his lover(Topo) and deposits his body in the water heater not knowing hes still alive once he realizes topo is still alive & and is being boiled alive he leaves him there. An enraged General Romano insults Sasheen's dead son to her face. Her advisers convince her not to punish him (kill him). The ship ash is on sinks in a storm and he washes up on a beach.He drags himself to a fire he sees and manages to scare off a few sailors about to assault a group of women before he passes out. Curl a survivor of from the island of Lagos, who works as a prostitute in Bar-Khos enlists herself in the army as a medic. On the orders of general Creed of Khos all convicted prisoners and those deemed too unfit for duty are enlisted into the Army. One of them is Bull who was previously discharged from the army for assaulting his senior officer. He later became a pit-fighter. He was found drenched in the blood of Adrianos, a commander who led the last successful offensive against the Imperial Fourth Army. Ash agrees to become the bodyguard of Mistress Cheer and her group of women who are prostitutes following the army. Ash sneaks away in the night and makes his way to the Matriarch's tent which is heavily guarded. He makes his way to her tent by killing a sentry and stealing his clothes and almost reaches the enclosure. Inside Sasheen and her inner circle are having an orgy with narcotics and slaves in celebration of having landed with the army, Che is also present although he's not participating. The next morning soldiers looking for the person who killed the guard question ash but Mistress Cheer covers for him. He parts ways with her after refusing to answer her questions. Sasheen sends Alarum as her ambassador to general creed. He lays out the terms of surrender to creed with the threat that if he refuses every person of Khos will be killed and also offers him an ornate ceremonial dagger of mann whose purpose is to take once own life. Creed attacks the Mann army in the night at first they make good progress but are later halted taking heavy losses. In the confusion ash tries to reach Sasheen, che shoots Sasheen in the confusion and ash collapses after he almost reaches her. Che grabs ash and they escape. Sasheen is still alive but barely. The Khos army reaches the city of Tume,they plan for a retreat by destroying the bridge. Ash, Che and curl are also in the city. While ash is recovering che meets curl and they escape from the twins guan and swan who were sent to kill che as hes been labeled a traitor. Once it became clear that the Tume cannot be held creed and the soldiers abandon Tume, However there are still several people in the city itself including ash, che and curl. Sasheen has been poisoned by che's bullet. Only the Royal milk is helping her survive. General Romano who became aware of this is plotting his coup. Ash sees the banner of Sasheen and sets out to kill her, Che and curl escape the city by swimming through the lake. Che gives curl his waterlogged gun and turns back to hunt the twins who are hunting him and kills both of them. Curl whos waiting near the pickup point sees and picks up che whos injured. They both get on the airship but ash whos changes him mind about killing sasheen and returns misses getting on the airship and is stranded in Tume surrounded by the mann army. He escapes by diving into the lake but the mann soldiers are on the banks and looking for any who try to escape that way. Sasheen who's dying from the poison gives her final order to Archgeneral Sparus that Romano must not be allowed to be her successor and if necessary to kill him and soon succumbs to the poison. Sparus and Romano meet after her death and Sparus informs Romano of her last orders and that he intends to follow them. Romano tries to kill him with poison but fails and flees. Ash survives his escape attempt and reaches safety in the woods. Che lets slip to Curl that hes Mannian and curl turns him over to the Khos Specials. Bhan and Bull who were captured in the first battle and were tortured for information manage to escape with some other prisoners. Ash finds Reese and tells her of her son's(Nico) death. She assaults him in her grief and tells him to leave.Ash eventually makes his way to Bar-Khos and meeting with as old contact learns of the destruction of Sato. Ash wanders around till he reaches Bilge Town,he finds a bar and decides to drink himself out of his misery. He gets grunk and falls asleep outside while its reining from where a man named Meer picks him up and takes him to his home. Meer talks of the teaching of the great fool and tells ash he will talk about the The Isles of Sky if ash tells him about the land of Honshu. Later meer tells ash that he wishes to accompany Ash to seto to make an offer to the remaining Rōshun and in return he will help ash with his loss. In the Temple of Whispers, Kira Sasheen's mother speaks before the other lords and ladies to decide who Sasheen's successor will be and she reveals her plans to concur the land of Zanzahar within an year of the fall of the free ports. EPILOGUE Meer takes ash to Sato and the remains of the Monastery via an air ship. He finds several survivors of the Rōshun order. Coya makes the remaining Rōshun his offer to choose a side and if in doing so they are no longer Rōshun, he reminds them that all things change. Ash later confides with Kosh that Meer has offered him a way of bringing back Nico, a way found in the Isles of Sky.

Lies That Chelsea Handler Told Me

The book consists of humorous essays written by Handler's coworkers and family members about lies and pranks Handler has pulled on them.

The Borrowers Afloat

Mary Norton

In this third of the Borrowers series, the Clock family begins living in the house of a human boy named Tom. The borrowers find that they will starve because Tom and his uncle are moving away. They need to leave but Tom's pet weasel or ferret is outside the door. Luckily, the animal still has the bell that Tom put on it, but they know they cannot outrun such a swift animal. Just when things are looking grim, Spiller returns via a secret passage: he has come through the drains underneath the house. Spiller says that he has not told the rest of the borrowers about the drains because they never asked. While deciding where to go, Spiller tells them that they might go to Little Fordham which is actually a replica village. The place has been a bit of a legend with all Borrowers: a whole village made for Borrower size residents with plenty of food from the visiting big people. Spiller lets them stay in one of his hide out places, a tea kettle, while he goes and investigates the matter for them. During the waiting period, the rain comes down and causes the kettle to be put adrift downstream. The Clocks decide that their best chances are to hope that Spiller will realize what has happened and find them. For the most part there aren't many frightening adventures, but they lose the kettle some time after it gets stuck in some trash. But while still on the river, Mild Eye, the gypsy who nearly caught them before, discovers them. The Clock family is trapped; none of them can swim.

Other Electricities

Ander Monson

Other Electricities is based on experiences Monson had as a child growing up on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The novel focuses on the characters and their interactions with one another in a small town in Upper Michigan. Much of the book revolves around the central character "Yr Protagonist" and his interactions with his friends and family. The opening chapter describes a police officer alerting the family of Liz, Yr's girlfriend, being killed in a snowmobile crash in a frozen river, which is the basis of much of the novel. Some reviewers speculate that Yr Protagonist is a semi-autobiographical character.

Boyracers

Alan Bissett

The narrative centres on 16 year-old Falkirk resident Alvin and his adventures with three slightly older friends. Alvin’s formative development is tracked in the context of the group’s activities, including boy-racing around the town in a car called Belinda and engaging in debates about film and music. He spends much of his time at school attempting to gain the attention of Tyra, his love interest, but is constantly hindered by Connor Livingston, an upper-middle class prefect who mocks Alvin and sneers at his social class, whilst also being interested in Tyra himself. As the most intellectually gifted of the group, Alvin struggles with the dilemma of choosing to continue his generally enjoyable local life or to leave his friends and the town behind and attend University.

The Origin of German Tragic Drama

Instead of focusing on the more famous examples of baroque drama from around the world, such as Pedro Calderón de la Barca and William Shakespeare, Benjamin chose to write about the minor German dramatists of the 16th and 17th century: Martin Opitz, Andreas Gryphius, Johann Christian Hallmann, Daniel Caspar von Lohenstein, and August Adolf von Haugwitz. For him, these playwrights – who were seen as too crude, dogmatic, and violent by earlier critics to be considered true artists – best reflected the unique cultural and historical climate of their time. Benjamin singles out the theme of "sovereign violence" as the most important unifying feature of the German "trauerspiel" or "mourning play." In their obsessive focus on courtly intrigue and princely bloodlust, these playwrights break with the mythic tradition of classical tragedy and create a new aesthetic based on the tense interplay between Christian eschatology and human history. Foreshadowing his later interest in the concept of history, Benjamin concludes that, in these plays, history "loses the eschatological certainty of its redemptive conclusion, and becomes secularized into a mere natural setting for the profane struggle over political power."

Machine Man

Max Barry

The novel first begins with Charles rummaging around looking for his phone. As he gets more and more frustrated being unable to find it, he decides to arrive at work. During an operation involving 'The Clamp', a giant steel plated holding device, Charles notices his phone in the background and -while not paying attention- crushes his leg with it.

The Giant Under The Snow

John Gordon

On a school field trip Jonk Winters, an independent-minded teenage girl, is attacked by a large black dog whilst exploring the nearby woods where she has found a mysterious and rather old buckle. She is rescued from the dog by a woman named Elizabeth Goodenough, who possesses magical powers. After she goes home, Jonk is stalked by the dog and its curious stone-faced master. Jonk's friend, Bill has read of a local legend that describes how a Green Man once strode across the countryside from Wiltshire to East Anglia. Believing the legend is the key to understanding Jonk's experience in the woods, Jonk, Bill and their rather sceptical friend Arf set out to solve the riddle of the Green Man. It soon becomes apparent that the stone-faced man is an ancient warlord who needs the golden buckle to regain his malevolent power. The buckle is the key to victory and the trio soon find themselves under attack from the minions of the warlord, the terrifying 'leather men', and are relentlessly followed by the black dog. However, cleverly guided by Elizabeth and aided by the gift of flight, Jonk and her friends determine to defeat the warlord and his sinister allies at any cost.

Strange Son

Portia Iversen's second son Dov, born in 1992, seemed normal as a baby. By the age of two, he reacted atypically to noises and also made odd noises himself. By the time he was three years old, he was unable to speak and was fascinated by objects. This led to a diagnosis of autism. At the age of eight, Dov was still uncommunicative. Portia heard about an autistic boy named Tito that lived in Bangalore, India with his mother, Soma Mukhopadhyay. Soma had taught her son how to communicate, write poetry, and explain how the poetry made him feel. This story inspired Portia to want to help her own son in the same manner. She invited Soma and Tito to California for a month in the hope that Soma could help her son become communicative. Soma's methods were unusual but she managed to help Dov start communicating with his parents.

The Ship of Ishtar

A. Merritt

The archaeologist hero, Kenton, receives a mysterious ancient Babylonian artifact, which he discovers contains an incredibly detailed model of a ship. A dizzy spell casts Kenton onto the deck of the ship, which becomes a full-sized vessel sailing an eternal sea. At one end is Sharane the assistant priestess of Ishtar and her female minions, and at the other is Klaneth the assistant priest of Nergal and his male minions, representatives of two opposed deities. None of them can cross an invisible barrier at the midline of the ship, but Kenton can. His arrival destabilizes a situation that had been frozen for 6,000 years, and fantastic adventures ensue. The novel is not only a rousing fantasy adventure story, but a philosophical exploration of the relationship between material reality and the abstract concepts through which humans struggle to understand it. The reason the ship has been frozen in time is that Zarpanit the head priestess of Ishtar and Alusar the head priest of Nergal fell in love, and were in the midst of making love when their deities possessed them. This placed the hostile deities in an untenable position, especially as they represented cosmic forces that must be kept separate. The result was an imbalance between stability and instability in the universe, freezing the ship in time and rendering unstable its connection to the reality inhabited by the reader. In a study of fantasy and science fiction literature, William Sims Bainbridge (1986: 136) explained: "The author uses evocative language and intense images to convey a sense of the marvelous and mysterious. It is Kenton's fate to intervene in the frozen cosmic struggle between Ishtar and Nergal, to fall in love with Sharane, and to gain Klaneth as his mortal enemy. The book builds tension through the device of letting Kenton's tie to the ship periodically become so weak that he falls back, unwilling, to his New York home. Kenton's tenuous psychic connection to the ship represents the reader's involvement in the fantasy. At any moment the ship may fade from reality, and both Kenton and the reader will be imprisoned in the mundane world of the everyday."

Heaven Is for Real

Todd Burpo

Todd Burpo, a Christian pastor, says that during the months after emergency surgery, Colton began describing events and people that seemed impossible for him to have seen or met. Examples include his miscarried sister, who no one had told him about, and his great grandfather who died 30 years before Colton was born. Colton also made other extra-biblical claims that he had personally sat in Jesus' lap, while the angels sang songs to him, as, for example, that he saw the Virgin Mary standing beside Jesus in Heaven. Within three weeks of its November 2010 release, the book debuted at #3 on the New York Times bestseller list. By January 2011, there were 200,000 copies in print, and the book hit #1 on the New York Times list.

O Terceiro Travesseiro

O Terceiro Travesseiro covers the true story of a love triangle formed by three youths - two boys and a girl. Marcus is a teenager who finds himself hopelessly in love with Mr Renato, who soon ends up delivering also the passion, which is disturbed by the appearance of Beatrice in their lives (and relationship). The relationship intensifies and the three decide to share the same apartment, the same bed and even love. However, in the first day of this new life, Renato dies in a car accident and leaves Marcus in a fight like no other.

The Vicar of Bullhampton

Anthony Trollope

The Vicar of Bullhampton is set in a small town in Wiltshire. It develops three subplots, all connected with Frank Fenwick, the eponymous vicar. The first subplot involves the courtship of Mary Lowther, a childhood friend of the vicar's wife. Harry Gilmore, a Bullhampton squire and a friend of the Fenwicks, falls deeply in love with her. Mary recognizes that Gilmore is a good man, but she fears that she does not adore him as a woman should adore the man she marries. The Fenwicks and her guardian aunt all urge her to accept his proposal, telling her that the affection she does not now feel will come after marriage. In the face of this advice, she does not reject Gilmore outright, but asks for time to consider. Mary finds the love she seeks in her second cousin, Captain Walter Marrable. He falls in love with her, and she joyously accepts his offer of marriage. However, misfortune strikes in the form of Colonel Marrable, the Captain's father, who swindles his son out of the fortune left him by his late mother. The impoverished Captain fears that he will have to return to India with his regiment; he and Mary, each unwilling to inflict poverty on the other, end their engagement by mutual consent and with mutual regret. Mary, disspirited, yields to Gilmore's importunements, warning him that theirs must be a long engagement and that she will end it if Captain Marrable finds himself able to marry a woman without a fortune. This comes to pass: the death of the Captain's cousin, the heir to the family's baronetcy, makes him the likely eventual heir. The current Baronet accepts the Captain as his heir, buying out the Colonel's interest to prevent his squandering the family fortune. The two lovers are reunited, leaving Gilmore bitter and despondent. The second subplot involves the family of Bullhampton's miller, Jacob Brattle. His youngest son, Sam, is a hard worker at the mill; but has fallen in with bad companions, and is often absent from home. Sam's sister Carry is worse off yet: having yielded to a seducer, she has been disowned by her father, and is living a life of sin in an unknown location. When a Bullhampton farmer is murdered in the course of a burglary, suspicion falls on Sam Brattle and his associates. Fenwick believes in Sam's innocence, and acts as one of his bondsmen. Through Sam he discovers Carry's whereabouts, and resolves to rescue her if he can. He finds her a temporary home, but it becomes clear to him that the only permanent solution must involve bringing her back into the Brattle family, which means winning her father's forgiveness. Carry leaves the home that Fenwick has found her and wanders distraught. Eventually, she returns to the mill, half resolved to see her old home and then drown herself in the millstream. There she is greeted lovingly by her mother and sister. Her father reluctantly allows her to remain in the family home; eventually he too forgives her, although he can never forget the shame she has brought on the family. Carry remains with her family for the rest of her life, but although she has returned to decency, her past ensures that she will never find an honest husband. Sam is never charged with the murder, although one of his former associates is hanged for it. He continues to work at the mill, and eventually marries a Bullhampton girl. A third subplot centers on the relationship between Fenwick, Mr. Puddleham, the village's Methodist minister, and the Marquis of Trowbridge, Bullhampton's principal landowner. The marquis believes that Sam Brattle is guilty of the murder, and is angered by Fenwick's support for him. He spreads rumours about Fenwick's relations with Carry Brattle, and grants Puddleham permission to build a chapel on a piece of land neighbouring Fenwick's residence, where he hopes that the sight of it and the sound of its bell will annoy the vicar. Fenwick tries to reconcile himself to the existence of the chapel, but it subsequently comes to light that the land does not belong to the marquis, and is instead part of the parish's glebe. The embarrassed marquis pays to move the chapel to a new location, and through the intervention of his son, a suave Member of Parliament, he and Fenwick are reconciled.

The Glamour Chase

An Archaeological dig in 1936 unearths relics of another time... and, as the The Doctor, Amy and Rory realise, another place. Another planet. But if Enola Porter, noted adventuress, has really found evidence of an alien civilisation, how come she isn't famous? Why has Rory never heard of her? Added to that, since Amy's been traveling with him for a while now, why does she now think The Doctor is from Mars? As the ancient spaceship re-activates, the Doctor discovers that nothing and no-one can be trusted. The things that seem most real could actually be literal fabrications - and very deadly indeed. Who can the Doctor believe when no one is what they seem? And how can he defeat an enemy who can bend matter itself at its will? For the Doctor, Amy and Rory - and all of humanity - the buried secrets of the past are very much a threat to the present.

Cinder

Cinder is a cyborg living in New Beijing after World War IV, with her step-mother, Adri, and her two step sisters, Pearl and Peony. Cinder owns a booth in the market place, where she works as a mechanic with the family's android, Iko. While she is working, she meets Prince Kai, who asks her to fix his android, Nainsi. After Kai leaves, the market is evacuated because a baker, Chang Sacha, has been infected. Prince Kai's father, Emperor Rikan, is currently sick with letumosis, otherwise known as the Blue Fever, a plague that is terrorizing the Commonwealth. There have been no plague survivors. While in the junkyard, Cinder, Iko, and Peony, who are looking for a new mag belt for Adri's hover car, They discover an old fashioned car, which Cinder plans to take home and repair. At the same time, Peony contracts the plague, and is taken away. When Cinder returns home, Adri is in grief and infuriated, blaming Cinder for her daughter's imminent death, thinking that, even though Cinder doesn't have the plague, she must have passed it from Chang Sacha to Peony. She has Cinder taken to the palace against her will, so that Cinder will be used for letumosis research. Cinder puts up a fight, taking out two med-droids, but is tasered by a third droid, and is taken in unconscious. Dr. Erland, a researcher in the palace, draws her blood, and when Cinder awakes, opens up her control panel and scans her, revealing that she is 36.28% not human. The doctor injects her with tagged letumosis pathogens, and waits for them to take effect so he can give her an antidote. But after several minutes, Cinder's immune system kicks in, and the pathogens disappear. After drawing another blood sample, the doctor moves her to another lab, and comes to talk to her in person, instead of over an intercom like before. Cinder tries to attack him with a wrench hidden in her metal calf, but the doctor makes her feel tired and safe, and persuades her not to. Erland tells her that she is actually immune to the plague, and questions her about her childhood. Cinder tells him the truth - that she was told she was in a hover car crash that killed her parents when she was eleven, and was given a control panel, a metal hand, and a metal foot to replace her real limbs that she lost, and that she does not remember anything before her surgery. Cinder was taken to the Eastern Commonwealth, and Linh Garan, who soon died of the plague, became her guardian. Kai, discouraged at his father's condition, walks down to Dr. Erland's lab, but runs into Sybil Mira in the elevator. Sybil is the head thaumaturge to Queen Levana, who rules over a colony on the moon, and is on Earth to discuss an alliance between Luna and the Commonwealth. Kai discusses Princess Selene, Queen Levana's niece and the only heir to the Lunar Crown with Konn Torin after she leaves. Selene died in a fire when she was three, but there are many theories speculating that she is in hiding on Earth, since the only body parts found was her foot and a hand. Kai wants to find Selene and put her on the throne instead of Levana, but Torin tells him that Selene is dead, and to put the theories out of his mind. The doctor asks to do a small experiment on Cinder, and she agrees. Erland pinches the vertebrae above her shoulders, and does something, knocking her unconscious. Cinder wakes up to see Dr. Erland and Prince Kai over her. She is fine, and Kai helps her stand, asking what happened to her. Dr. Erland lies, and tells Kai that he was just adjusting her spine, and that the reason she is at the palace is that she is repairing a med-droid. Cinder exists the palace, promising to comm Kai when she had fixed Nainsi, and that she'd be back tomorrow to help Dr. Erland. She walks back to Adri's apartment, argues with Adri, and reunites with Iko. Cinder makes a plan to use the car she and Peony found to leave New Bejjing. And to also take Peony's ID chip and Iko's personality chip with her. During the night, Emperor Rikan dies. Minutes after his death, Kai receives a comm from Queen Levana who tells him that she herself will be coming down to the Common wealth to discuss and alliance with him, but finishes the message before Kai can protest. That morning, Cinder is awoken with a comm that informs her that Peony has entered the third stage of letumosis. Cinder goes to visit her in the letumosis quarantine to visit Peony, giving her a blanket and promising to find an antidote. On her way out of the quarantine, she encounters Chang Sacha, who makes promise to bring her son, Sunto, then dies. A med-droid wheeled up to Sacha's bed out took out a scalpel, and cut into Sacha's wrist. Cinder asks the droid what it is doing, and it answers that it is taking out Sacha's ID chip. At the palace, Cinder meets Kai in the halls and walks with him down to the lab. Kai tells her that the Lunar Queen is coming to Earth, and asks her to the annual ball. Shocked, Cinder declines. When Kai is gone, Cinder asks Dr. Erland about the med-droid who cut out Chang Sacha's ID chip. Dr. Erland then tells her about the practice of extracting ID chips from dead patients. He also tells Cinder about the illegal immigration of lunars to Earth. Cinder is told about why lunars fear mirrors. She then tells Dr. Erland about the Queens arrival.

Before I Go to Sleep

S. J. Watson

The novel is a psychological thriller about a woman suffering from amnesia. She wakes every day with no knowledge of who she is and the novel follows her as she tries to reconstruct her memories from a journal she has been keeping. She learns that she has been seeing a doctor who is helping her to recover her memory, that her name is Christine Lucas, that she is 47 years old and married and has a son. As her journal grows it casts doubts on the truth behind this knowledge and sets her on a terrifying journey of discovery.

Flowers in the Sand

Clive Algar

Trapped by tragic circumstances in a dusty Namaqualand mining town during the Anglo-Boer War, Emma Richardson must degrade herself in order to survive. Then the town is besieged by Boer fighters, led by their tortured commandant Manie Smit, and Emma is faced with a fateful choice. With her vision of the ephemeral desert flowers in her mind, she sets out alone on foot by night on a desperate mission to create a new future for herself.

Maggie Goes on a Diet

The book is about Maggie, a 14 year old girl who goes from being obese to thin. At the beginning of the book Maggie is bullied for being obese and she eats lots of bread and cheese in order to feel good. As time goes on she learns that if she is fat she will be bullied and decides to take action by losing weight. After eating healthier food such as fruit and oatmeal, and exercising more, she loses weight, her bullies become friends and she becomes very popular. She starts playing sports and at the end of the book she becomes a star soccer player.

Letters from the Afterworld

T.L. Orcutt

The third novel in The Path of Return Trilogy, Letters from the Afterworld, begins with Rickshaw reminiscing about his wedding to Crystal Meadows a year before. Crystal is an almost blind fortuneteller, daughter of Carmela de Avila, and a former apprentice on the Path of Return. The event brought together the five members of the Posse, a renegade faction of Sigma Nu Mu at Berkeley. Following a reunion nostalgia that flushes out Rickshaw’s early family life and friends, Rickshaw attends an advertised seance sponsored by Paradigm Research Institute at Kirkwood Inn in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles, conducted by a famous medium with a gift for automatic writing. At Kirkwood Inn, he meets new friends and during the seance receives a channeled letter for his friend Murdock. According to the afterworld letter, Murdock is on a soul recall list of people whose souls prematurely inhabited their selected bodies this time around on planet Earth. Besides Murdock, other friends of Rickshaw and Crystal have dreams of similar recall letters and incur near fatal illnesses and accidents to ensure they will comply with the letters’ intentionally vague instructioins. Rickshaw and Crystal try to get a hold of Jamayah who is on another sailing adventure in Cabo San Lucas. Jamayah seems reluctant to respond, but eventually gets word to Rickshaw to seek out Raoul - destination unknown. Eventually desperate, Rickshaw travels to Tijuana to find Raoul. Surprisingly, Juan (an acquaintance in Jamayah: Adventures on the Path of Return), finds Rickshaw and takes him to his brother’s (Carlos) mobile home at Rosarita Beach. Juan informs Rickshaw that Jamayah believes hybrid souls (souls who formerly incarnated on an alien planet), are exploiting humans for enzymatic blood transfusions. The hybrid souls’ former embodied lives limited their current metabolism, which translates to a shorter life span and more illnesses. The tradeoff is they have amazing psychic powers. Juan knows because he is a hybrid soul himself, once healed by Jamayah, who we discover was a restoration master (one who prepares souls for return) between embodied lives. Stakes are raised when Murdock and Rattlesnake Dan are kidnapped and a ten year old son of Crystal’s friend is murdered. Rickshaw, Jamayah, SBL, Weird Willie, Raoul, Juan, Apollo, and a modern day Billy the Kid mobilize the Cosmic Rangers and drive to Mexico to find Murdock and Rattlesnake Dan. After finding a torched police car and three dead policemen, they discover a sustainable society of thousands of hybrid souls living underground, and with a medical clinic for the enzymatic blood transfusions that will extend their longevity and restore the health of their soul-race. As becomes necessary, all of the hybrid souls are in instant communication with each another by telepathy. The Cosmic Rangers manipulate Wasabi Kuroda, spokesperson for the hybrid clan, to give them an underground tour to check the condition of Murdock and Dan. Once inside and entrapped behind vault doors, where they find their friends drugged for the transfusion, a war begins between the formidable hybrid forces armed to the hilt and the Cosmic Rangers. Fighting their way out with explosives and automatic weapons, the Cosmic Rangers escape above ground where the last bloody battle gives way to freedom and justice for all. The Cosmic Rangers return home to their various lifestyles. Jamayah goes on another fishing voyage. Five years pass and Rickshaw visits Naomi, the crone psychic. She informs him that Jamayah, Bamboo II, and the captain died when Zephyra, (the yacht), capsized in a storm. She also informs him that she has less than a year to live herself because of diabetes. In the end, Carmela visits Rickshaw and tells him that Jamayah visited her after his death with the information that Rickshaw is also a hybrid soul, but not to worry. Jamayah has taken care of all the karmic repercussions. Rickshaw and Crystal should live a healthy, long, and wonderful life.

Freedom

William Safire

Freedom blends the narrative recounting of actual historical events with fictional events invented by the author. Freedom traces political and military developments over the period from May, 1861 to January 1, 1863, from the point of view of the Union. Military events in which Breckenridge participates are also shown from the Confederate "side of the hill". As Book One opens, Breckenridge is a member in good standing of the US Senate. His opposition to what he regards as Lincoln's usurpation of power leads him to make speeches that his political opponents construe as treasonous. When the Senate adjourns, his good friend John Forney warns him that "you will follow your doctrine into the Confederate army," and in the end this is what happens. Book Two deals with the plan to invade the South along the Tennessee River. Anna Ella Carroll is portrayed as the creator of the plan, a controversial position among historians. The novel shows Carroll striving both to make the plan a success and to receive credit for it, goals that are often in tension. Book Three shows Edwin M Stanton succeeding Simon Cameron as Secretary of War with the support of General McClellan, whom he secretly intends to depose. Stanton is portrayed as dedicated to the cause of Union victory and convinced that this end justifies any and all means. (Later in the book McClellan bitterly complains that Stanton is "the most unmitigated scoundrel I ever knew, heard of, or read of," and compares him unfavorably to Judas Iscariot.) Book Four is mainly concerned with military developments—execution of the Tennessee Plan and the Confederate response to it—leading up to, and including, the Battle of Shiloh. Its shows how by both sides come to accept the doctrine that the goal of war is the destruction of the enemy's forces; Confederate commander Albert Sidney Johnson tells Breckenridge frankly, "We deal in death." Books Five and Eight cover McClellan's military campaigns and the efforts of his political opponents to remove him. He is portrayed as torn between his duty to do his utmost against the enemy and his desire to win the war in such a way as will induce the Southern states to return to the Union voluntarily, with slavery intact. Books Six and Seven focus on the struggle to define the role of abolition in the quest to put down the Confederate rebellion. Book Six shows the conflict that Lincoln's thoughts about emancipation create for Salmon P. Chase, who wants to receive credit for this step himself. Book Seven describes the enlistment of black regiments in New Orleans by Union General Benjamin Butler. Butler's thinking is summarized as "Dred Scott, denying blacks their essential humanity, would be a dead letter the moment a black man donned a blue uniform." Book Nine shows the final development of Lincoln's decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. In these sections of the book, Safire generally stays as close as possible to the historical record, in particular wherever contemporaneous records of what was said, such as diaries, letters and transcripts, are available. The main fictional threads of the novel are imagined romances between Breckenridge and Carroll, between John Hay and Kate Chase and, towards the novel's end, between Carroll and Salmon P. Chase. In each case the romance founders due to an improper political-moral decision made by one of the parties. In regard to the latter two pairings, Safire writes in the underbook, "All four surely had romantic attachments—but with other people. The purpose of making these two fictional connections is to provide a prism through which to examine their characters and a hatrack on which to hang other information, as well as to entertain the fact-laden reader and author."

Ready Player One

Ernest Cline

The year is 2044 and the world is in near-ruins. The Great Recession has taken its toll on the world's economy, and resources are scarce. The Internet and gaming culture have evolved into a creation known as OASIS, a massive multiplayer online simulation game created by James Halliday and Ogden Morrow of Gregarious Simulation Systems (GSS), formerly known as Gregarious Games. Halliday, with no heirs or other living family, dies suddenly and leaves a video will to those in OASIS and a book that was dubbed Anorak's Almanac, which purports to be a volume written by James Halliday's avatar Anorak in OASIS. The video says that whoever can collect three keys (Copper, Jade, and Crystal) that are hidden throughout the universe of OASIS and pass through the matching gates will receive his fortune and controlling stake in GSS. This becomes known as the Hunt and people immediately begin the search for Halliday's Easter Egg. Those searching for the Egg are referred to as "gunters," a truncation of "egg hunters." Gunters devote an enormous amount of time to studying 1980s pop culture, the decade Halliday grew up in and was perpetually obsessed with, in the hope it will assist them with locating and solving the puzzles involved with the egg.

The Last Space Viking

John F. Carr

The Last Space Viking by John F. Carr and Mike Robertson takes place a hundred years after Lucas Trask founded the League of Civilized Worlds. Many changes have occurred in the Old Federation and King Trask's plans for a new galaxy order are brought to a sudden halt when a new power emerges from the ashes of the Old Federation. Will King Rodrik the First of Tanith be able to salvage his grandfather's dream, or become a tool of the new Mardukan Empire? Space Vikings have been raiding and terrorizing the worlds of the Old Federation for hundreds of years. Great fortunes have been made and hundreds of planets conquered and despoiled. Unfortunately, the Sword-Worlds have gone into tehir own decline just as the League of Civilized Worlds is faced with its greatest defeat. Soon, the first real threat to Space Viking domination must be overcome and brought to heel. Will the disparate Space Vikings join together, or be sent packing back to the Sword-Worlds in defeat? Captain David Morland of Joyeuse might well be the last of the great Space Viking captains. He emerges at a time when the Old Federation is changing, and not for the better. All Morland wants is his own Space Viking base world to use as a place for organizing raids and trading parties into the thousands of worlds of the long-dead Federation. Generations of Space Viking marauders have taken their toll and plunder-worthy planets have declined as more and more of the Old Federation worlds have slipped into barbarism. But first, Morland has to find the right world and conquer it before he's discovered by a new power determined to end the Space Viking menace, one way or another!

Revolution is Not a Dinner Party

Revolution is Not a Dinner Party begins in the weeks before the Cultural Revolution in China. Ling Chang is a nine year old girl whose parents are doctors which are part of the upper class society in China. When Ling's father, Dr. Chang, had free time, he would teach Ling English and they would listen to American radio shows such as Voice of America. Dr. Chang's colleague from the United States, Dr. Smith, kept close contact with Dr. Chang in the time before the Cultural Revolution via mail. In the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, a political officer, Comrade Li, moves into part of the Chang's apartment room and begins conducts his operations from there. With the presence of Comarade Li next door, the Changs were forced to speak about controversial topics in hushed voices and listen to the American radio underneath blankets as well as displaying a revolutionary mindset through putting up pictures of Chairman Mao Zedong and assisting Comrade Li. Shortly after the officer moved in, Ling's closest friend's (Niu) father was taken away and branded as an antirevolutionary. After this, Ling was fearful her father would be taken as well. Shortly thereafter, Niu's mother was taken away as well and Niu was forced to live with her. Shortly after moving in, Niu is sent away to labor on farms because he is in high school and was a member of the aristocracy, from there he tries to escape to Hong Kong. However, Niu is caught and forced to join a revolutionary gang. Meanwhile Ling is constantly being harassed at school by children of the working class who believe Ling is bourgeois; Ling's clothing and long hair are constantly used as a means to make her look bourgeois. Ling's family were marked as bourgeois sympathizers and her father was removed from surgery and was forced to work as a janitor at the hospital. One day, Ling and her father rescue an counter-revolutionary writer who was trying to commit suicide by drowning himself. Because the Ling and Dr. Chang rescued him, Niu and his gang, the Red Guard, came and arrested her father for being an antirevolutionary. Ling is forced to take care of herself during the night because her mother worked nights in the emergency room and her father was no longer there. She became old enough to take over shopping for her mother and began to haggle and barter for more and better goods than could be bought with the ration tickets. Then one day at school the teacher is thrown out and Gao, one of the young revolutionaries tries to cut her hair. Ling retaliates and him with her schoolbag and gets away unscathed. She then receives news that her father will be operating on Gao’s father at the hospital. As Ling attempts to sneak into the compound, the guards catch her and throw her into a room with mats that are infected with lice. Tired and unknowing that the mats are infected with lice, Ling sleeps on them and gets lice infested in her hair. The next morning, the gardener came into the room and let her go. When Ling got back to her apartment, her mother had to cut all of her hair. Six weeks later, Ling is publicly forced to apologize to Gao for beating him by walking about the town with a blackboard on her chest; Chairman Mao had died shortly before and Jiang Qing, Mao’s wife, was arrested and accused of plotting to overthrow the government. When Ling arrived at the hospital during her forced march around town, Comrade Li, the officer living in her study, was arrested for being associated with Jiang Qing. Ling's father was shortly released thereafter and Ling, her mother, and Dr. Chang go home together after finally being reunited.

How Firm a Foundation

David Weber

:The below text was copied from Safehold. Empress Sharleyen travels to Zebediah and then Corisande to stand over the trials of those accused of treason after the conspiracies of the last novel. Her firmness, fairness and judicious exercise of mercy continue to win over the hearts and minds of the newest subjects of the Empire of Charis, especially when she is undeterred after an attempted assassination that is thwarted by Merlin. For his part, Merlin has been experimenting with steam technology, and gets no response from the orbital platforms. In Charis, technological developments are still developing water power, using deep reservoirs to control the flow of water, and also by replacing water wheels with turbines. On the artillery front, the Charisians have developed angle guns that allow them to shoot over walls, and are working on more breach-loading devices. Merlin takes these advances a little further and has Owl construct him a pair of revolvers. Father Paityr Wylsynn has some doubts about all these developments until he is inducted into the secrets of the Brethren of Saint Zherneau. After this, he reveals to the inner circle that his family was trusted with a message from the archangels. The message says that the archangels themselves are sleeping under the temple, and will return after 1000 years (20 years in the future at this time). Merlin is uncertain whether it is the actual archangels, or perhaps PICA versions of them. As a precaution, he begins looking at ways he can continue his own awareness in case his own PICA form is lost. The situation in Siddarmark is becoming strained. Siddarkmark and Silkiah are continuing trade with Charis in spite of embargoes imposed by the Church of God Awaiting, and there are large Charisian expatriate communities in these areas. Grand Inquisitor Clyntahn stokes resentment of the Charisians in the Siddarmarkian population, finally inciting them to mob violence. His nemesis Anzhelique, now known as Aivah Pahrsahn, has secretly bought up thousands of rifled muskets and trained a militia to use them, which she calls on to protect the Charisian Quarter and to keep the government of Siddarmark from falling. Grand Inquisitor Zhaspyr Clyntahn convinces the other members of the Council of Four that the Charisians taken as Prisoners of War by Admiral Thirsk at a previous engagement. Thirsk is against this, but can do nothing to stop it, so the prisoners are all taken to the temple and put to the question, leading to outrage in Charis. Clyntahn also begins working differently inside of Charis, keeping his agents from contacting one another or attempting to recruit, which makes it impossible for Merlin's SNARCs to find them. They manage to steal some gunpowder and distribute it. By loading it onto wagons and driving them into major centers, they manage to kill thousands of people, and assassinate several targets. Earl Grey Harbour is killed, as well as Prince Nahrman of Emerald. Baron Green Mountain of Chisholm is badly injured. Princess Irys and Prince Daivyn of Corisande are in Delferahk under the protection of King Zhames, and the guardianship of their the Earl of Coris. Coris receives orders from Clyntahn to allow the assassination of prince Daivyn so that it can be blamed on Charisians, but he has no plans to comply. He contacts Earl Grey Harbour (before his death) and asks for asylum. The assassins arrive sooner than anticipated, but Irys and Daivyn manage to escape with the help of Merlin and Hektor Aplyn-Ahrmahk, Caleb's adopted son.

Absolutely American

David Lipsky

The book recounts four years in the lives of students at the United States Military Academy.

Succubus Revealed

Richelle Mead

After everyone finds out about Georgina's phase with Seth during his and Maddie's engagement, things degenerate at Georgina's workplace and she quits. In the opening of the sixth book she works as one of Santa's elves in a Mall when she suddenly gets a notice that she has been transferred to Las Vegas.

The Wizard and the Witch

Jean Ure

It is “All Spells Night” and Jr. Wizard Ben Muzzy returns to his friends Joel and Gemma for a night of mischief. Nothing goes as planned, however, as he encounters a bumbling old witch named Grimwade, who can’t seem to cast spells correctly.

A Manhã do Mundo

Pedro Guilherme-Moreira

"09/11 2001. And if anyone who has seen everything could, suddenly, wake up in time to prevent the tragedy?". This is a presupposition which, on the cover, this novel presents. At the core, this is a story of five persons, Thea, Mark Millard, Alice and Solomon, who jumped from the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. It is also the story of Ayda, who calls them cowards, and of her husband. Now "imagine that on September 13, the Universe resets the day 11 for some of them." * Interview about the book by the author to Ana Daniela Ferreira on "À Volta dos Livros" in [[Antena 1 (Portugal)|Antena 1], on 22 June 2011] (Portuguese) * Video presentation of the book in [[Diário de Notícias] of 28 May 2011] (Portuguese) * Reference to the book on the television show "Autores" in [[TVI24] of June 24, 2011. Minute 42.](Portuguese) * Interview about the book A Manhã do Mundo by the author to Ana Daniela Ferreira on "À Volta dos Livros", at [[Antena 1 (Portugal)|Antena 1], on 22 June 2011.] (in Portuguese) * Interview about the book A Manhã do Mundo by the author to TV show "Câmara Clara", at [[RTP2], on 9 September 2011. From 3 min 27 s.] (in Portuguese) * Interview about the book A Manhã do Mundo by the author to Ana Rita Clara, on TV show "Mais Mulher", at [[SIC Mulher], on September 2011.] (in Portuguese)

Reamde

Neal Stephenson

Reamde begins by introducing two members of the Forthrast family who reconnect at an annual family reunion: Richard "Dodge" Forthrast, a middle-aged man who is the second of the three Forthrast sons (John, Richard, and Jake), and Zula Forthrast, John's adopted Eritrean daughter, Richard's niece. Richard is described as "notable enough to merit a contentious Wikipedia entry," having achieved fame and a net worth of nearly one billion dollars by founding a company that designed and operates an MMORPG called "T'Rain." T'Rain is a fantasy-themed virtual world with an extensive mythological backstory, incorporating an economic system intentionally geared towards meeting the needs of conventional players as well as gold farmers, who specialize in converting in-game currency to actual hard currency. Richard also owns a cat skiing resort in British Columbia, and his chequered past includes having been a marijuana smuggler. Richard decides to offer Zula a job at his company. Zula and her boyfriend, Peter, visit both the reunion and Richard's resort, located near the US–Canadian border where Richard used to run drugs. Desperate for money, Peter sells a database of stolen credit card numbers to a shady contact. The transaction resulted in a virus infecting the deal broker's laptop, which contains the only copy of the database. The virus, named "Reamde," affects T'Rain players by encrypting any seemingly valuable files and extorting in-game gold in exchange for a key to decrypt those files. As a consequence of the in-game payment method, chaos has already been building in the virtual world around the region holding the ransom drop points. Peter, Zula, and the middleman attempt to comply but take too long, and the middleman's ultimate client, the Russian mob, with the assistance of their own IT support, manage to find them in Seattle. After their predicament is explained, Ivanov, the gangster, notes the middleman has compromised too much of the criminal organization's activities, murders him in Peter's loft, and takes Peter and Zula hostage. Ivanov has been quietly siphoning common funds for risky profit schemes and is trying to save face before his associates punish him for his losses. With information Zula obtains from her employer, they travel to Xiamen, PRC to track down those behind Reamde and kill them. Upon arriving in China, Peter, Zula, Csongor, who is a Hungarian hacker offering the mafia IT support, and Sokolov, a former Spetsnaz security consultant hired by Ivanov, search the city for Reamde's perpetrators, eventually locating their apartment. The Russian security team prepares to raid the gold farming team, composed of young Chinese men, only to be misdirected by Zula into a random apartment, which coincidentally happens to house Islamic terrorists preparing to bomb an international conference soon to take place in the city. Ivanov murders Peter, and Abdallah Jones, a black Welshman who is the head of the cell and a highly wanted man by the UK's MI6, murders Ivanov following a highly destructive battle within the building. The gold farmers flee the building as a fire sets off the stored explosives and causes it to collapse. Jones proceeds to flee, kidnapping Zula as he goes. This crucial turning point in the plot also introduces Olivia, an MI6 agent who located and was gathering intelligence on the elusive Jones in anticipation of assassinating him. The story separates into four main threads at this juncture: Zula and Jones as they flee from the scene; Olivia and Sokolov as both attempt to extract themselves from their illegal presence in China; Csongor, Marlon, the lead author of the Reamde virus scam, and Yuxia, a local Hakka woman caught up by chance as the Russian's guide and driver, as they attempt to rescue Zula; and Richard as he continues to deal with the fallout of Reamde. Jones hijacks a taxi that takes him and Zula to a dock where some of Jones' network take them aboard a boat. Csongor comes close to killing Jones but fails, while Yuxia is taken captive for her part in the attempt. Jones' men sail to a poor port where he coerces Zula into helping hijack the private jet that first brought her and the Russians to China. The jet's pilots are pressed into service, flying everybody off-radar and into the snowy wilderness of Canada, where they are killed. Zula reveals her relation to Richard to keep herself alive, and Jones continues to drag her around as Canadian terrorist cells are called upon to join with him. Several civilians are murdered for their vehicles as more passably Western cell members are brought in for what will ultimately be a major attack on the Las Vegas Valley, once the US border can be crossed. They aim for Richard's resort and use Zula as leverage to gain his assistance crossing into Idaho. Csongor and Marlon buy a boat and try to chase after Jones and rescue Yuxia. They make their move on the terrorist trawler after Jones and Zula have left but manage to save Yuxia and kill all of the terrorists on board. They then have to learn how to sail, running out of gasoline, until they find themselves in the Philippines, making their way to a modern city where Marlon can begin to assemble his T'Rain crew to start picking up all of the Reamde extortion money and use it to assist the three of them as they try to figure out where to go next. Sokolov, hoping to kill Jones and save Zula, tracks down Olivia after their brief encounter in the immediate aftermath of the apartment battle, chancing across her spy equipment and wallet, and offers her assistance in getting out of China. Through Zula, Jones knows where to find Sokolov, but Sokolov kills those sent to kill him and, as they've found Olivia's address, goes back to find her and kill her attackers as well. He lets Jones know he's still alive and warns him not to harm Zula. He and Olivia swim to Taiwanese territory, where they become intimate before she locates a nearby handler. The handler's promises to get them both out in exchange for intelligence on Jones fail to materialize as a hit squad attempts to kill Sokolov as he departs. He escapes, though Olivia thinks he's been killed. Olivia is tasked with further Jones-related work, heading first to the Philippines to meet the last main character to be introduced, Seamus Costello, a CIA operative responsible for Jones-related work solely in the Philippines. They find it unlikely he is there, and Olivia heads for the US as a secondary hypothesis on where Jones has gone. Olivia meets Richard to dissuade him from going to China to look for his niece as she now knows everybody is long gone. Seamus remains in the Philippines, so when the T'Rain administrators pick up on Marlon's login to the game, he finds the trio in an internet cafe and helps bring the three of them, without homes and newly rich, to the US to gain new identities. Richard is also dealing with the virus and trying to integrate a player-originated schism deviating from hard-coded good and evil character assignments to color-based alignments, the brightly colored graphical character palettes against more neutral earth-toned colors, corresponding roughly to stark versus nuanced points of view. A major force behind the realignment originates in the writings of the two principal authors of T'Rain's narrative, one a Cambridge don who writes highly regarded fantasy, the other a pulp author who churns out volumes of poorly regarded fantasy. To provide more balance to the so-called War of Realignment, a new narrative is derived to incorporate Reamde and make sure some of the extorted money ends up in the hands of the numerically weaker earth-toned side. For various reasons, all of the characters begin to converge on the resort and its US-side counterpart where Richard's youngest brother Jake lives with a community of Christian isolationists and second amendment fanatics. The terrorists find a location near the resort to camp and inform Richard, who is directing Reamde triage alone at the resort, of their hostage, forcing him to lead them into the US while a small team detonates a suicide bomb near the border as a distraction. Seamus brings the three new Americans to Idaho on a hunch shared with Olivia, who has chanced upon Sokolov in the US and also brought him to Idaho. After being used as bait, Zula manages to escape from a skeleton crew that was readying to kill her, gathering supplies from the resort before heading out to rescue her uncle. US terrorist cells also converge on the Idaho property, and protagonists and terrorists end up battling one another in a terrific gunfight around Jake's home, demolishing it. In the end, Richard kills Jones. Richard's oldest brother John is killed during the firefight while others receive various levels of injury. Zula and Csongor, Olivia and Sokolov, and Seamus and Yuxia end up in relationships as the story closes at the next Forthrast family reunion.

The Third Reich

Roberto Bolaño

The novel concerns Udo Berger, a German war-game champion, who returns with his girlfriend Ingeborg to the small town on the Costa Brava where he spent the summers of his childhood. When one of his friends disappears Udo invites a mysterious local to play a game of Rise and Decline of the Third Reich, a classic wargame published by Avalon Hill.

The Golden Lily

Richelle Mead

The book follows Sydney Sage, a young Alchemist that is forced to hide inside a ritzy boarding school in Palm Springs, California so that she can protect Jill Dragomir, a Moroi princess. There are those who want Jill dead by an assassin's hand in order to provoke a civil war within the Moroi court. The assignment provides Sydney a way to redeem herself from previous disgrace but her close proximity with Jill, Eddie, and Adrian cause her to question everything she thought she knew about herself, Alchemists, and the world in general. During all of this Sydney finds herself also questioning her relationship with Brayden, someone who is seemingly perfect for her in every way. Even as she cares for him, Sydney finds her attentions also being drawn to someone that she can never be allowed to be with. As secrets come to light and loyalties are given a trial by fire, Sydney has to find a way to make it through all of this with herself and all that she cares for intact.

The Art of Fielding

Chad Harbach

Henry Skrimshander begins the novel as a 17 year-old playing on his Legion baseball team in Lankton, South Dakota. Although physically short and not muscular, Henry has an unusual gift for fielding, and excels at the demanding position of shortstop. After playing a game against a team from Chicago, Westish College student Mike Schwartz sees Henry play and recruits him to attend Westish and improve the baseball team. By the time of his junior year, Henry is excelling as a player (especially on defense) and is drawing significant attention from Major League Baseball scouts. Westish College is a small liberal arts college located in northeastern Wisconsin on the shore of Lake Michigan. The school has a particular attachment to author Herman Melville, ever since a Westish student named Guert Affenlight discovered that Melville had visited Westish as part of a lecturing tour in the 1880s. The school re-branded itself around the Melville visit, erecting a statue of the author and renaming its sports teams as the Harpooners. After publishing a well-received book and spending many years as a professor at Harvard, Affenlight returns to his alma mater as president of the college. His estranged daughter Pella comes to live with him during Henry's junior year, after leaving her architect husband and life in San Francisco. Much of the novel focuses around members of the Westish baseball team, during their best season in the history of the college. As Henry approaches the NCAA record for most consecutive errorless games by a shortstop (held by his baseball hero, Aparicio Rodriguez), a throw of his goes awry and hits his roommate, right fielder Owen Dunne, who is sitting in the dugout at the time. Owen is hospitalized by the injury, an incident which shakes Henry's confidence deeply. His fielding quickly deteriorates to the point where he can no longer complete a simple throw to first base. Examples in the novel of Major League players with similar situations are Steve Blass, Chuck Knoblauch, and Rick Ankiel. Off the baseball field, the novel explores the relationships between several pairs of people. This includes romantic relationships between Mike Schwartz and Pella Affenlight, as well as one between Owen Dunne and Guert Affenlight. The mentor-student relationship between Schwartz and Henry also comes to the forefront, as each examines their hopes for the future and the extent to which it rests on their baseball ability.