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The Dark Wheel

Philip MacDonald

The novel centers on Cornelius Van Toller, a wealthy New Yorker, with Jekyll-and-Hyde character. His obsession with actress Kay Forrester sets the stage for a thrilling drama.

Sengsara Membawa Nikmat

Kacak, the conceited nephew of a rich village leader in Padang, is jealous of Midun, the religious and popular son of a poor farmer; Kacak often attempts to goad Midun into fighting him. After Midun saves his wife from drowning, Kacak becomes enraged at the thought that Midun had touched his wife and attacks him. Midun fights back, quickly knocking Kacak out. As a result of his actions, Midun is forced to do tasks for the village leader under Kacak's supervision. Still enraged at Midun, Kacak hires an assassin to kill him. When the attempt fails, the assassin and Midun are arrested and sent to prison. While in prison, Midun is tortured until he earns a reputation for being a good fighter. He also meets Halimah, who lives with her stepfather, after returning her diamond necklace. After he is released from prison, Midun takes Halimah to find her father in Bogor. After living with them for two months, Midun attempts to go to Batavia to find work, together with Halimah. Along the way, he meets the Arab Indonesian Syekh Abdullah, who lends him money; after refusing to pay the high interest or letting Abudullah marry Halimah, Midun is arrested. After his release, he saves a Dutch youth being attacked in Pasar Baru. For saving the boy, Midun is granted a job at the police station by the boy's father, the hoofdcommissaris (head commissioner). He also marries Halimah. Midun is later stationed in Padang upon request to the commissioner, after hearing that his father had died. Kacak is arrested for embezzlement, and Midun lives happily ever after.

Hilarity Ensues

Tucker Max

Hilarity Ensues opens with stories that Tucker experienced living and working in Cancun while still enrolled in as a full-time student at Duke Law School. The following stories are included in Hilarity Ensues: *"The Cancun Stories" *"Drugs Are Bad, Mmmkay?" *"Why Halloween Is Awesome" *"Fat Girls Cross Tucker, Hilarity Ensues" *"The Deadliest Vacation" *"Sexting With Tucker Max: Mean" *"The Fight Stories" *"Meet My Friend Hate" *"Tucker Ruins A Wine Tasting" *"The Ex-Girlfriend Threesome Fallout" *"In the Trunk" *"The (Almost Banned, Now Complete) Miss Vermont Story" *"Tucker Max: Knee Abuser" *"Sexting with Tucker Max: A/S/Location, Location, Location" *"The Law School Weddings and Bachelor Parties"

The Night of Wishes

Michael Ende

The evil sorcerer Beelzebub Preposteror has contracted with His Excellency the Minister of Pitch Darkness to perform a certain number of evil deeds each year. This year, however, he did not meet the requirement, because the High Council of the Animals has sent the cat Maurizio as a spy, which forces Beelzebub to be more cautious. On New Year's Eve he joins forces with the evil witch Tyrannia Vampirella, who has the same problem due to the raven Jakob who is spying on her. Together they try to brew the eponymous Notion Potion that will grant them all wishes, in order to fulfill their part of the contract before midnight. If they succeeded to brew the potion they wouldn't even have to keep it secret from the animals, because due to the nature of the potion every wish they make will have the exact opposite effect - i.e. if they wish someone good health, he'll become sick instead. The plot starts on New Year's Eve at 5 pm and the chapters each represent one hour until midnight to illustrate the increasing time pressure that the characters are under. On the one hand, the sorcerers have to complete a five-meter-long recipe to brew the potion, while constantly getting in each other's way. On the other, the cat and the raven must find a way to stop their evil plan while tackling their own problems, namely the obesity of the cat and the chronic diseases of the raven. Nevertheless, they devise a plan to exploit a weakness of the potion: when the potion has not been fully drunk up before the first ring of the bell at midnight, the potion won't reverse the meaning of the wishes - as expected by the two sorcerers - but instead grants them as wished.

Dragon's Oath

Kristin Cast

Dragon sits by Jack's funeral pyre and reminisces about his first meeting with Anastasia. He pulls out a locket and opens it, but the wind lifts the last of her hair inside and carries it over to the pyre. This starts a spell Anastasia had laid on the locket, that conveys to Dragon her last wish, to temper his blade with mercy. The book goes back to his human days. The third son of a lord, Bryan is young, cocky and bold. His father disowns him when he becomes involved in a scandal with a neighbour's daughter and sends him to the Americas. At the docks he meets a Tracker, who claims him as a fledgling and takes him abord a ship with a sculpted dragon's head, which inspires Bryan in regards to his new name. At the Chicago House of Night, Anastasia, a 22-year-old newly adult vampyre, has been hired as the Spells and Rituals teacher. While talking with the local High Priestess, Pandeia, and her mate, Anastasia brings up the problem of some fledglings who had asked for a love spell for Bryan. Instead of refusing them, she asks permission to perform a drawing spell, to show the fledglings the truth about Bryan. She starts the spell on a night with a full moon. As she is also thinking of him at the time of the spell, she is shown a futuristic apparition of him, when he has fully Changed and is no longer a fledgling. Anastasia finds that she loves Bryan, and then he really appears as his nineteen-year-old self. Bryan, who is now Dragon, helps Anastasia finish her spell, and begins leaving her sun-flowers from that moment. An officer, Jesse Biddle, consults with a creature (it is revealed at that this is Rephaim, the Raven Mocker who is Stevie Rae's Consort) about who he should kill- Anastasia - so that Light doesn't defeat them. At the House of Night, Pandeia expresses concern regarding Biddle's harassment. Anastasia proposes she go and perform a peace spell. As a Warrior represents the opposite of the spell, they propose she take Bryan, who is still a fledgling, but already a Swordmaster. While she performs a circle near his place, Anastasia is attacked by Biddle and dragged inside after he chokes Bryan. Biddle fights and nearly kills Anastasia, and prepares to rape her, but she draws a circle of salt around her and creates a barrier. Dragon comes and kills Biddle, and prepares to also kill the creature, but Anastasia has a vision of him and tells him to temper his strength with mercy, and think about what he's doing. Dragon sets the creature free and pledges his Warrior's Oath to her. As a result he Changes into an adult vampyre. Back to the present, Nyx and Anastasia materialize in front of him and make a last attempt to make him move on but he refuses. In the end he rejects Nyx for refusing to return Anastasia to him.

Fat Kid Rules the World

KL Going

Troy Billings, 6'1 and weighing 296 pounds, is standing on the edge of a subway platform contemplating suicide when a homeless former student from Troy's school, Curt McCrae, intervenes. Curt tells Troy that he saved his life, now he owes him a favor, so he insists that they start a band together with Troy playing drums. The only problem is that Troy can't play drums and hasn't since seventh grade. Together, Curt and Troy create the band Rage/Tectonic. Although unable to play drums, he goes right into practicing for an upcoming gig. In the process, Troy finds self-confidence and acceptance while realizing he is desperately trying to save Curt's life from drug addiction and abuse.

Little Red Cap

Carol Ann Duffy

The poem Little Red Cap begins with "At childhood's end" informing its audience of the characters transition out of childhood. She is narrating the story, as she explains that once the wolf came to the edge of the woods her childhood ended. Little Red Cap examines the wolf, and found herself excited about his large ears, eyes, and teeth! The wolf is portrayed as an older character by the reference of alcohol used in his description"his hairy paw, red wine staining his bearded jaw". Little Red Cap, only 16 years old pursues the older wolf. That became the start of her transition to adulthood. Being younger than the wolf, he buys Little Red Cap her first drink. The reason: poetry. Little Red Cap was prepared for what was to come. She knew that the wolf would lead her into the woods. Little Red Cap was prepared to leave home, and go into the woods with the wolf. This was the beginning of the love story and relationship of Little Red Cap and the wolf. She discovered an abundance of books within the Wolf's lair. The two grew close as their relationship blossomed. After 10 years passed from when Little Red Cap wandered into the woods with the Wolf she left the woods without him, ending their relationship. When she met the wolf she was only a child, but after 10 years passed Little Red Cap left the woods as an adult. Duffy's Little Red Cap uses the same story line and characters as does the original Little Red Cap by Grimm, but portrays a completely different message. In the original fairy tale Little Red Cap is a "sweet little girl who is given a cap that she falls in love with. The young girl is sheltered by her mother, given specific instructions about her behavior and duties. She does not make the right decision when she decides to talk to the Big Bad Wolf, and tell him where she is going. In this fairy tale Little Red Cap is portrayed as a young foolish child. Duffy's version however, shows Little Red Cap transition out of her childhood. Here Duffy used the original story line, but changes the message. Instead of Little Red Cap being tricked by the wolf, she uses him as guidance. Little Red Cap falls in love with the wolf, and their venture into the woods represents her transition out of childhood.

Summer and the City

Picking up where The Carrie Diaries left off, seventeen-year-old Carrie Bradshaw has left her hometown and treks to New York City. Set during the summer before her freshman year at Brown, Carrie learns to navigate her way through the Big Apple, takes a writing class at The New School, and even pursues a relationship with an older man. Joining her along the way, she meets Samantha Jones, a true Manhattan fashionistas who's determined on the path of fame and fortune, and the opinionated feminist Miranda Hobbes who is a freshman at NYU.

Conan: Scourge of the Bloody Coast

Leonard Carpenter

Conan, under his piratical alias of Amra, continues to develop a pirate empire in the Vilayet Sea. Operating from the rebuilt city of Djafur, located on one of the islands in the Aetolian chain, Conan plays King Yildiz's Turanian empire against the Hyrkanians. Joining forces with the necromancer Crotalis, Conan and his pirates participate in looting the lost city of Sarpedon. But Crotalis turns on the pirates, forcing Conan to run his ship ashore, where Conan is captured by Hyrkanians but later released after he proves his worth as a warrior. In return for his release, Conan agrees to support the Hyrkanians in their naval invasion of Turan. Crotalis also offers his services to the Hyrkanians, leading to another rogues' alliance with Conan. Using a magical wind summoned by the necromancer, the Hyrkanian fleet moves to attack the Turanians. After a lengthly naval battle leads to a stalemate, Crotalis re-animates the bodies of all the pirates' former victims, forcing Conan to battle the undead and Turanians. But before Crotalis claims final victory, he is burned alive; the battle leads both nations' navies in weakened states, and Conan's Red Brotherhood becomes the strongest fleet on the Vilayet.

The Litigators

John Grisham

Oscar Finley and Wally Figg are the bickering partners of a small twenty-plus-year-old law firm in the western part of the South side of Chicago that tries to appear successful although it is really a small-time operation. Generally, the firm focuses on simple divorces and DUI cases, with an occasional automobile accident that provides a boon to the firm. Oscar's character holds the firm together despite the childish junior partner Wally and his questionable ethics. The novel presents Finley & Figg as a law firm so far down the food chain that it advertises on bingo cards. The story depicts the changes that occur when a young formerly successful down-and-out attorney, David Zinc, relegates himself to working as an associate with Finley & Figg (F&F) and an enormous case avails itself. When her boyfriend failed to coerce the firm into service, she paid her divorce fees in kind and became Wally's love interest. He would break up with her much later when it was convenient for him to do so. As part of the routine, Rochelle checks the obituaries to see if any of their estate clients has passed away. One day, Chester Marino's name is listed and Wally makes his way to the proper funeral home. He meets Lyle Marino, the son whose interests F&F were supposed to represent against children from a second marriage. Lyle claims that his father was killed by Krayoxx, whetting Wally's tongue to the case. After finding a few former clients who had valid claims, the firm was able to generate publicity in the Chicago Tribune with a picture of their filing. This induced an avalanche of communications and led them to several additional claimants. At first, the case seems to be a simple opportunity to sign up patients who took the extremely popular cholesterol reduction drug, Krayoxx, which was the number one prescription for obese patients. Krayoxx is produced by Varrick Labs, a $25 billion/year pharmaceutical giant which is dealing with a preponderance of heart attacks by its customers. Wally notices a blossoming class action lawsuit in Florida against Varrick and realizes that if he can find some patients to sign as clients, he can earn a big payday on another firm's coattails. However, some complications make the story interesting. Although none of the three F&F lawyers had previously argued in United States federal court, that is where they find themselves pitted against Zinc's old firm with this case. In fact, David's expertise was in long-term bonds. Once the Finley & Figg claims become prominent, mass tort operators approach them about being part of a mass settlement. Wally flies to Las Vegas to meet with the other mass tort interests, most notably Jerry Alisandros. Varrick flew to Chicago to meet with Nadine Karros, a leading defense attorney. Karros works for Rogan Rothberg. Believing that they can get federal judge Harry Seawright to claim jurisdiction, Karros is chosen for her firms' ties to him and her expertise. The case was soon expedited on Seawright's docket with Finley & Figg's claim singled out of the tort claimants. Eventually, Karros takes action to have Finley & Figg's eight death cases separated. Eventually, Alisandros learns that tests of Krayoxx yield benign results. Oscar and his wife, Paula, are often at odds, and as a large settlement looms, he attempts to divorce her and cash out. After settlement talks break down with Varrick, Alisandros withdraws as co-counsel and Finley & Figg motions to withdraw their claims. Once at Finley & Figg, Zinc stumbles upon a lead poisoning brain damage case involving Burmese immigrants. He expends his own time and resources on their case. He also succeeds in representing immigrants in a labor law case. During the labor case, the employer attempted to have Finley & Figg burned down and the individual who attempted to do so stumbled upon Oscar at the office. Oscar shot him and added an unnecessary debilitating shot that shattered the person's leg. He was sued for excessive force. With Varrick having spent 18 million dollars defending himself and the mass tort bar having vociferously discredited Krayoxx in the mass media, Karros motioned for frivolous lawsuit sanctions pending a withdrawn motion. Additionally, actions were initiated for legal malpractice regarding Wally's letters that promised 2 million dollar settlement followed by motions to dismiss without notifying his clients. After realizing that they could be sued for defense costs and malpractice for withdrawing the case, Finley & Figg withdraw their motions and agree to a jury trial that they believe to be futile. The trial commenced as originally scheduled. During opening statements, Oscar suffered a myocardial infarction. Wally attempted to make light of the situation by proclaiming it an example of Krayoxx effects. Karros moved for mistrial and the motion was granted, leading to the need to seat a new jury. Wally stood in for Oscar as lead attorney while a new jury was seated and for the first day of testimony. The next day, the recovering alcoholic Figg was nowhere to be found although an empty pint bottle of Smirnoff Vodka was. After Wally was AWOL for a second day, David was pressed into service. Rueben Massey, Varrick CEO, instructed Karros not to motion for likely-successful summary judgment. Zinc declined to cross-examine the first handful of expert witnesses that Varrick called, Eventually, Zinc discredited the reputation Varrick's clinical trials during cross-examination of the final expert witness. Nonetheless, the jury rendered a very quick not guilty verdict. Zinc continued to pursue the lead poisoning product liability case. He settled the case for $6.5 million (including $1.5 million in legal fees). He attempted to become equal partners as Finley, Figg & Zinc. The partnership did not work out and was dissolved after twelve months. Zinc opened his own product liability practice, David E. Zinc, Attorney-at-Law. * Oscar Finley, Finley & Figg Senior Partner - A lazy, unhappily married, nearing retirement "fender-benders, slip-and-falls and quickie divorces veteran" and former police officer. * Wally Figg, Finley & Figg Junior Partner - A former DUI convictee and four-time divorcé who trolls funeral parlors and sickrooms for clients. * David Zinc, Finley & Figg Associate attorney - Prototypical Grisham young hot shot Harvard grad lawyer whose life is turned upside down. * Rochelle Gibson, Finley & Figg secretary - Former claimant against Finley & Figg who holds the firm together. * Nadine Karros, Defendant's leading litigator recruited by Varrick. * Harry Seawright, federal judge. * DeeAnna Nuxhall, repeat Finley & Figg divorce customer and eventual love interest of Wally's *Jerry Alisandros, mass tort operator who brings F&F into his firms fold. *Paula Finley, Oscar's wife *Rueben Massey, CEO Varrick.

When the Moon Forgot

Jimmy Liao

The Moon Forgets tells the story of what happens when the moon falls from the sky, and is adopted by a little boy. The boy and the moon come to love each other, but the world misses its moon. The tides, weather, and astronauts are all affected by the loss of the moon.

The Fear

Charlie Higson

The Fear begins 5 days before Small Sam and The Kid, having escaped from the London Underground,arrive at the tower at the end of The Dead. A prologue introduces a new being named 'The Collector' who "collects" "toys". Throughout the chapter he refers to the captured children as his "toys" and laments their "breaking". He captures 2 children after a brief struggle, and adds them to his collection. However, The Collector mainly collects newspapers and other paraphernalia which results in his house turning into a land fill. The Collector lives in a 5-story house which is piled high with rubbish, but he mainly lives in his basement. The basement is basically a maze of his own excrement as well as bloodied flesh and more junk. The focus then shifts to the settlement in the {Tower of London}, where a scouting trip is in the process of being organised. The scouts are Dognut, Courtney, Olivia - who is going to find her brother Paul, Jessica - who just went as she broke up with her boyfriend, Finn - who is looking for friends, Al - who is looking for his sister Maria, Marco and Felix who were with DogNut at the Imperial War Museum. After a quick row upriver, they end up at the Houses of Parliament where they find a girl named Nicola and her group, who operate under similar conditions to the pre-apocalyptic government, with elections and various titles. She tells them none of their friends are here but lets them know about David King at Buckingham Palace. During the journey, the group is attacked by the 'gym bunnies', a group sickos who due to their good physical condition are harder to kill, corner DogNut's crew. About to go in for the kill, they are interrupted by a brutal group of mercenaries, known as "hunters", led by Ryan Aherne. They guide DogNut's crew to the Palace where Al is reunited with his sister. Later, the group realises that David isn't all that he seems; through Dognut's quiet inquiries, they discover that David is extremely paranoid and wishes to imprison their group. They head to the museum at night, without Al, who stays with his sister, and Jessica, who is too scared to continue. As it is night, the sickos are out in larger numbers and the gang gets chased to a house where they think kids are living in. Instead it turns out to be the Collector's lair. The group encounters the large monster and make a run for it. Without realising, Olivia gets left behind and gets killed by the Collector. They group later arrives at the Natural History Museum where they meet Brooke, Robbie (their Head of Security), Justin (the leader) and Paul (Olivia's brother). Paul asks for Olivia but is told by Courtney that she was killed by the Collector. Meanwhile, a boy ,referred to only as Shadowman, spies on the ramshackle settlement in St James's park, noting it's feudalistic nature and the possibility that John, the leader of the group, may be insane. Back at the museum, Paul, Olivia's brother, is hysterical after being told of Olivia's death - he is determined to kill the being known as the Collector. DogNut's group, Robbie, Jackson (a friend of Robbie), Ryan's hunters and a couple of others from the museum join with Paul to kill the Collector. The large group coax the Collector out of his lair onto the road, where they savagely kill him. Upon returning, Justin gives DogNut a tour of the place. He shows DogNut the experiments that they've been carrying out to investigate the disease and to find a cure - this included taking samples from 3 sickos that they've locked up in the Tesco lorry. He explains to DogNut of the large number of sickos residing in the basement of the museum where they obtain their test subjects from. They have found out so far that UV light (sunlight) rapidly increases the speed of the disease causing a sicko to die if exposed to too much sunlight. However, they also found that sickos could also build up resistance to the sunlight by exposing them to a fixed amount of sunlight each day until they were fully able to roam about in the day time. Afterwards, Paul has lost his mind and starts to threaten and blame everyone for Olivia's death. Brooke calms him down. DogNut decides to head back to the Tower first thing next morning but is persuaded by Justin to stay longer to write his and his group's story into a book in which Chris is writing in the library. At the Palace, David and Nicola meet secretly. David proposes that the 2 groups form an alliance - a step into helping with his plan of taking over London. Nicola is reluctant, but ends up creating a deal that involves removing the 'squatters' at St James Park as they pose a threat to her group at the House of Parliament. Until then, she won't officially agree to the alliance. David accepts and immediately asks for Jester to go and recruit children who can fight. Shadowman visits Jester in Buckingham Palace who convinces him to join on an expedition to recruit more children to join them at the Palace. The small group of Jester, Shadowman, Tom, Kate and Alfie begin walking up North until they encountered a group of sickos. They run away and end up at Kings Cross Station. The group fights off some sickos before Shadowman is hit accidentally by Jester, leaving him with a slight concussion. Jester, Alfie, Tom and Kate abandon Shadowman and are then split with Jester and Alfie together and Tom and Kate being together. Shadowman passes out when a group of sickos are upon him. Jester and Alfie find refuge in a building until a group of sickos finds them. In creating a plan of escape, Jester tricks Alfie and abandons him, escaping by himself. Alfie is killed by the sickos. Jester runs and discovers the Morrison's supermarket but is denied entry. He then finds the Waitrose supermarket where he is rescued by Arran's group (described in The Enemy). Shadowman wakes up and finds himself at the Emirates Stadium. He learns that the sicko, St. George, is much smarter than the rest of the sickos as he is creating an army in the stadium. Shadowman escapes the army of sickos when a fire lights up in the stands (most likely Small Sam escaping as told in The Enemy). He takes refuge in a nearby apartment building where he discovers boxes of weapons and food. He sees this as a sign to follow St. George's army, to learn about them before returning to London city. While watching their movement, he sees Tom, Kate and Callum (a boy from The Enemy) get killed by the army. Dozing off to sleep, he is suddenly woken up by sickos that found his hiding spot - including one of St. George's right-hand men (One-Armed Bandit). Shadowman manages to kill them all and plans to kill every single of St. George's right-hand men, including St. George himself and Jester for betraying him. All the while, DogNut, Courtney, Marco and Felix who are at the museum, are preparing to head back to the Tower. Finn decides to stay while Brooke joins the group. Robbie and Jackson join the group but are only escorting them part of the way. They set off to the Tower until they are ambushed by the 'gym bunnies'. Everyone is killed except for Jackson and Robbie who manage to escape the battle and Brooke who is saved by the Holloway crew (as described in The Enemy). She is taken to Buckingham Palace with the Holloway crew and is revealed that she is the quiet and heavily bandaged girl in the sick bay. Like in 'The Enemy', she tells Maxie and Blue about the museum and that David is a liar. Meanwhile, Paul, who is still crazed, secretly leaves the museum for Buckingham Palace. He meets with David and Jester who take advantage of his mental state, and tell him a fake story that everyone was plotting against him. This causes Paul to take revenge on everyone. David convinces him to return to the museum and release all the sickos who are in the basement. Paul agrees and returns to the museum. He kills a boy named Jamie who was on duty at the lower levels of the museum. Just before his death, Paul reveals to Jamie that he was bitten by one of the sickos in the lorry.

Unfamiliar Fishes

Sarah Vowell

The book takes a humorous tone and examines the fulfillment of American imperialist manifest destiny at the end of the 19th Century as America annexed Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Guam, and invaded Cuba, and the Philippines in 1898, in an attempt to become a global power. Vowell then tells the story of the culture clash that ensued following Christian missionaries who then moved in swiftly to try to convert the laid back native Hawaiians to the American way. The title comes from a reference of David Malo.

Moonwalking with Einstein

Joshua Foer

Foer describes his book as participatory journalism in the world of competitive memorization and attempts to delineate the capacity of the human mind. He sets out to investigate the underpinnings of those with enhanced memory, soon finding himself at the 2005 U.S. Memory Championship. He covers the scientific basis of memory creation and historical attitudes towards memory, including its negative reputation in the Western educational system, a perception which Foer is largely opposed to. He explores common mnemonic tools for improving memory: the techniques of Roman rhetoricians and the tannaim ("reciters") of Sri Lanka, the Major System and the PAO System for memorizing numbers and cards, and Mind Mapping, a note-taking technique developed by Tony Buzan. These methods are all a form of the method of loci, in which data is stored in a sequence of memorable images that are decomposable into their original form. He espouses deliberate practice as the path to expertise, and declares psychological barriers as the largest obstacles to improved human performance. The book describes the prodigious memory and 87-point IQ of Kim Peek, the inspiration for the 1988 movie Rain Man. Foer discusses how Daniel Tammet's index finger slides around on a table as he performs mental calculations in a documentary; mental multiplication experts and mnemonists that Foer speaks with imply that Tammet's claims, involving synesthetic morphing shapes and colors standing in for complex numerical feats, are questionable. World memory champion Ben Pridmore tells Foer that "[t]here are a lot of people in the world that can do those things." Foer notes that Tammet, competing under his previous legal name "Daniel Corney", won the gold medal at the World Memory Championships' "Names and Faces" event. Tammet had tested poorly in facial recognition under Simon Baron-Cohen's assessment of synesthetic abilities; Foer states that poor facial recognition ability is a suitable indicator of inborn "savant" status, as opposed to "savant-like tricks [developed] through methodical training". He also discovers self-promotional forum posts advertising "mind power and advanced memory skills" courses as well as psychic phone readings (the latter under the pseudonym "Daniel Andersson"). In a cached version of "danieltammet.com", Foer finds Tammet relating details omitted from his autobiography Born on a Blue Day: Foer interviews Tammet on several occasions over the course of several weeks, during which he confronts him with the forum posts. Foer also tests Tammet: After practicing traditional memory techniques for a year, Foer wins the 2006 US Memory Championship. He represents the US at the World Memory Championships in London, where he places 13th and fails to attain "grandmaster" status. He wins bronze in the "Names and Faces" event.

The Habitation of the Blessed

Catherynne M. Valente

The novel, a reimagining of the legend of Prester John, begins with the accidental discovery by a missionary monk, Brother Hiob of Luzerne, of a curious village containing a tree whose branches bear books instead of fruit. He plucks three of them, and within them finds three different perspectives on the life of Prester John in the magical land of Pentexore - one by the man himself, one by his Blemmye wife Hagia, and one by a Panotii woman named Imtithal, storyteller and nurse to the royal family. The narrative of the book shifts back and forth between the three texts, interspersed with the reflections of Brother Hiob as he struggles both to transcribe them before the book-fruits rot away and to contend with the vast differences between the stories he finds there and the idealized vision of the legendary king he had previously held.

Prince Serebrenni

Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy

Knyaz (Prince) Nikita Serebryanni is on his way to Moscow. In Medvedevka village his small armed unit of servants clashes with the oprichnik Khomyak’s gang. There and then the Prince learns that bloodshed and lawlessness here were inspired by Tsar Ioann's new policies, known as oprichnina. Another plotline involves Yelena Morozova, the wife of Medvedevka landlord whom the Prince helped out; she turns out to be his own loved one of the old times, who had to marry the old man in order to thwart another vile oprichnik, Vyazemsky, with his unwanted passes. Further on his way, Serebrenni helps out the outlaw named Persten (the latter would repay the Prince later by leading him out of Grozny’s jail) and encounters the terrible Tsar himself. Appalled by Godunov's cynicism (who suggests that the two should join forces in the anti-Grozny alliance) and torn apart between his righteous hatred towards the Tsar with his corrupt oprichnicks, and his own oath of allegiance, Serebrenni, all kinds of adventures behind, chooses to go to war, to fight for his country (not its amoral ruler), and die the death of a noble man.

Layar Terkembang

Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana

Tuti and Maria, daughters of Raden Wiriatmadja, go to the fish market where they meet Yusuf, a medical student from Martapura, South Sumatra. After he escorts them home, he realizes that he has fallen for Maria. The following day, he meets the sisters while on his way to school and goes out on the town with them. He and Maria become closer and closer, while Tuti busies herself with reading and attending congresses on women's rights. A few months later, Yusuf returns early from his holidays to be with Maria; however, not long afterwards she falls ill and is diagnosed with malaria. Tuti begins feeling the need to be loved, remembering Supomo who had once proposed to her; after Supomo's younger brother comes to demand an answer, she says no. Maria's condition grows steadily worse and the doctors change their diagnosis to tuberculosis. As she lies dying in hospital, Tuti and Yusuf go to visit her cousins in Sindanglaya, where Tuti notes that one need not live in the city in order to be useful to one's country. Upon their return to Maria's bedside, Maria requests that they marry each other. After Tuti and Yusuf, who have been growing closer, agree, Maria dies.

Saman

Ayu Utami

Saman follows four sexually liberated female friends: Yasmin, a married Catholic lawyer from Medan; Cok, a Balinese lawyer with a high libido; Shakuntala, a bisexual Catholic Javanese dancer; and Laila, a Muslim Minangkabau journalist. The other protagonist is the titular Saman, a former Catholic priest turned human rights activist who becomes the target of sexual advances by Yasmin and Cok. The first chapter, beginning in Central Park, New York, describes Laila waiting for the married Sihar and planning to lose her virginity to him. Eventually Laila realises that Sihar is still in Jakarta with his wife, and feels depressed. The second chapter covers Saman's childhood—including his relationship with his mother, a woman drawn to the spiritual world—his entry into priesthood, and his attempt to protect a rubber tapping community from the attempt by a local plantation to acquire their land. After the attempt fails and the plantation's hired thugs raze the community to the ground and kills those who resist, Saman is captured and tortured. He eventually is broken out of his confinement by the surviving resistance members, becoming a fugitive and relinquishing his duty as a priest. He becomes a human rights advocate, assisted by Yasmin. The third chapter, written from the point of view of Shakuntala, tells how Yasmin, Cok, Shakuntala, and Laila met at high school and their escapades there, both sexual and academic. Shakuntala recounts a fantasy she had as a teenager about meeting a "foreign demon", embracing him and then having a debate on the different cultural aspects of sexuality. Towards the end of the chapter, Shakuntala notes that she is attracted to Laila and dislikes Sihar, but supports her friend's efforts as she cares for her. During the fourth chapter, Saman is spirited away to New York by Yasmin and Cok. Although both Cok and the married Yasmin make advances toward him, he initially declines. However, during the middle of the night he and Yasmin have sex, but Saman is distressed because he ejaculated quickly. The entirety of the last chapter consists of emails sent between Saman and Yasmin, discussing their insecurities, that become increasingly sexualised.

Where were you last Pluterday?

Paul van Herck

The theme in the book is Pluterday, an extra day in the week which can be withdrawn if one saves enough time (e.g. by taking a plane instead of a train). Only the rich can save enough time and thus Pluterday is in practice reserved for the "happy few", resulting in a class society. The existence of Pluterdays is kept secret to non-privileged people.

The Return of the Soldier

Rebecca West

The novel begins as the narrator, Jenny, describes her cousin by marriage Kitty Baldry pining in the abandoned nursery where her dead first son would have been raised. Occupied with the domestic management of the Baldry estate just outside of London, the two are almost completely removed from the horrors of World War I. The only exception is that Kitty's husband, Chris Baldry, is a British soldier fighting in France. While Kitty laments in the nursery, Margaret Grey arrives at the estate wishing to bear news to the two women. When Jenny and Kitty meet her, they are surprised to find a drab middle-aged woman. And even more to their shock, the women tells them that the War Office sent Margaret notification of Chris's injury and return home, not Kitty and Jenny. Kitty dismisses Margaret from the estate trying to deny that she could have been the recipient of such information. Soon after, another cousin of Jenny notifies the two women that he in fact has visited Chris and he is obsessing over Margaret, whom he had had a summer fling with fifteen years before. Soon after, Chris returns shell-shocked to the estate thinking he is still twenty years old, but finding himself in a strange world which had aged fifteen years beyond his memory. Trying to understand what is real for Chris, Jenny asks Chris to explain what he is feeling to be true. Chris tells her the story of a romantic summer on Monkey Island, where Chris at the age of twenty falls in love with Margaret, the daughter of the innkeeper on the island. The summer ends with a rash departure by Chris caused by a fit of jealousy. After Chris tells this story, Jenny travels to London to bring Margaret back to Chris and help him understand the difference between his remembered past and reality. She arrives at Margaret's dilapidated row-house to find her disheveled and taking care of her husband. After some conversation, Jenny convinces Margaret to return with her to the estate in order to help Chris. Upon Margaret's return, Chris recognizes her and becomes excited. Margaret explains how fifteen years have passed between the Monkey Island summer and that Chris is now married to Kitty before returning to her home. Chris acknowledges this passage of time intellectually but cannot retrieve his memories and still pines for his love of Margaret. Margaret continues to visit and Kitty and Jenny despair about Chris's loss of memory. Jenny and Kitty decide to consult Dr Gilbert Anderson, a psychoanalyst. Dr. Anderson arrives during one of Margaret's visits. Dr. Anderson questions the women, and with the help of Margaret decides on a course of treatment: Margaret must confront Chris with proof of his dead child. Margaret retrieves toys and clothing with the child, and confronts Chris with the truth. Finally, Chris regains his memory, Margaret departs and Kitty rejoices in the Chris's return to a state fit to be a soldier.

Marching Men

Sherwood Anderson

The novel begins with the fourteen-year-old Norman McGregor packaging a loaf of bread for his uncle, the "village wit", – who ironically nicknames him "Beaut" because of his off-putting appearance – in his mother Nance's Coal Creek bakery (bought with the savings of her late husband/Beaut's father "Cracked" McGregor). Not long after, frustrated by the local miners expecting bread on credit without first settling their debts, Beaut closes the bakery during a miner's strike. That evening, as the now-drunk miners move to ransack the bakery (and assault Beaut), he is saved by a troupe of soldiers marching in formation. After the episode, the bakery remains closed and Nance goes to work at the mining office while Beaut idles about. When Beaut is 18 years-old, his mother becomes too ill to work and the young man gets a job as a stableboy. One day, as a prank, his fellow stableboys get Beaut (a teetotaler up to that point) blind drunk with a "horrible mess" made just for that purpose. Having reached a breaking point, Beaut takes the rest of his father's savings and leaves Coal Creek for Chicago on the same evening. He arrives in the City just after the 1893 World's Fair. Despite a shortage of jobs, McGregor easily finds a warehouse job and settles into a routine of work during the day and night school/independent reading at night. One day, in a break from the ordinary, the usually unsocial McGregor gives in to the urging of his neighbor Frank Turner, a barber and amateur violin-maker, and goes to a dance. Despite his aloofness, McGregor meets Edith Carson, a frail, mousy, and somewhat homely milliner/shop owner, with whom he develops a platonic relationship. Book III begins with Beaut returning to Coal Creek for his mother's funeral. During the funeral procession, the miners who attend fall spontaneously into step and Beaut is once-again inspired by the power of marching men. Back in Chicago, Edith Carson, who had gained a modicum of wealth through her shrewd business dealings, loans McGregor the money necessary for him to quit working full-time and attend school to become a lawyer, his long-time ambition. Not long after McGregor is admitted to the bar, the son of a wealthy industrialist is found murdered. In order to quell newspaper speculation as to their involvement, the political bosses decide to redirect the media's attention by framing and demonizing small-time thief Andy Brown, an acquaintance of McGregor. From jail, Brown requests that McGregor act as his lawyer. Though McGregor refuses at first, he ends up with the job. After an unsuccessful solo investigation, McGregor turns to wealthy heiress-turned-settlement house-volunteer, Margaret Ormsby, for help. Margaret, a "new woman" who dresses fashionably, is self-assured in demeanor, and is capable of acting independently is bothered by McGregor's bluntness, but decides to aid him nevertheless. On a tip from Edith Carson, and with Ormsby's connections, McGregor is able to clear Andy Brown of any wrongdoing. In the interim, Margaret Ormsby and McGregor develop a romance. While McGregor is slowly building up his idea of marching men (his law practice on the backburner), he decides that he wants to marry Margaret Ormsby. As he is leaving a formal party at her family's mansion, McGregor asks Margaret to marry him, but gets nervous and flees before she can respond. A few weeks later, McGregor falls asleep at the house of Edith Carson and wakes up with her stroking his hair. Realizing that their relationship is more intimate then he had thought, he goes to Margaret and reveals his past experiences with women. Margaret hears McGregor's confession and declares that she will still marry him, but first, she must go talk to Edith. A few weeks later, when McGregor is in the neighborhood for a teamster's strike, he finds that Edith's shop had recently come under new ownership. Rushing to the train station, he finds Edith about to depart. Together, they go to the Ormsby house and in a confrontation Margaret cedes her claim over McGregor to Edith. As Edith and McGregor are leaving, Margaret's father, David, leader of a plow trust (nicknamed "Ormsby the Prince" by the City's oligarchs), extends a hand to McGregor. The two men shake, the narrator noting their polite antagonism towards each other. Soon, the marching men idea blooms with workers coming together and marching to and from work in the evenings. Becoming nervous over newspaper reports and rumors of the worker gatherings, several "men of affairs" discuss the matter. David Ormsby volunteers to dissuade to McGregor from further organizing but cannot communicate his point to the impassive McGregor. The marching men movement peaks during a demonstration on Labor Day, climaxing with a speech by McGregor. Riding in a carriage with her father at the fringe of the demonstration, Margaret Ormsby is overcome by McGregor's oration, but later professes her allegiance to her father. The book ends that same night with a solitary David Ormsby, a foil to the stereotype of the ruthless businessman, at his window overlooking the city, meditating on his life choices: "What if McGregor and his woman knew both roads? What if they, after looking deliberately along the road toward beauty and success in life, went, without regret, along the road to failure? What if McGregor and not myself knew the road to beauty?"

Marked

Kristin Cast

Sixteen-year-old Zoey Redbird lives in a world where vampires have always existed. One day, during school, Zoey is marked by a Tracker to become a fledgling vampyre at the Tulsa House of Night, a boarding school where she will be trained to become an adult vampyre. She faints, only to find herself deserted by almost everyone and hurries home. Her mother, Linda Heffer, blames her for the Mark and, together with her ultra-religious husband (Zoey's stepfather/step-loser), she tries to keep Zoey at home, to be presented to the Elders of the People of Faith, an anti-vampyre group. As fledglings need to be constantly in the presence of an adult vampyre so that their bodies won't reject the Change, Zoey flees to her grandmother Sylvia, a Cherokee Wise Woman. On the way she passes out and has a vision with the vampyre goddess, Nyx, who announces to Zoey that she will be her "eyes and ears" at the House of Night. The goddess leaves Zoey with the words "Darkness does not always equate to evil, Light does not always bring good" which becomes a very frequent and important message throughout the series. Zoey wakes up at the school in the presence of her grandmother and the vampyre headmaster- her future mentor, Neferet. She finds out that her Mark is all filled in, unusually for fledglings, but follows her intuition and doesn't mention the vision to Neferet. As a fledgling vampyre, Zoey has the opportunity to change her name and does so, taking her grandmother's surname, Redbird, before parting with her. Aphrodite another fledgling then takes her to her room, where she meets Stevie Rae, her new roommate and future best friend. Through Stevie Rae, Zoey meets and befriends Damien, Erin, and Shaunee. She also meets the snobby, beautiful leader of the Dark Daughters and Sons, Aphrodite, a fledgling with the power to see the future. To humiliate Zoey she invites her to join the Dark Daughters, who are an elitist group. Her new friends counsel her to accept, so that they can get insight into Aphrodite's doings. During the ritual, Aphrodite feeds her fledgling blood and Zoey discovers a new craving, unusual for her age. Embarrassed, she flees- but finds Heath, her ex-boyfriend, and Kayla, her ex-best friend, who have come to the school in an attempt to bust Zoey out. A confrontation ensues and Zoey loses control. She bites Heath, creating an Imprint with him. Kayla freaks out and runs away; Zoey eventually persuades Heath to leave too. When they have gone, Zoey discovers that Erik Night, a handsome fifth former and Dark Son whom she met earlier, has seen the whole scene. He comforts her and escorts her back to the dorm. That night she is chosen by a cat, whom she names Nala. The following day, she meets Neferet, who explains to her that an Imprint is a link that takes place between a adult vampyre and his or her human Consort. As it is very unusual that Zoey could create an Imprint in her first month of being a vampyre, she places Zoey into a senior vampyre sociology course. Zoey discovers that she has affinities for the five elements of air, fire, earth, water, and spirit- something that has never happened before in vampyre history. Stevie Rae, Damien, Shaunee, and Erin each gain an affinity for one element as well. Zoey is (spitefully) invited back to the Dark Daughters and Sons' Samhain celebration, where they honor the spirits with some blood. Everything goes fine until a drunk Heath stumbles upon the scene and tries to bring Zoey back with him. Aphrodite accidentally summons evil spirits which try to take Heath’s fresh human blood. Zoey steps in; she and her friends use their newfound abilities to stop the spirits. Neferet, who happens to witness everything, takes Aphrodite's status as leader of the Dark Daughters and Sons and gives it to Zoey instead. As they go home, Aphrodite angrily informs Zoey that "it's not over yet- you don't understand."

Goliath

Scott Westerfeld

As the airship Leviathan travels over Russia, Alek, Deryn, and Newkirk are in the middy's mess with perspicacious loris pet Bovril, talking about great circle routes. Alek mentions Deryn's father was an airman, but Newkirk says that the airman was Deryn's uncle. A two-headed messenger eagle from czar heads towards the bridge, interrupting their discussion. A message lizard sends Deryn to the bridge and Newkirk to the cargo deck. Alek goes with Deryn, and there Dr Barlow tells them to take the bird to the rookery and feed it. Deryn nearly confesses her secret to Alek, but then says she cannot, and claims a fencing lesson. Cout Volger tries to expose her gender unless she discloses the imperial message. Deryn convinces Volger to desist, so as not to shake the confidence of Alek, who admires her as a boy. The imperial message to pick up a cargo from a fighting bear, but the dried beef is overloaded by metal parts and tools, and drags Deryn and Newkirk down into the trees until Newkirk says tip to the side, and the crew dump clart (waste water) and other supplies. Dr Barlow orders Alek, with Klopp, Hoffman, and Bauer, to assemble the metal contraption and keep it secret. The loris shows them how it detects metal with Barlow's necklace. In Tunguska, Siberia, the area has been destroyed, trees are flattened and pointed in one direction, and many stripped corpses include an organic airship, smaller than theirs. By dropping the beef at a distance to distract giant starving bears, they rescue Nikola Tesla, his Russian soldiers and airship crew. Tesla's electrified fence had to be disconnected for the Leviathan to land, so he scares rogue bears with his electrified walking stick. Volger tells Alek to find Tesla's mission. First, he reads a newspaper article about "Dylan" and the Dauntless by Eddie Malone to himself, then to Bovril, who confirms his suspicion. Artemis Sharp had a surviving daughter named Deryn, and Bovril whispers "Mr. Deryn Sharp" into Alek's ear. At Dr Barlow's request, Alek and Deryn use Tesla's device to pinpoint the inventor's bedroom. Deryn sneaks in and discovers a metal lump hidden under Tesla's bed, and scrapes off a sample. Alek asks her, "Can I trust you, Deryn?" and knows that she is a girl when she does not comment about his using her real name. After she argues and leaves, Alek realises that Deryn didn't tell him because she is in love with him. For a few days, Alek and Deryn are not on speaking terms. Alek decides to support Tesla in his mission to end the war with his magnetic beam, the Goliath, but sadly misses Deryn; she is angry he dropped her just because she is a girl. Sent to Tokyo just to brandish the British flag, the Leviathan battles an Austrian ship and two German zeppelins in support of the Japanese. When one of the engines is shot, both Deryn and Alek arrive to help, and Alek admits he wants Deryn back. When Dr Barlow wants Deryn to get new clothes, Alek saves her from discovery being measured by offering himeself to the tailor's hands. In Tokyo, Tesla demonstrates the Goliath publicly at a conference in the Imperial Hotel, claiming the sky color will change in London. The Royalty confirms the visible colors and orders the ship to New York for Tesla. While crossing the Pacific Ocean in a storm, Alek hits his head protecting Deryn. To keep him awake after a concussion, Deryn kisses him. They promis not to keep secrets from each other, and for Alek to lie protecting her secret. Arriving at William Randolph Hearst's estate in California, Philip Francis films them. Reporter Eddie Malone is fleeing from Hearst's men, so Deryn helps him escape onboard. He suggests Francis may be a German spy because he changed his last name from German. They use Tesla's detector to find arms and film hidden in sugar barrels after dinner and a cliff-hanger episode of the film Perils of Pauline. The adventursome American female impresses Alek mightily to tell Deryn. Crossing Mexico, one engine stops suddenly. Pancho Villa's men offer to help them in exchange for the sugar. Deryn sends one message about suspicious walkers, then dons gliding wings to investigate. She semaphores C-A-M-E-R-A in time, but injures her arm and leg on landing. Alek gets Pancho Villa's physician, Dr. Azuela, to treat Deryn instead of ship's Dr. Busk, but Eddie Malone overhears Deryn's secret when Azuela tells Pancho Villa. Pancho Villa and Mr. Francis film the Leviathan as part of Hearst's movie deal with Pancho. Alek takes meals and helps Deryn keep her secret through her recovery, but Deryn fears punishment in New York when Eddie Malone publishes his article. Alek is planning to stay in New York and help Tesla promote Goliath, and he ask Deryn to stay in New York with him to help Tesla. Dr Barlow offers Deryn a job with the Zoological Society of London, but retracts her offer fearing scandal from deceived British government and Air Service. Alek saves Eddie Malone from falling off when a rocket hits the jitney that they are leaving on. Deryn, watching from the bridge, gets them to douse flames with waste clart water. Alek show Malone the Pope's endorsement to his claim to throne as emperor so the reporter will keep Deryn's secret. Dr Barlow shows Deryn the article with Alek's story, not her secret, and offers Deryn the job again. At the Serbian consulate, Lilit tells Deryn about a German water-walker coming to attack Goliath, so Dr Barlow convinces Captain Hobbes to keep watch. When Leviathan sees approaching bubbles underwater, they bomb the escorts, but must leave the largest to land to prove the attack and encourage the Americans to join the war, so she sends a warning by eagle to Alek. At his Tower, Tesla hosts a dinner before a demonstration that Goliath can change the color of the sky in Berlin, but under attack decides to fire for real, despite danger to Leviathan. Volger uses a smoke bomb for surprise, and Alek has to used the electrified cane of Tesla to kill the owner. The suppressed energy destroys the water-walker, so the U.S. enters the war on the Darwinist side when they see the wreckage. Dr Barlow receives a message that tells her that the sample Deryn stole from under Tesla's bed was from a meteorite, therefore Goliath did not cause Tugunska event. Alek receives a medal for going with Deryn to fix Tesla's wire on the spine. After the ceremony, Alek and barely-healed Deryn again climb the spine together. Alek tells her the truth about Tesla's death, declares his love by kissing her, and throws the Pope's scroll overboard. He rejects his past which he has already lost. When he admits to needing a job next, Deryn suggests joining her and Dr Barlow at the London Zoological Society. The last chapter is a newspaper article by Eddie Malone. Alek has accepted a position with the Zoological Society. Alek's only comment is the Habsburg motto "Bella gerant alii, tu felix Austria, nube" or "Let others wage war. You, lucky Austria, shall marry." To read a bonus chapter that is not in Goliath click on the link: http://scottwesterfeld.com/blog/2011/12/bonus-goliath-chapter-and-art/ =References= pl:Goliat (powieść Scotta Westerfelda)

Betrayed

P. C. Cast

At her first parent visitation, Zoey is reunited with her family for the first time in a month. She joyously welcomes her grandmother, but is saddened to notice the stiffness of her parents, which contrasts strongly with the loving and friendly behavior of Stevie Rae's mother. Neferet comes upon their meeting and is almost immediately engaged in a religious dispute by Zoey's stepfather. In the ensuing argument, Zoey's parents vow never to come to the House of Night again, and Neferet kicks them out. The same night, Zoey witnesses Aphrodite being verbally abused at by her parents and starts developing sympathy for her enemy. Later on, she chances upon Neferet scolding Aphrodite and is shocked by this new side of her mentor. That day, Neferet invites Zoey for a private dinner. Upon hearing that Zoey saw her and Aphrodite, she informs her that the latter's visions were no longer valid, as Nyx had withdrawn her gift, and advises Zoey to keep her distance. Later on, while watching TV, Zoey learns of the death of one of the high school football players whom she knew and goes on a walk to clear her head. She chances upon a crying Aphrodite who claims to have had another vision, that included Zoey's grandmother. She asks for a favor for her help and asks Zoey to take an oath. Unwilling to risk her grandmother's life, she accepts and learns that Aphrodite has seen her grandmother in a car, stuck on a collapsing local bridge, at a precise time. Zoey calls her grandmother to tell her to stay at home and then she and her friends make a call to the police about a bomb on the bridge, to keep other people away from it, around the time it was set to fall. Aphrodite's vision turns out to be true, making Zoey begin to doubt Neferet. When two of her ex-boyfriend's friends disappear and are found murdered, she begins to suspect Neferet has something to do with it, especially after witnessing her discussing the murders with "undead", supposedly deceased students in a dream. Meanwhile, Zoey must make decisions regarding her love life, as she is drawn to her ex-boyfriend Heath due to their Imprint, maintains a relationship with fledgling peer Erik Night and captures the interest of Poet Laureate and teacher Loren Blake. Zoey reorganizes the Dark Daughters, now that she is in charge of them, but Neferet takes credit for most of her new ideas at the first new Dark Daughters ritual. Shortly after the ritual, her best friend Stevie Rae rejects the Change and dies. As Zoey grieves over Stevie Rae, she learns that Heath too has disappeared, following the two other murders. Using her Imprint, a connection formed when vampyres consume a person's blood, she is able to locate him and takes off to retrieve him. She finds out that Heath is being held captive by "undead" fledglings. Using her elemental affinities, Zoey frees Heath, but also finds out that it was Neferet who changed the dying fledglings into the "undead" creatures- one of which is Stevie Rae. The fledglings had lost their humanity and reverted to an almost feral state. She runs away with Heath, vowing to return. At the school, Neferet attempts to erase Zoey's memory, but Zoey recovers her memory and starts hatching a plan to help her former best friend.

Le Dernier Homme

Jean-Baptiste Cousin de Grainville

The story is told by a spirit to a young man who comes upon its cave while traveling in Syria. The protagonist, Omegarus, is the son of the King of Europe and the last child born there in a far future in which the earth is becoming sterile and the human ability to reproduce is fading. He sees a vision of Syderia, the last fertile woman. She lives in Brazil, so he travels there in an airship. After various adventures there, including meeting Ormus, the Spirit of Earth, who urges them to begin a rebirth of the human race, the pair return to Europe. There they meet Adam, the first man, who has been condemned by God to watch all the damned among his descendants enter Hell, and who is now charged with persuading Omegarus and Syderia not to prolong the life of humanity, which God has determined must now end. He succeeds in having Omegarus leave Syderia, who then dies. Ormus, who cannot survive without humanity, despairs, and the world begins to end and the graves of all the dead to open.

Conqueror

Stephen Baxter

Begins in AD 607, ends in AD 1066 after the Battle of Hastings.

Navigator

Stephen Baxter

Begins in AD 1070, ends in AD 1492 as Columbus sails westward.

The Affair

Ronald Millar

A group of professors at Cambridge University try to hire an old colleague back even though they all don't like him, they all agree he was dismissed unfairly.

Revolution 2020

Chetan Bhagat

Set in the holy city of Varanasi, Revolution 2020 is the story of three childhood friends - Gopal, Raghav and Aarti. Gopal and Raghav are childhood friends, whereas Aarti is Gopal's closest friend and love interest. Gopal is from a poor family, Raghav, a middle-class family, and Aarti's family is from a bureaucratic and political background. The three friends hold their own ambitions in life, with Gopal seeking financial wealth, Raghav wanting global political change and Aarti aspiring to work as an air hostess. After failing both the IIT-JEE (Indian Institution of Technology Joint Entrance Exam) and AIEEE (All India Engineering Entrance Examination) exams, Gopal is forced to move to Kota, the so called "capital of coaching classes" to undertake them again. However, Raghav scores very well in his exams and joins the IT-BHU as a way to fulfill his dream of bringing revolution to India as a journalist. In Kota Gopal is completely surprised when he learns that Aarti and Raghav have formed a romantic bond and consequently develops problematic habits, disrupting his life. Due to the emotional difficulties brought on by his friends' relationship, Gopal again fails to pass the AIEEE. Gopal's father cannot bear his son's repeated failure and eventually dies, leaving Gopal an orphan. Due to past debts totalling nearly 2 lakhs, Gopal makes a deal with a MLA, Shukla, to start an engineering college on his father's disputed land. Gopal becomes director of the new college(GangaTech university) and proceeds to learn about a corrupt educational system, the workings of which he eventually accepts. Meanwhile, Raghav finishes his engineering studies and becomes a trainee reporter for a popular newspaper, "Dainik". He begins publishing all of Shukla's wrongdoings like the Ganga Action Plan (GAP) scam worth 20 crore which gives a bad reputation to Gopal's college. Illegal re-zoning of land controversy cause some damage to GangaTech college. Shukla gets Raghav sacked but Raghav starts his own newsletter called Revolution 2020. He publishes an article about the Ganga Treatment Scam and proves that Shukla is a corrupt man. Shukla is forced to resign. Aarti develops a deeper friendship with Gopal and starts spending time with him as Raghav had no time for her. She acquires the job of a Guest Relationship Manager at the newly formed Ramada Hotel. Gopal invites Aarti there and reveals his love for her. Gopal finally succeeds in winning her over. He wants to go to Raghav's office to tell him that Aarti is no longer his and that he had become a more successful man in spite of being uneducated. However, before he actually meets Raghav, he meets a young boy Keshav who according to Gopal resembles him in his childhood. It is then that he realizes that he and Keshav were the same but the only difference between them was that he himself had given in to the corrupt system but Keshav still possessed his innocence. He realizes that Raghav is the better man and vows to make amends. So, on Gopal's birthday when Aarti comes to tell Gopal that she also loves him always, not Raghav , Gopal brings two prostitutes to make Aarti believe that the girls are with Gopal. Then Aarti leaves the house leaving the birthday gift for Gopal she brought - a scrapbook - and Gopal allows Raghav to get married to her. Then Gopal opens the scrapbook and sees that Aarti confesses her love for him there. A heartbroken Gopal thinks that in spite of the fact that he and Aarti love each other, Raghav's love and life will make Aarti more happy in life. In a deeper thought it is also been given that Gopal loved Aarti more but he had to let her go off for good. He was taking all the pain himself for Aarti and Raghav's better future, so that Raghav may bring in a revolution in this corrupted world. A famous quote from the novel is "Life is a bitch when the only woman you can think of belongs to someone else".

The Mountain Is Young

Han Suyin

The Mountain Is Young is set in Nepal in 1956. The protagonist, Anne Ford, is a writer whose husband is a retired colonial civil servant. She travels to Khatmandu to teach English at the Girls Institute. In Khatmandu, she meets and falls in love with Unni Menon as part of a process of self-rediscovery.

A Casa

Andre Vianco

Some people who have harmed others in the past, receive an invitation to visit The house. There, they have a chance to make the things right with one condition: do not bring out those who have already gone.

Chosen

Kristin Cast

The book opens on December 24th, Zoey's birthday. The school's been shaken by drama teacher Patricia Nolan's death. She's been crucified and next to her there was a quote from the bible which leads Zoey to believe that the People of Faith are responsible and Neferet must strengthen school security. Set to clear out her romantic life, Zoey sneaks out of the House of Night, resolved to break up with Heath - without success. On the way back she meets Stevie Rae and, with Aphrodite, brings her to Aphrodite's parents' house, and keeps her there while trying to find a solution for her problem. Back at the House of Night, Zoey realizes that, as a leader of the Dark Daughters, she has to choose someone else to fill the position of Earth in her circle. Much to everyone else's displeasure, she chooses Aphrodite, when she manifests a new affinity for the Earth. Zoey also feels more and more estranged from Erik, because of the lies she tells to hide her relationship with Loren. During the night Erik finishes the Change, she loses her virginity to Loren and Imprints with him, breaking her previous one with Heath. Erik walks in on them and angrily breaks up with Zoey. She pulls herself together and leaves to gather her friends, planning to tell them about Stevie Rae, to cast a circle and heal her. On the way, Zoey chances upon Loren and Neferet and hears him confess that Neferet had made him seduce Zoey, for her to become alienated from her closest, and that he actually loves Neferet. Heartbroken, Zoey leaves to get Damien, the Twins and Aphrodite. She had planned to use the occasion to cure Stevie Rae and introduce her to her friends. Because of Loren's meddling, Stevie Rae arrives before Zoey has the chance to explain her to her friends and they feel betrayed, but agree to finish the ritual. When Zoey is about to invoke Earth, Stevie Rae attacks Aphrodite in a fit of jealousy and drinks from her and Changes into the first red adult vampyre. Aphrodite is terrified to discover that her own mark has disappeared and runs away through the secret exit with Stevie Rae after her, leaving Zoey alone with the rest of her friends. Zoey does her best to explain and she manages to get them to listen until Erik shows up and reveals her infidelity and her relationship with Loren. This shatters Damien and the Twins' last bit of faith in her. On the way back she is seized by a series of spasms, and founds out much later that they came from her Imprint with Loren breaking as he died. Acting from apparent grief at his loss, Neferet declares war on all humans. Zoey realizes that Neferet is lost to sense, pulls herself together and faces Neferet down after the Council.

Awakened

Kristin Cast

Zoey and Stark reassure their connection by having sex under the wishing tree and become connected. Zoey finds out that she wields the ancient magick of the fey and can bring back old fey that serve her elements, prompting Queen Sgiach to ask her to stay on Skye indefinitely and be her successor. Aphrodite and Darius leave Skye, but Zoey and Stark decide to stay a little longer while Stark recuperates. Zoey continuously senses Darkness on Skye, leading her to believe that she cannot hide from Darkness anymore. Neferet returns to the House of Night. In an attempt to draw Zoey back from Skye after Kalona's failed mission, Neferet kills Jack as a debt payment to Darkness. Finding out about Jack's death, Zoey realizes that no matter how good she feels on Skye, Tulsa is her home and she has responsibilities as a High Priestess and returns. Kalona finds out that he can enter Stark's mind because of the immortality he breathed into him. For the same reason, he realizes that the oath he swore to Neferet doesn't apply to him anymore as he hasn't been fully an immortal since his return. Neferet allows Zoey to light Jack's funeral pyre and during the ceremony, Neferet asks Zoey for forgiveness to regain everyone's trust. Zoey accepts the fake apology even though she sees through Neferet, but many other people think the apology is genuine. Neferet summons Darkness to drag Rephaim to the funeral and accuses him of being allied with Darkness and Stevie Rae for being allied with Rephaim, then orders the Sons of Erebus to kill both of them. Kalona interferes and faces the Sons of Erebus with Rephaim. The two fight, but Rephaim only defends himself rather than attacking the warriors. Stevie Rae asks her friends to cast a circle to stop the battle and save Rephaim. She asks Kalona for his son's freedom and he grants it and takes off. A white feather falls from him, symbolizing his good deed. The feather breaks Stevie Rae's concentration and Dragon Lankford lunges to kill Rephaim. Convinced by Stevie Rae's words, Zoey steps between them and stops Dragon, arguing that Rephaim is on the same side, having chosen the path of Light. Nyx appears then and forgives Rephaim, bespelling him to take human form at night and raven form during the day, to atone for killing Anastasia. She also talks to Damien and Dragon, to convince them to move on, then disappears. Rephaim goes to Dragon and offers his service to pay for the grief he had caused, but Dragon rejects him. When Zoey tries to calm Dragon, he lashes at her for her age. Because Neferet and Dragon do not accept him at the House of Night, Zoey, her friends, and the red fledglings leave to start a new House of Night on their own in the tunnels, with Zoey being the "vampyre queen", Stevie Rae being the High Priestess, Aphrodite being the Prophetess, Kramisha being the Poet Laureate, and all the red fledglings and Zoey's friends being the students. Towards the end of the book, Neferet cooperates with the white bull and intends on sacrificing Sylvia Redbird, but ends up killing Linda Heffer (who had recently left Zoey's stepfather due to his infidelity) to create a Vessel for her (someone who has to obey her completely) as a weapon to use against Zoey. Meanwhile, in the Otherworld, Heath is given the opportunity by Nyx, to be the lost soul in this Vessel and he chooses it over being reborn in the real world or remaining in the Otherworld; this way, he can help Zoey in the modern world. Meanwhile, Stark and Zoey are making out and preparing to have sex for their third time, but Stark becomes aggressive, which is unlike himself. He bites Zoey, but she is finally able to stop him (It is implied that it was Kalona, not Stark, in Stark's soul, who took over and got aggressive). When they go to sleep, Zoey has a dream where she learns of her mother's death and realizes that her mother really cared for her. The book ends with Zoey waking up with this new realization and beginning to cry and grieve for her mother's death, and Stark being there to comfort her.

Destined

Kristin Cast

The book is told from no less than 11 points of view, respectively Zoey, Stevie Rae, Rephaim, Kalona, Stark, Aurox, Neferet, Shaunee, Lenobia, Dragon, and Erik. In the prologue, Zoey is seen with Stark. She notices Darkness on him and commands Spirit to send the Darkness away. Zoey is unsure about the death of her mother. Meanwhile, Aurox kills a human person. The white bull comes and tells Aurox and Neferet that he can create chaos. Neferet plans to use Aurox to kill and the white bull and rule the world as the Goddess of Vampyres. Zoey and her friends return to school where she blindsides Neferet by initiating a Skype meeting with Duantia, the leader of the High Council. She gives her version of the events in Awakened and puts Neferet in the uncomfortable position of having to accept Rephaim at the House of Night. Next, she asks for a second House of Night under the Tulsa depot, but although Stevie Rae is accepted as the High Priestess of all the red fledglings by the Council, Duantia doesn't give a full answer regarding the request. In the garden, Rephaim is visited by three of his Raven Mocker brothers, sent to him by Kalona to use his supposed misery and consequent bitterness to spy for him and even turn to Darkness. They are stunned to see him in his human form. Their meeting is interrupted by Aurox who kills one of them and proceeds to attack Rephaim. He is stopped by Stevie Rae, but not before she, Rephaim and Zoey see him half-shift into a bull. Neferet appears and diffuses the conflict, calling Aurox her gift from the Goddess. Erik hears the commotion, but he falls under the Tracker compulsion before he can actually intervene. He finds Shaylin, a blind girl, and she makes him stumble over the traditional lines, so that when he finally marks her and she reveals a red Mark he blames himself. Shaylin recovers her eyesight and gains her first gift, the very rare True Sight, which allows a person to 'see' others in colors. Confused, Erik decides to take her to Stevie Rae. At the school, Zoey receives a visit from her grandmother, who confirms Linda's death and leaves for a seven-day period of mourning. Zoey runs off to mourn and Aurox finds her. He offers her a Kleenex, just like Heath used to. At the bus, Erik presents them with the girl. Neferet appears and Shaylin pretends to faint, later telling them she had the general color of dead fish eyes. The next day at school, Rephaim feels the call of his father and calls Zoey to stand witness to the meeting. Kalona appears on the wall and offers them a truce against Neferet, which Zoey reluctantly accepts. As the discussion takes place during her first class, with Neferet, she skips it altogether. When she returns to the school building for her second period she finds out that the Council has sent Thanatos, a vampyre Priestess with an affinity for Death, to report on the situation at the House of Night, much to Neferet's displeasure. As Thanatos too can see the threads of Darkness, Zoey finds her sympathetic and eventually reveals her concerns about Neferet and her mother's death. Thanatos offers to perform a reveal ritual at the place of Linda's death on the fifth day of mourning. Back at the depot, Zoey and her friends sit down to discuss the events. Rephaim finds unexpected support in Shaunee, who empathizes with him because of her father, but this leads to a break between the Twins, as Erin doesn't understand why Shaunee feels so strongly about this. Two more prophecies, one from Kramisha and one from Aphrodite, warn of Rephaim's death at the reveal ritual, probably at the hand of Dragon, so Thanatos asks him to remain at the House of Night, which he doesn't obey. While wondering in the tunnels, Shaunee spots Kalona, waiting for his son. Shaunee gives him her iPhone so that he can contact him until she can get him another phone. Neferet finds out about the reveal ritual and sends Aurox to intervene. During the ritual, he charges out in his bull form but is stopped by Dragon, who sacrifices himself to save Rephaim. The ritual continues anyway; Zoey and her grandmother discover the real circumstances of Linda's murder. Dragon's death is what closes up the ritual, but Rephaim is seriously injured as well. Kalona arrives on the scene - having been called by Stevie Rae - and he expresses regret, asking Nyx not to kill Rephaim for his own mistakes. The request is granted, Rephaim regains consciousness. Thanatos then proceeds to Dragon and guides him to the Otherworld. A gateway is opened and everybody can see him happily reunited with Anastasia. Thanatos decides to become the new High Priestess of the Tulsa House of Night. Much to everybody's surprise, Kalona pledges himself as Thanatos's Warrior. As they leave the scene, Zoey and her friends see a vision of Nyx, who reminds them that the fight will continue.

Infinity Blade: Awakening

Brandon Sanderson

The story picks up from the main ending of Infinity Blade. Siris, the final player character in Infinity Blade, returns to his hometown of Drem's Maw after killing the Deathless God King with his own sword, the Infinity Blade. The elders of Drem's Maw force Siris to leave because they fear the other Deathless will attack Drem's Maw to reclaim the Infinity Blade. Siris returns to Lantimor, where he had defeated the God King. While there Siris gains a partner of sorts in Isa, an assassin who is part freedom fighter and part self-serving mercenary. They learn that the God King has been resurrected and that the Infinity Blade can only permanently kill a Deathless once it has been completely activated. (In the game Siris completely activated the Infinity Blade after defeating the Ancestor.) They travel to the lands of Saydhi, another Deathless, to learn from her where the Worker of Secrets, the creator of the Infinity Blade, is imprisoned so they can return the Infinity Blade to him. Isa remains behind as Siris takes on the champions of Saydhi one by one. Afterward, Saydhi tells Siris where to go, but then attacks him. He kills her, but is captured by the resurrected God King, and the Infinity Blade is retaken by the God King. Isa kills Siris with a crossbow bolt so the God King cannot kill Siris permanently with the Infinity Blade. Siris then wakes up in a healing tank similar to one beneath the God King's castle, and learns he is a Deathless originally named Ausar. The warriors that had gone to fight the God King were revealed to be just countless resurrections of Ausar and the Ancestor, whose name is Archarin, is the son of one of the resurrections. Siris and Isa part ways after this realization, with Siris heading out to free the Worker of Secrets and find a way to defeat all of the Deathless permanently.

The Night Circus

Erin Morgenstern

The Night Circus is a phantasmagorical fairy tale set near an ahistorical Victorian London in a wandering magical circus that is open only from sunset to sunrise. Le Cirque des Rêves, the Circus of Dreams, features such wonders and "ethereal enigmas" as a blooming garden made all of ice, acrobats soaring without a net, and a vertical cloud maze where patrons who get lost simply step off and float gently to the floor. The circus has no set schedule, appearing without warning and leaving without notice; they travel in a train disguised as an ordinary coal transport. A network of devoted fans styling themselves "rêveurs" ("dreamers") develops around the circus; they identify to each other by adding a splash of red to garb that otherwise matches the characteristic black and white of the circus tents. The magical nature of the circus is occluded under the guise of legerdemain; the illusionist truly transforms her jacket into a raven and the fortune teller truly reads the uncertain future, and both are applauded for their ingenuity. The circus serves a darker purpose beyond entertainment and profit. The magicians Prospero the Enchanter and the enigmatic Mr. A.H— groom their young proteges, Celia and Marco, to proxy their rivalry with the exhibits as a stage. Prospero teaches his daughter to hone her innate talents by holding ever larger and more complex magical workings in her mind. Celia takes her position on the game board as the illusionist who makes true transformations, adding tents and maintaining wondrous aspects from the inside. Mr. A.H— trains his orphan ward with books in the ways of glyphs and sympathetic magic and illusory worlds that exist only in the mind of the beholder. Marco takes a position as majordomo to the producer of the circus; he works from the outside in, connected to the circus but not a part of it. The two beguile the circus goers and each other with nightly wonders, soon falling in love despite being magically bound to a deadly competition with rules neither understands; the magical courtship strains the fate laid out for them and endangers the circus that has touched the lives of so many and cannot survive without the talents of both players.

Transformers: Exiles

Alexander C. Irvine

After leaving Cybertron in the Ark, Optimus Prime and his Autobot crew visit the other planets their fellow Cybertronians have colonized - Velocitron and Junkion. The Autobots escape through the exploding Spacebridge towards another part of space, not aware that starscream followed in an attempt to spy on their plans.

Michael Vey: The Prisoner of Cell 25

Richard Paul Evans

The story follows Michael Vey, a teenager diagnosed with Tourette's syndrome. Although Michael appears normal and has typical hobbies such as playing video games with his best friend Ostin, he secretly has the ability to pulse or surge electricity out of the palms of his hands. After school one day, Michael gets beat up by bullies Jack, Mitchell, and Wade as he is leaving, and a popular cheerleader named Taylor witnesses it. Out of self-defense, Michael touches the three bullies and they fall to the ground. The next day at school, Taylor confronts him about the occasion. After explaining himself, she confesses that she has the ability to "reboot" people and that she can also read minds when she touches someone. They later on discover that they were born in the same hospital near the same date, and a machine made by a company named Elgen was used during their births. The machine went under testing and out of the fifty-nine babies born in the time period only seventeen survived, including Taylor and Michael. Shortly after, both Michael and Taylor receive scholarships from the prestigious Elgen Academy, which claims that it only accepts 17 students every year. When Michael tells his mother about the scholarship, she immediately makes him leave the restaurant they are eating at. On their way to the car, a strange man attempts to rob them. When Michael shocks him, a different man wearing sunglasses, steps out along with two other teenagers. The man reveals himself to be Dr. Hatch. Michael then passes out after being hit by an unknown electrical pulse from one of the teenagers. When Michael wakes up, he is in a hospital and Ostin's mother tells him that his mom has been kidnapped. Meanwhile, Taylor has been taken captive to Elgen Academy in Pasadena, California, where she finds out that she has an identical twin. Taylor soon discovers the dark side of Dr. Hatch; he likes to use the teenagers' powers for his own benefit and pleasure. When given an order by Dr. Hatch, Taylor disobeys him and gets put on Floor D with three other kids. After getting a car ride to Pasadena, Michael unsuccessfully attempts to free Taylor. After being captured, Dr. Hatch tells Michael that Michael killed his own father, and he makes him choose between his own freedom and his friends. Taylor, Ostin, and the other rebels on Floor D escape their cell only to be caught again. Michael is then forced to shock Wade to prove his allegiance to Dr. Hatch. He refuses to shock him and so his mother is shocked and Michael is sent to Cell 25, the torture cell for those who don't "agree" with Dr. Hatch's methods. After 26 days, Michael is released from Cell 25 and is taken to the same room where he "failed" his first test by not shocking Wade. Hatch leaves Michael (who is very ill from his treatment in Cell 25) alongside Ostin, and Taylor, who are restrained in chairs. Ostin and Taylor are supposed to be killed by Zeus, but after Michael tricks Zeus into shocking him, he grows more powerful from Zeus's lightning and his able to pulse and knock him unconscious. He checks on Taylor who is okay, and then Ostin, but finds that his heart has stopped. After applying two shocks in a fashion similar to a defibrillator Ostin's heart starts up again. Taylor then goes into the mind of Zeus and searches his memories, to find that Hatch tricked him into believing that he killed his family while swimming in a pool at the age of 7. He then sides with Michael and the rest of the Electroclan and helps them break Ian, McKenna, and Abigail out of their cell, and using his powers, disables all the cameras they come across. A lengthy battle between the Electroclan and Dr. Hatch's loyalists occurs, Michael's group is able to take control of the control room and released the human captives (including Jack and Wade) who overpower the remaining guards that Michael and his group haven't already disabled, while Dr. Hatch escapes from Elgen Academy in a helicopter with most of the other electric children that are loyal to him (with the exception of Nichelle whom he leaves behind) to another location. After the battle, Taylor goes to call her parents, and after dialing three digits walks up to and kisses Michael. Afterward another electric child, Grace, who supposedly ran away from Hatch shows up wanting to join the "Electoclan". With the suspicion that she may be a plant, Taylor reads her mind and confirms that she is against Hatch. Grace also says that she was able to download all of the Elgen's computer files, before they were deleted, onto herself (her power being that she is able to upload and download data from computers like a flash drive). The book ending with Ostin proclaiming that "This is the rise of the Electoclan!".

The Enchantress: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel

Michael Scott

The Enchantress picks up where its predecessor, The Warlock left off. Two of its central characters, the fifteen year old twins, Sophie and Josh Newman, have been re-united after being briefly separated. The twins, along with John Dee and Virginia Dare, go back in time to the Isle of Danu Talis, where Osiris and Isis are revealed to be Dee's masters and the twins' parents. Osiris removes Dee's immortality, but Dee does not immediately die (he is later found by Marethyu, who restores his health and sight). Virginia Dare chooses to side with Osiris and Isis. Meanwhile, the Flamels, Niten, and Prometheus discover that Mars, Hel, and Odin are not faring well and that Machiavelli and Billy the Kid have joined them. The Flamels decide to join them on Alcatraz, but Billy mistakenly throws the spears with the Words of Power at her (he also used them to kill the Sphinx earlier). The Morrigan throws herself in front of Perenelle and dies instead. Odin and Hel both die slaying an army of Anpu. After finding Aerop-Enap's cocoon, the Flamels and Machiavelli attempt to awake her while Billy and Black Hawk fight a Karkinos (giant crab). Billy is mortally wounded and Black Hawk is thrown into the water, presumably eaten by the Nereids. Machiavelli heals Billy and Aerop-Enap kills the Karkinos after Mars uses his aura to lead it away from the group, which causes him to spontaneously combust. Tsagaglalal returns herself to her youthful immortal state and it is discovered that she is one of the First People that were awakened by Prometheus. After putting on an ancient suit of ceramic armour, she goes to the Golden Gate Bridge to fend off an army of Spartoi (dragon teeth sewn in the ground and watered with blood that become reptilian soldiers) that were animated by Quetzalcoatl and the present Bastet. In the center of the bridge, Niten and Prometheus defeat quite a few of the Spartoi, but both are mortally wounded. After slaying the rest of the Spartoi, Tsagaglalal finds them, but only has enough of her aura left to heal Prometheus. The dismayed Elder convinces her to use his aura to heal Niten, asking her to tell him to marry Aoife, whom Niten loves. On Danu Talis, Scathach, Joan of Arc, Saint-Germain, Palamedes, Shakespeare, and the young Prometheus crash their vimana on the original Yggdrasill and meet Hekate and Mars (then Huitzilopochtli), who plan to lead the human inhabitants of Yggdrasill to liberate the incarcerated Aten. Anubis and the younger Bastet prepare to take over Danu Talis, but Isis and Osiris have other plans. Telling Sophie and Josh to don silver and gold suits of armour, they prepare to present the twins to the council of elders as the rightful rulers of Danu Talis. Marethyu finds Virginia Dare and presents her with an emerald tablet from Abraham the Mage, persuading Dare to side with the humani. Dare meets Dee in front of the prison, later telling him that she had only wanted a world so that she could make it completely free. She leads the humani against the Elders along with Dee, who dies when allowing her to draw energy off of his aura. Scathach, Joan, Saint Germain, Shakespeare, and Palamedes fight the final battle along with the twins. Osiris and Isis admit that Sophie and Josh aren't their children (Josh was found in a Neanderthal camp shortly after the Fall of Danu Talis, and Sophie was found in Russia in the ninth or tenth century 30,000 years after) and they transform into their true forms, revealing that they aren't Elders, but Earthlords. After defeating the pair, Sophie and Josh reach an agreement and Sophie leaves with the other warriors. Josh sits on the center of the Pyramid of the Sun and begins to read the Codex, discovering that Sophie, Joan, Scathach, Dare, and Aten lead the survivors onto the new Earth and assist them for several hundred years before returning to the present time. He then combines the Four Swords of Power (Clarent, Excalibur, Durendal, and Joyeuse) to create the fifth power--- Aether. The swords form a hook, revealing that Josh becomes Marethyu. He plunges his hook into the center of the Pyramid of the Sun, speaking aloud the last words he read in the Codex ("Today I become Death, the destroyer of worlds") and thereby destroying Danu Talis. On Alcatraz, Nicholas and Perenelle spend their last moments together. Marethyu tells Perenelle and the Alchemyst that he is Josh and takes them to Paris, where the Flamels die. In a letter to Sophie, Josh (Marethyu) reveals that he and the Flamels were present at Aoife and Niten's wedding, where Scathach was the bridesmaid.

In the Plex

Steven Levy

*The World According to Google: Biography of a Search Engine *Googlenomics: Cracking the Code on Internet Profits *Don’t be Evil: How Google Built Its Culture *Google’s Cloud: Building Data Centers That Hold Everything Ever Written *Outside the Box: The Google Phone Company and the Google TV Company *GuGe: Google's Moral Dilemma in China *Google.gov: is What’s Good for Google, Good for Government --- or the Public? *Epilogue: Chasing Taillights

Dragon's Time

Anne McCaffrey

The frame story of Dragon's Time is set during ten days of year 508 AL (years After Landing on Pern). Now it is summer, about six months after the start of the "Third Pass" of the Red Star and its attendant Threadfall. Much of the action takes place during a long episode of time travel led by Fiona of Fort Weyr, who is the Telgar Weyrwoman now (508 AL). The primary purpose of the expedition is to survive, and to mature or to convalesce, and thus to gain man- and dragonpower in the present crisis. In all this, Dragon's Time matches Todd's Dragonheart, two books back. The differences: It is now six months rather than a few weeks after the start of the Third Pass. The refuge is in the near past, but distant in space: the smaller and unknown Western Continent (as readers of the series know it), on the other side of Pern from the settled Northern Continent. There is a secondary purpose, or opportunity: both humans and dragons may reproduce (the childbearing of leading women is a theme). Fiona and the temporary Weyr she leads compose a smaller part of the story than in Dragonheart. She shares the lead, and often her queen dragon Talenth, with Lorana. Lorana was the protagonist of Dragonsblood, Todd McCaffrey's first solo effort, three books back, but ending early in this year 508. She is the expert time traveler, who led Fiona and others on the backward journey in Dragonheart, and risked the first forward journey at the end of Dragongirl. In this book she makes many short-duration trips, some of them distant in time. "You can't break time, but you can cheat it", and Lorana is the expert cheater.

Dragongirl

Todd McCaffrey

Until nearly the end of Dragonheart, Fiona had been a very young Weyrwoman in the past, during a long episode of time travel. Essentially, she had led a large group of young dragons and young dragonriders with the primary purpose simply to survive and to mature in the relative safety of the past. That worked, and so they gained time, or adult man- and dragonpower, for the Pernese to handle the current crisis. Upon return from the past, Fiona is no longer Weyrwoman, but she has that experience, and the proven love and loyalty of many who had traveled with her. Early in Dragongirl, the entire force of centrally located Telgar Weyr is lost to a sudden disaster — all its mature dragons and dragonriders, about 300 pairs. That leaves only the support population, with almost no adult men, and some of the young, retired, or sick. Fiona's group of recent travelers is transferred to Telgar, among others, and she is Weyrwoman again. Following the plague that had decimated the dragons, and the loss of an entire Weyr, the remaining dragons are overstretched, and the limited numbers lead to even further casualties. The novel follows Fiona, now as Weyrwoman of Telgar, as the dragonriders come to realize that there are no longer enough dragons to protect the planet for the whole Pass.

Postsingular

Rudy Rucker

The novel is divided into four parts. Most of the events in the story take place in a future version of San Francisco. The first part begins on a New Year's Day, in which a young, 17-year-old Jeff Luty and his friend Carlos Tucay are about to light bottle rockets on Stinson Beach. The two boys, who are interested in the young but growing nanotechnology industry, dream about establishing Lu-Tuc Space Tech, and have inserted nanorobots into the rockets. After a passing dog had urinated on the rocket, the rockets are lit again. However, the rocket eventually misfires, and a launch lug is sent flying into Carlos' right eye, killing him. The first part fast forwards several years later, in which Jeff is the CEO of Nantel, the leading nanotechnology company in the world. One of the leading employees of the company is engineer Ond Lutter, who works on a project to create "nants". However, when Jeff, who is still distraught over Carlos' death, comes to blows with Ond over the creation of a virtual earth with the nants. The US government buys the nants, and the president, Dick Dibbs, announces that the earth will be eaten by the nants and converted into a virtual version of the Earth, or "vEarth". Ond and his family, however, do not agree. Ond builds an antenna to resist the advance of the nants until the house is the last of the holdouts to persist on physical earth. Ond's 9-year-old son Chu, however, is an autistic savant and is able to Jumping into the wall of nants that has grown in the Lutter house, Chu immediately jumps back out and the nants begin to retreat. By the next day, the nants have mostly reversed all their advances until they return to the moon and are shot out of existence by a Chinese satellite. After the reversal and destruction of the nants, Dibbs is arrested by the government and executed for his role in the "vEarth" conspiracy (classified as "treason"). Luty is now a wanted fugitive and goes into hiding; Lutter, who is rehired Nantel, now renamed as ExaExa Labs, however, is inspired by nanorobotics to create a new type of nanorobot, which becomes known as the "orphids". When he tells a gathering of his and Craigor's families in San Francisco Bay, however, Nektar becomes angry against Ond and argues against Ond over the nants, for fear of a repeat of the events. Ond seizes the jar and smashes the glass open, releasing the orphids to rapidly self-replicate. Within hours, the orphids, which are heavily connected to the Internet, spread to most of the West Coast, and Ond is wanted by the San Francisco Police Department. The orphids also provide displays for augmented reality, ridding society of the need for AR contact lenses (or "webeyes"), throat microphones and other AR utilities. The city has a hard time adapting to the orphids and the sensorally-immersive version of the Internet, or "orphidnet", presented by the orphids. The advanced properties of the orphidnet allow for opportunities not possible with prior computing technologies, such as advanced teleconferencing, tetepathy remote sex between physically-separated partners. However, this leaves little room for privacy, as the orphids barely allow for any living thing to be non-connected to the orphidnet, meaning that Ond is the subject of a mob which seeks to lynch him for "Orphid Night". Nektar separates from Ond and becomes intimate with a cook at a nearby restaurant, leaving Ond to take care of Chu; furthermore, Ond and Chu discover the existence of a higher-intelligence dimension which somewhat mirrors earth. One of the rulers of the so-called "Hibrane" version of San Francisco, Gladax, tries to remove the means of "Lobrane" access to the Hibrane in order to keep Lobraners out, going so far as to penetrate Chu's mind. The pursuit of Ond and Chu by both Gladax and the anti-nant/orphid mob ultimately send the two teleporting from the Merz Boat to the Hibrane version of San Francisco, where everything is slower and larger. Years later, San Francisco has become reliant upon the orphidnet, and the story focuses upon a group of teenage residents, known as "kiqqies", who are homeless but depend upon dumpster-diving and a particular portion of the orphidnet known as "the Big Pig". The Pig is seen as an addiction to those whose minds are clear, as it allows for its partakers to rapidly glean information for so long as one is accessing it. Jayjay, Thuy, Sonic and Kitty ===Part 4===

The Mark of Athena

Rick Riordan

While getting ready to land at Camp Jupiter, Annabeth Chase prepares by making sure the various back-up plans are ready in case something goes wrong. While Leo Valdez was flying the Argo II, Annabeth tried to keep Gleeson Hedge from attacking the first thing he saw by convicing him watch reruns of mixed martial arts championships in his cabin. Jason Grace prepared by putting on a purple toga over his orange Camp Half-Blood t-shirt and Piper McLean practiced her lines for when they landed. As Annabeth watched Jason, she wondered if this could all be a trap as she was still a bit untrusting of Jason as he seemed to be too perfect. She also was reminded of how much she missed Percy Jackson every time she looked at him. Annabeth also mentions feeling a mysterious chill, as if "an evil snowman had crept up behind her and was peering over her neck." Annabeth wished she could pray to her mother, but this would be impossible as Athena had appeared to her about a month ago, an encounter Annabeth described as very horrible. Athena also gave Annabeth the worst present of her life during this meeting. Soon, the horns from Camp Jupiter sounded below as the campers spotted the Argo II. Annabeth Chase is amazed at the size of Camp Jupiter, which is twice the size of Camp Half Blood, and recognizes the landmarks that Jason has told her about. She sees evidence of the Romans' recent battle, including the cracked dome of the Senate House. An explosion nearly knocks Annabeth overboard, and Terminus, the Roman god of boundaries, appears on the Argo II. He shrieks that he will not allow weapons inside the Pomerian Line, and grumbles at Jason for consorting with the enemies of Rome, referring to the Greek demigods. Piper tries to charmspeak Terminus, but he "slaps" her dagger out of her hand for her impertinence. Terminus announces that if he was at his full strength, he would have already blasted the "flying monstrosity" out of the sky, to which Leo takes offense to. Annabeth tries to regain control of the situation and calm everyone down by introducing herself to Terminus, but he finds Annabeth being the daughter of Athena, the Greek form of Minerva, to be "scandalous." However, before Annabeth can question Terminus on what he means, Jason interrupts and asks for permission to land inside the Pomerian Line. Annabeth spots Percy walking with Frank Zhang and Hazel Levesque as if they were best friends, and Annabeth knew she had to reach him, as she was so close. She also recognizes that he is now Praetor, as he is wearing a purple cape just like Jason's. Annabeth orders Leo to stop the ship, as she asks Terminus whether there is a rule against the ship hovering over New Rome, to which Terminus says there isn't. Annabeth then tells Terminus that they will keep the Argo II up in the air over New Rome and use a rope ladder to reach the forum. She also promised Terminus that all their weapons will stay on the ship, as long as the legion reinforcements will honor the same rules, which Terminus agrees to as he can't tolerate those that break the rules. Annabeth finally reunites with Percy and kisses him. She then judo-flips Percy against the ground and makes him swear that he'll never leave her again, to which Percy says yes, and, "I missed you, too." Later, Annabeth and Reyna walk and talk on a hill when the Argo II starts firing on them. They rush back to find that Percy, Jason, Piper, Frank and Hazel are all being attacked by angry Romans because the Argo II is firing on New Rome. As the Greek and Roman demigods are fighting each other, Percy, Annabeth, Frank, Leo, Piper, Hazel and Jason decide escape from the scene in Argo II. The Argo II is severely damaged and Jason suffers a head injury. Leo is confronted by Annabeth, Frank & Percy and he admits firing at the Romans. He however mentioned that he was forced to do so by an invisible force. Leo takes the ship to Great Salt Lake in Utah to find material required to repair the ship. Hazel and Leo then heads out to find Celestial Bronze needed for the repairs. Along the way, they find Nemesis surrounded by many fortune cookies, which she was opening to figure out the contents, before deciding to keep it in her basket or to toss it away. Nemesis gives Leo a cookie, which he kept in his tool belt, and Nemesis pointed out that someone is waiting for them before she leaves the scene. Hazel and Leo then finds Echo and Narcissus. The Celestial Bronze turns out to be a "mirror" which Narcissus is using to see his own reflection. After managing to trick Narcissus, Hazel and Leo escaped back to the ship with the help of Arion, Hazel's horse, and Echo, who remained behind to try to save Narcissus again, after having failed in her previous life time. Along the way, they stop in Kansas, owing to a vision Piper had in her dagger. They discover Bacchus, the Roman counterpart to Mr. D. It turns out to be a trap and Gaea forces Percy and Jason to fight each other. Their eyes turn into a gold hue, and with Percy on Blackjack and Jason on Tempest, both heroes attack each other. Piper manages to stop them from killing each other, as she realises that they are possessed by eidolons. With both Percy and Jason knocked out, Piper had Blackjack carry them back to the ship. It is then conferred that the 'chills' that Annabeth and Leo had earlier felt were due to the effects of eidolons. After a discussion, it is discovered that three eidolens are 'residing' in Percy, Jason and Leo. Piper manages to send the eidolons away. Before they leave, Piper makes them swear on the River Styx that they will never come back to the ship or inhabit any of its crew. The seven then headed to Atlanta. On the way there, Percy has a dream of the twins, Ephialtes and Otis. He realises that the giants had prepared traps for the demigods and the item they desired was actually a jar. Trapped in the jar is Nico di Angelo, who is surviving on Pomegranate seeds. These seeds were taken from Persephone's garden, and one per day, puts the user in a death trance. Nico was consuming almost no air, the reason why he can survive in the jar of poisonous fumes. This fulfils Ella's prophecy "Twins snuff out the angel's breath", the angel referring to Nico di Angelo, where Angelo is Italian for Angel. They have only 5 days to rescue him, and that is by July 1st, and also the day when Rome falls. Annabeth wakes Percy and takes him to her favorite part of the ship, so that he could finally be able to spend time with her after 8 months. She kisses him and tells him how much she missed him. Percy tells her about his dream about Ephialtes and Otis. She asks him to hold her for a while, and the warmth of Annabeth makes him fall asleep. He is found the next day by Frank, who tries not to look very awkward. Coach Hedge is infuriated, and Hazel looks scandalized and keeps fanning her face with her hand. Coach Hedge grounds Annabeth so, Percy, Frank and Coach Hedge then head out to search for Phorcys. As Keto and Coach Hedge went for a tour of the aquarium, both Percy and Frank are caught by Phorcys, who had earlier let slip the location of the map they were looking for. With the efforts of Coach Hedge who discovers them in an aquarium, the trio managed to escape. Their next stop is Charleston. Annabeth, who wishes good luck for Percy, who wants to gather the local Nereids' help, Piper and Hazel seeks out the apparition that Jason and Reyna had encountered years ago. The apparition turned out to be Aphrodite/Venus. The goddess claims that, while the other gods suffer crippiling headaches due to their Greek and Roman sides conflicting, she does not suffer this afflection, for love is the same be it Greek or Roman. After a 'tea party', Annabeth searches for the map as her friends battled against the Romans at Fort Sumpter. After a fearful encounter of spiders, which hinted further at the final destination of the trail that the Mark of Athena leads, Annabeth found the map. After escaping from the Romans, the ship sails through the Atlantic. During this time, Hazel decides to show Leo a vision from her past, in hopes to understand each other better. A scene from Hazel's school days were shown, where Sammy Valdez saved her from a bully and acquired a diamond from her. Despite Hazel's plea, Sammy decided to keep the diamond and promised her that he would never sell it. The scene changes quickly, causing Hazel to be in disbelief as it did not belong to any of her visions. It is, however, a scene where the timelines of Hazel, Leo and Sammy crossed. Sammy turned out to be Leo's great-grandfather. In the vision, as Sammy was cuddling a baby Leo, Sammy started to ramble what appeared to be nonsense. However, it was implied that Sammy could have been a demigod as well, for he had received a vision from Hera. The vision told Sammy that Hazel's trouble would not have been during his lifetime. As Leo was the first male heir to appear in generations, Sammy hoped that Leo would be his double, and he implored that if Leo was to meet Hazel, Leo would have to apologize to Hazel on his behalf. "Tell her hello for me," Sammy said to baby Leo. When Hazel died, though Sammy had thought that she had simply disappeared, Sammy sold the diamond. Sammy then believed that he was cursed, for he never saw Hazel again. As both Hazel and Leo awaken from their sharing, Hazel is crying, and Leo says, "Hello, Hazel Levesque," in a gravely voice. Then a monster attacks the ship. Frank is knocked overboard while Leo and Hazel fall into the ocean after being caught by the monster. They are then saved by Chiron's brothers, Aphros and Bythos who are actually Ichthyocentaurs; creatures with a humanoid upper body, the torso and legs of a horse and the tail of a fish. After they release the trio back to the ship, they send a force to deal with Phorcys and Keto in a bid to release all the marine creatures been held captive. The voyage continues to Rome, passing through the entrance to the Mediterranean, where they are tested by Hercules, who is now a god. Piper manages to cut of the remaining horn of Achelous, an old river god, and it turns into a cornucopia. Instead of handing the cornucopia to Hercules, as per Hercules's request/demand, they trick the god and escape. Along the way, they are boarded by pirates led by the son of Medusa. They manage to escape, and make an offering to Bacchus. Once in Rome, Annabeth and Percy have lunch together, and then Annabeth kisses Percy goodbye and leaves with Rhea Silvia, an escort, to continue following The Mark of Athena- part of a separate quest set by her mother. Percy, Piper and Jason are almost drowned by vengeful water nymphs, but survive, and manage to rescue Nico Di Angelo. While battling giant, Bacchus appears and aids them owing to the offering made to him. After retrieving the Athena Parthenos, the floor begins to crack. Annabeth begins to slide toward the pit and falls, but Percy catches her and comforts her. He congratulates her for finding the statue. However, Arachne uses a line of webbing, still attached to Annabeth's ankle, to pull her into the pit. Percy is only barely able to catch her, holding her with one hand, with the other hand on a ledge. Annabeth hears Arachne's voice in her mind, saying that if she is to go to Tartarus, so will Annabeth. Turning to Nico, Percy asks Nico to lead the others to the Doors of Death. Unable to hold on any longer, Percy promises Annabeth that he will never be separated from her again and releases his grip on the ledge. Holding hands, they fall into Tartarus. Back on the Argo II, the remaining six demigods agree to head to Greece to the House of Hades (The location of the Doors of Death in the mortal world) and shut them from this side, while Percy and Annabeth travel through Tartarus to reach the other side of the Doors there. Leo tells Festus to prepare the ship to set sail for their friends.

Blanche on the Lam

Barbara Neely

Blanche on the Lam opens in a court room with Blanche being accused of writing bad checks and being sentenced to thirty days in jail to teach her a lesson. She has a small panic attack at the thought of having to spend thirty days in a small jail cell and asks to use the rest room where she ends up fuming over what has become of her life in Farleigh, North Carolina since moving there from New York city. She gave up better pay for the safety of her children and ended being unable to cover the checks she wrote, being accused of writing more bad checks then she had, and being sentenced to time in jail because of it. There was a disturbance out in the hall and she took her chance to escape by slipping out of the restroom and making her way to the exit and out into the underground parking lot. She walked quickly out of the area and found herself in the neighborhood to a job she had gotten from the Ty-Dee Girls agency she had cancelled for that week. Luckily for her the agency had yet to send her replacement and the woman who came out of the house did not question her about her apparent lateness. She was then brought into the house, instructed to serve lunch, and then be ready to depart the house so they could head to the country. After lunch Blanche and the family of four drove out to the country house by the sea. That day she learned that one of the family members, Aunt Emmeline, was a drunk or at least that was what she assumed, and was a witness to her Will signing that would hand over the control of her nephew, Mumsfield‘s, money to his cousins, Grace and Everett. After the signing she learned from Nate, who worked for the family for many years, that something was not right with the Will signing situation. He would not explain his reasoning but she intended to find out, all while planning her move to New York, later Boston, to escape the Sheriff and the jail sentence she was running from. Later, after returning from running errands with Mumsfield, she found the Sheriff at the country house and thought she had been caught, but it turns out that Sheriff was there to see Everett. After she has calmed herself she wonders why the Sheriff was there if not for her, and is even more curious when she realizes how much time he is spending at the property. Nate refuses to tell her but Blanche is determined to find out. Aside from that mystery she is sure that Grace and Everett are trying to get hold or at least control of Mumsfield’s money because they had gone through all of Grace’s money. Listening to the news one morning on the radio she heard of the Sheriff’s suicide. She was happy that she would not have to worry about him anymore and that she would not have to leave for Boston, but it struck her after she remembered the conversation she had eavesdropped on just the evening before that the Sheriff would not have committed suicide. The man had just been saying that he did not want to leave the place he lived and worked in and had no plans give up his job as the Sheriff of the county. Not only had she heard that declaration, she had also heard Everett threaten the man right after it, and that night she had been woken up by a sound out of place for a country night and witnessed Everett rolling the limousine silently down the drive way. However, Blanche could not assume that she was living with a murderer based on what she head overheard and witnessed. In the same day Nate came and told her that he had seen someone wearing a pink jacket walking the short-cut route to the place where the Sheriff died. It was obvious he thought it was Everett. Later that day Everett confronted Blanche about the whereabouts of Nate, and the next day he ends being dead. Killed in a house fire during the night. Blanche finds clues here and there and eventually learns that the Aunt Emmeline she saw sign the will was an impostor and that the real woman had been killed. After going over the clues she had and looking at what evidence she had already uncovered and seeing Grace again, she realized that she had been suspecting the wrong person of murder all along. Who would have thought sweet, believable, weary, frightened Grace would have been a serial killer?

The Fatwa Girl

Amor vincit omnia -- love conquers all, but in a land which has been conquered from the Moguls to the British and now where the Taliban and fundamentalists strive for hegemony, a young man named Omar faces a battle in winning the hand of the girl he loves. They It is in this milieu that two lovers try to forge not only a relationship for themselves but a society where peace and sanity prevail, battling the forces of hatred and sectarianism that threaten to tear their worlds—and a nation—apart. At once a quirky exploration of a society on edge and a tender tale of shattered innocence, The Fatwa Girl, reveals a deep understanding of the human heart and its often mysterious attachments.

The Grounding of Group 6

Doctor Simms, the headmaster of the Coldbrook Country School - to which the five wayward youths, all sixteen years old, have been dispatched – succinctly lays out the “plot” to Nat Rittenhouse, the school’s hired assassin: :"We take them off their hands, those lemons. Once and for all. Quick and neat and clean and utterly untraceable. We have those limestone faults quite near the school-these fissures on the surface of the planet. Some of them seem almost bottomless. Drop a lemon into one....we never hear it hit. We call that 'grounding', Mr. Rittenhouse. A natural and wholesome term, I hope you will agree. At Coldbrook, we are definitely....organic." But the twenty-two year old Nat, who agreed to take on the poisoning of the kids so he could pay off a gambling debt he owed to gangsters, bonds with the members of Group 6. He sees nothing much wrong with the kids, and soon becomes really fond of them. These are the five in Group 6: * Lean and lanky, bitter Coke, who has trouble keeping his shirttails in, has packed cigarettes and white rum in his backpack. * The more naïve, much shorter Sully hates his life in New York City and his mother’s dreadful “manfriend”. * Potty-mouthed and funny, Marigold is wise as well as cynical. She slept with one of her mother’s boyfriends. * Athletic, organized, popular Sarah is an over-achiever who was driven to cheat on an English paper. * And Ludi, who can see things and hear sounds that are not “there”, has ways and attitudes that just enrage her father. At first, Nat does not have the heart to let the kids in on the truth, but he finally breaks the news after they have pieced some clues together on their own. Nat also tells them that because he has not killed them he’s on the school’s hit list, too. From that point on, Nat and Group 6 are a team, living mostly in a cabin he built in the woods, a few miles from the school. Even as the kids begin to master survival skills, a hunt begins. Because it was the gangsters who provided Nat to the school, they are shamed by his failure to do the killing, so they send an employee to kill him. And two outrageous middle-aged members of the school’s faculty, a man and a woman, who are both crack shots, take their rifles into the woods, looking for Nat and the kids. Eventually, the headmaster recruits the entire student body to join in the search, because one of those odd faculty members has mysteriously “vanished”. With most of the school’s population combing the woods, the kids dare to enter the school to search for proofs of their parents’ dreadful (and criminal) “deal”. The climax of the book is there for you to read. Suffice it to say that in the course of their time together the kids make peace with the loss of their old families and gain an unbreakable appreciation of their new one. English Journal reviewer, Dick Abrahamson noted that it is the Plot and characters that drive the story and hold the reader's interest: "It is the plot that keeps the reader turning the pages of this book. Characterization is handled by having the individual teenagers react to each other. The reader watches the teenagers deal with the horror of finding out that their parents have paid to have them killed. We also watch as the individuals of Group 6 develop a sense of responsibility and a love for each other." Norma Fox Mazer, a YA author, said that "The author has taken a grotesque subject and made of it a story not only scary, but, praise be, funny. Reading the book, I laughed as often as I shivered and turned pages as fast as possible to find out that most basic and important of all things - what is going to happen."

Modelland

Tyra Banks

A young, awkward looking girl by the name of Tookie De La Crème is invited to attend the legendary Modelland for the chance to become an Intoxibella. Along the way she meets a plus-sized girl named Dylan, a 4'7" girl named Shiraz, and an albino girl named Piper. Together they form a strong bond as they face the trials and tribulations of Modelland.

Wake

Robert J. Sawyer

Wake is set in 2012. The principal character is Caitlin Decter, a 15 year-old girl who has been blind from birth. The Decter family have moved from Austin, Texas to Waterloo, Ontario after Caitlin's father, Malcolm, receives a job at the Perimeter Institute. Shortly after moving, Caitlin receives an email from Dr. Masayuki Kuroda, a scientist whose specialty is "signal processing related to V1." Dr. Kuroda believes that her blindness is caused by her retinas miscoding the visual information and offers to install a signal processing device behind her left eyeball, which he believes will unscramble the data and give her sight in that eye. The device sends the visual data to a miniature computer, dubbed an "eyePod", which reprocesses the signals and send them back to the implant in her eye. The correct visual data is then passed on to her optic nerve, theoretically granting her sight. In duplex mode it sends and receives the signals, and in simplex mode it only sends them. Caitlin and her mother, Barbara, fly to Tokyo for the procedure. Although her pupils now react to light, Caitlin is still unable to see. The Decter's return to Canada while Dr. Kuroda works on a software update for his device, hoping that will grant Caitlin vision. A bird-flu outbreak with a mortality rate of at least 90% has begun to spread through China at an epidemic rate. Dr. Quan Li, a senior member of the Communist Party, recommends the President order a culling of an estimated ten to eleven thousand people living in the infected area through the use of an airborne chemical agent. The President agrees and orders that the Changcheng Strategy, which cuts off all telephone, satellite, and wireless communication with the rest of the world, be enabled so that word of the culling does not spread beyond China's borders. Wong Wai-Jeng, a freedom blogger who is known online as Sinanthropus, attempts to circumvent Internet censorship in China along with many other hackers. Collectively they learn about the bird flu outbreak. Several days after the enacting of the Changcheng Strategy, the President of China is convinced by Zhang Bo, the Minister of Communications, to restore communications. The moment they are back up, Sinanthropus posts a blog, informing the world of the bird flu outbreak and the culling that occurred. He is tracked down by the police and, while attempting to flee, breaks his leg and is captured. The first software update Kuroda attempts is a partial success. Although Caitlin can still not see the outside world, it enables her to visualize the World Wide Web while the update downloads when the eyePod is in duplex mode. Dr. Kuroda speculates that the data being transmitted between the eyePod and his server in Tokyo is being interpreted by her optic nerve, allowing her to see this. He decides to travel to Waterloo to work with Caitlin on the implant more directly. In the interim, he suggests sending the retinal feed from her eyePod to his Tokyo server through Jagster, a fictional search engine, so that he can monitor how she reacts to different inputs. He dubs her ability to visualize the internet "websight". Caitlin notes that, along with websites and links, she can visualize a background in websight that looks like a chess board. Dr. Kuroda speculates that the background is made up of cellular automata, which Caitlin suggests is caused by corrupted packet loss. Several Zipf plots are run of the cellular automata, which has a negative one slope. The Decters, Dr. Kuroda, and Anna Bloom, a network cartographer, realize that means the cellular automata contain intelligent content, which Anna suggests is secret communications from the National Security Agency. They decide to keep investigating the cellular automata discretely. In San Diego, California, Shoshana Glick, an ape-language researcher and graduate student, works at the Marcuse Institute, a primate research centre. Hobo, a chimpanzee-bonobo hybrid, communicates by sign language. Doctor Harl Marcuse, the owner of the Institute, sets up a connection with the Miami Zoo. Hobo communicates with an orang-utan named Virgil in the first interspecies webcam call. The Marcuse Institute and Miami Zoo agree to announce the chat jointly, but the Miami Zoo leaks word of it to New Scientist, who go to the Georgia Zoo - Hobo's birthplace - for information on him. Georgia Zoo, fearing about the contamination between the captive chimpanzee and bonobo bloodlines, demand Hobo be returned to them so that he can be sterilized. Hobo paints a portrait of Shoshana, surprising everyone at the Institute as it had been believed that chimpanzees could only paint abstractly. Dr. Marcuse theorizes that the communication with Virgil had shown Hobo "how three-dimensional objects could be reduced to two dimensions." The Marcuse Institute decide to record Hobo painting a second time and then go public, believing that the outcry over sterilizing him would force the Georgia Zoo to back down from their plans. The Georgia Zoo issue a lawsuit, planning to castrate Hobo. Dr. Kuroda sets up a final software patch. While at school, Caitlin decides to take a break from her work and switches the eyePod to duplex mode so she can look through websight. It fails to load and, disappointed, she returns the eyePod to simplex mode. She sees several lines crossing her field of vision and is surprised when she realizes that they are the edge of a lab bench and that she can now see. Barbara picks Caitlin up from school and informs her about the patch. Malcolm runs Shannon entropy graphs on the cellular automata to gauge how complex the information in them is. He shows Caitlin how to run it, and they discover that the information has little complexity. Dr. Kuroda holds a press conference, announcing the success of his invention that has made Caitlin able to see. Caitlin receives an electric shock which crashes the eyePod. She reboots it in duplex mode and sees a mirrored representation of her face in websight. An intelligence has spontaneously emerged on the Web. Cleaved in two when the Changcheng Strategy was enacted, the restoration of communications by China causes the two halves to coalesce, and it gains in intelligence. The intelligence can view Caitlin's eyePod feed. It believes that her vision is an attempt to communicate with it and, when her eyePod was rebooted, it sent an image of Caitlin in an attempt to communicate back. As Caitlin begins to learn how to read letters, the intelligence believes it is a further attempt to communicate and learns with her. When she switches to duplex mode, it takes that act to be a reward for its learning progress. Caitlin believes it to be "visual noise" as a result of gaining sight. Dr. Kuroda looks at the information on his server, and Caitlin realizes that the information is her reading exercises being bounced back to her. She then runs another Shannon entropy scan, realising that the information in the cellular automata has increased in intelligence. Caitlin deduces that the information is trying to communicate with her and decides to help it. Dr. Kuroda feels it is now time to return to Japan and informs her that, as she can now see, he will remove the duplex setting from her eyePod. Caitlin convinces him to keep it as is so that she can continue to see websight. She runs another Shannon entropy plot and realizes that the intelligence has increased yet again. She continues with her teaching efforts, leading the intelligence to different websites so that it can continue learning. She runs the Shannon entropy a fourth and fifth time and finds that the intelligence is double that of human complexity. The intelligence contacts Caitlin via email and wishes her a happy birthday. It thanks her for helping it to learn and invites her to communicate with it through instant messenger. She asks it what she should call it, and the intelligence replies "Webmind". Webmind and Caitlin decide to go forwards together.

Sex and Religion

The book is a detailed guide to the ways in which faiths have sought to repress or celebrate as well as codify almost every kind of sexual relationship and act. It examines how various religions define sex, how they look at various forms of celibacy, masturbation, heterosexuality, homosexuality, interracial sex, sex between gods and humans and between gods, ritual sex, the religiously perceived consequence of sex, and how various faiths prioritize or downgrade various rules in connection with other rules. As practically all forms of sex, or lack of it, are at the same time both prohibited and condoned in some religious tradition, it is impossible to identify a natural connection between sex and religion, beyond that each and every religion insists on their view on sex being the eternal answer.

7×7 Tales of a Sevensleeper

Much to his brother's and parents' dismay, a boy's obsession over the habits of his favourite animals—squirrel-like creatures called "sevensleepers"—makes him pretend he is one of them. The number seven figures in his daily routines throughout the course of 49 stories: he becomes that age early on in the book, with as many presents to match; he goes to bed every night at seven o'clock; and he even eats or owns things in groups of seven. This trait even helps him follow the week more efficiently than months or years, which are both far longer.

Acacia: The Sacred Band

David Anthony Durham

Acacia: The Sacred Band follows the Akaran siblings as they each deal with a different theater in the coming war with the Auldek, invaders from the Other Lands that are marching across the north pole and down into Acacia. Queen Corinn has worked an act of magic, resurrecting a character from an earlier book to aid her. The person she has brought back, however, doesn't wish to be molded to her needs. Mena Akaran has gone north with the small army sent out to have first contact with the invaders. The novel chronicles the brutal, Arctic campaign fought on the ice and in the skies above it. Dariel Akaran, still in the Other Lands (Ushen Brae) finds himself dealing with the turmoil of the Auldek's having abandoned their slaves, the Quota children that have been a feature of all three books. There are also a host of minor characters. Rialus Neptos is dragged along with the Auldek as they invade his homeland. Kelis returns to Acacia, having retrieved Aliver Akaran's daughter, Shen. Barad the Lesser continues to struggle with the spell Corinn has trapped him with. Also, there is another invasion to deal with. The Santoth sorcerers have found a way to break their long exile, to dire consequences. All of the major plot threads are resolved in this volume. This series is notable for the complexity of Durham's imagined world, one in which political, economic, mythological and morally ambiguous forces all influence the fates of the ethnically and culturally diverse population.

The Dead River

Jakov Xoxa

The story revolves around the romantic love between the two main characters, Vita and Adil, and the ill fates of three Albanian families which all meet in a little town called Trokth in Albania. The seemingly independent stories that revolve around the three families are well interwoven with the fates of the two lovers.

Neverwinter

Robert Anthony Salvatore

The story begins shortly after the events occurring in Gauntlgrym. Drizzt and Dahlia are in the wilderness of the north planning on returning to Neverwinter. Dahlia explains to Drizzt that although the Dread Ring has been broken Sylora Salm will make it her priority to reestablish it by any means necessary. Deciding that their best course of action is to head to Luskan in order to regroup and learn what they may the two head towards the town aided by Drizzt's magical unicorn Andahar. It is revealed that the unicorn although magical in nature can be killed. It can also stay in the Realms for as long as needed with no time limit restraints. However, because it has more vulnerabilities than his other magical familiar, Guenhwyvar, Drizzt is much more cautious in his use of the Andahar. The pair soon encounter a caravan being chased by bandits. Drizzt immediately rushes to help. Dahlia however questions his motives. Drizzt assumes that the caravan is goodly in nature and Dahlia perhaps more world wise though much younger than Drizzt does not jump to the same conclusion. Drizzt speaks with the merchants who tell him that they are representatives of the High Captains of Luskan. Nearly 100 years ago the High Captains played a major role in the death of Drizzt's long time friend Captain Deudermont. Drizzt rushes off to engage the bandits while Dahlia needles him about how the world is not always black and white/ right or wrong (this is a major theme of the book as Dahlia continually questions Drizzt's morals). After defeating the first few bandits it is learned that they are starving farmers driven off of their lands by the High Capatins policies. They intened to rob the caravan in order to feed themselves and their families. Drizzt and Dahlia share a meal with the bandits and Drizzt begins to question his ethics in this dark time throughout the North. Sylora Salm stands with her new lieutenant and Ashmadai zealot Jestry Rallevin in front of the greatly weakened Dread Ring. Sulkir Szass Tam appears in the Ring and lets Sylora know that he is displeased with her efforts and is prepared to destroy her for her failure. Before he can act the insane lich Valindra Shadowmantle arrives. Although insane she has moments of clarity and cunning which she uses to convince Szass Tam to spare their lives. As a result Szass gives Sylora a wand that lets her channel the powers of the Dread Ring and commands her to conquer Neverwinter and complete the Dread Ring once again. Sylora sends Jestry to attend Valindra and to keep an eye on her, tempting him with the promise of making him her lover. Meanwhile Herzgo Alegni commands for Barrabus the Grey to be brought before him and explain why his orders to kill Sylora were not carried out. Barrabus explains that she was too well guarded and suggests that if he were given his dagger back (a gem encrusted life stealing dagger) that he might be able to accomplish the job. Drizzt and Dahlia reach the outskirts of Luskan. They take a detour to the farmlands so that Drizzt may learn of their condition. He finds a farmhouse occupied by a woman and her five children after her husband has left. He tries to give them money which Dhalia stops him from doing. They leave the farm with more of Drizzt's moral values being questioned. Sylora uses the power of the wand she acquired to raise a fortress in which to direct her campaign. Valindra reveals that she still possesses the soul of the vampire Korvin Dor'crae. She also seeks out a woman named Arunika who promises to help her with her insanity. Barrabus arrives in Neverwinter on behalf of the Shadovar and offers to help the town defend itself. At first skeptical Barrabus reminds them that the Shadovar use to protect the town before the primordial cataclysm and that he himself lived through it by hiding under the town bridge. Drizzt and Dahlia enter Luskan and shortly after Dahlia uses a magic item to alter her appearance. She did so after entering the town because she did not mind (wanted) some of the High Captains to know she was there. The two make their way to Jarlaxle's apartment to see if they can find word of him or Athrogate. They are presumed dead but Drizzt believes in Jarlaxle's ability to survive any situation. They are soon attacked by Ship Renthor seeking revenge against Dahlia for killing their High Captain. Things go badly for the two until they are rescued by Beniago of Ship Kurth. Drizzt notices Beniago has a jewel encrusted dagger that he swears he has seen before, but shakes it off and concludes that his mind is playing tricks on him. Sylora continues to gather her forces when Hadencourt a malebranche devil in the service of Szass arrives. Sylora assigns him the task of heading north and destroying Dahlia. Valindra gathers her forces in preparation of attacking Neverwinter. Before the attack Jestry and Sylora go to visit Valindra's friend Arunika who promises them her help. It is also revealed that she is a succubus. The attck on Neverwinter occurs and Barrabus takes to the field and begins to turn the battle. At the predetermined time Herzgo leads the Shadovar forces in and defeats the Ashmadai forces. But instead of Herzgo being held as the hero the townfolk cheer for Barrabus, who suggest the name of the bridge be renamed for him "The Walk of Barrabus". The Shadovar begin to reestablish their power in Neverwinter. Drizzt and Dahlia are offered alliance with Ship Kurth which they conditionally accept. Returning to Jaraxle's apartment Dahlia continues to questions Drizzt's morals. The conversation ends with the two of them becoming lovers and going to bed. Dahlia sneaks off and goes to rob Ship Kurth of some of their jewels. This is a setup and Dahlia soon finds herself in a fight against Beniago against his magic dagger (of life stealing) and in a room full of traps she doesn't know. She is injured and poisoned by one of these traps and is saved by Drizzt. She claims she had everything in hand but did not. They make their escape out of Luskan but Dahlia soon succumbs to the poison. Drizzt takes her to the farmhouse the two vistied earlier and begs the woman for help. She says she will call the local herb man but that they need a dose of the poison in order to make an antidote. Drizzt returns to Luskan and trades the antidote from Beniago for the promise to support him in future once he has taken the title of High Captain of Ship Kurth. Drizzt returns in time and is able to save Dahlia. The pair continue south where they are met by Hadencourt who poses as a friend. He soon attacks them and summons devils to help him. Drizzt and Dahlia begin a desperate battle in the woods. They are able to kill a few of the war devils minions but are forced to run. They think they have escaped but the spirit of Dor'crae is able to track them and tell the devil where they are. The battle finally ends when Drizzt summons Andahar and impales Hadencourt. As the demon is dying it promises to get revenge and Drizzt tells him to get in line behind Errtu. In Neverwinter Herzgo is vistied by Draygo Quick a powerful warlock of the Netherese and his master. Draygo wishes for Herzgo to finish his conquest of the region and leaves his disciple a teifling Effron the Twisted behind. Effron has one deformed arm and Herzgo and Effron openly despise each other. Valindra arrives in the cave of Arunika's master for their help. It is revealed that they are the Aboleth Sovereignty. The aboleth helps with Valindra's mental state and an alliance of convenience is formed between the Thayans and the Soveriegnty. Jestry is brought to the Aboleth and is transformed using umber hulk skin. The process is fatal and will eventually kill him within the year, but he is transformed into a mindless slave with the sole purpose of being Sylora's champion against Dahlia. Herzgo learns of Arunika who is also called the Forset Sentinel by the locals. He visits her and is able to discern her true nature, he then forms an alliance with her. Herzgo returns to Neverwinter and begins to punish Barrabus for his renaming of the bridge after himself. The Claw is a sword carried by Herzgo and attuned to the soul of Barrabus. It is revealed that Barrabus cannot die even if he tries to kill himself. The sword will either stop him or bring him back to life. He is a slave to the sword with no hope of freedom except to kill Herzgo and take the sword which he cannot do as long as Herzgo wields the sword. The Thayans attack and use their new allies' umber hulks to attack from below. Barrabus' attacks are largely ineffectual and Herzgo carries the day and earns the peoples admiration. Dahlia and Drizzt continue on towards Neverwinter. Drizzt begins to share his past and recount stories of the Companions Of The Hall. Soon they are attacked by Shadovar and Dahlia exhibits a brutality Drizzt has never seen in her before and does not understand. He is reminded that there is much he does not know about her. Barrabus and Effron are assigned to work together and to hunt down Ashmadai. They come across a group led by Jestry. Effron does little and lets Barrabus do most of the work and take most of the risk. Barrabus is mostly successful except against Jestry whose new armor proves to be more formidable than even his own weapons. After the battle Herzgo learns that Dahlia returns in the company of Drizzt. Effron also reveals that he knows Dahlia Sin'felle's real name- Dahlia Syn'dalay of the Snakebrook clan. This fills Herzgo with terrible anger as he knows who she is now. Barrabus offer to go kill Dahlia and Drizzt alone. Barrabus knows of Drizzt's prowess and believes if he can get him to fight Herzgo he can kill him. He devises a plan to capture Dahlia alive and force Drizzt to fight Herzgo. He ambushes Dahlia but is then immediately ambushed by Drizzt. Drizzt looks at him and recognizes the face of Artemis Entreri. He doesn't believe it but is soon convinced when Artemis reveals intimate knowledge of him that only he would know. Artemis proposes a truce between the three and suggests they go kill Sylora. Drizzt and Dahlia do not trust him. He explains to Drizzt he grew bored of him long ago and has no vendetta against him. To Dahlia he explains it is nothing personal and that killing Sylora will meet both of their goals. As a final act of trust Artemis attacks Drizzt and holds his poisoned knife under his throat and pulls it back without harming him, proving that he has no intention of hurting him. Both Drizzt and Entreri are both surprised at how happy they are to see each other alive, for different reasons though. The three head towards Sylora's camp. There they are engaged by many undead, Ashmadai, Valindra, Sylora, and Jestry. Eventually Dahlia and Entreri are able to defeat Jestry. Valindra still suffers from some mental unstability and spends the majority of the battle watching from afar. Sylora is eventually cornered in the Dread Ring. However, she has used the wand's power too much and drawn off too much of the Dread Ring's power and succumbs to combined attacks of Drizzt, Guenhwyvar, and Dahlia. In the aftermath of the battle Entreri tells them that he must return to Neverwinter as compelled to serve Herzgo. Dahlia upon hearing this name learns that her most hated foe is the leader of the Shadovar and declares she would have stayed by Sylora's side had she known. Entreri finds this useful but can't think of a way to exploit it. With Sylora dead Dahlia considered her business in the region finished until she learns of Herzgo whom she vows to kill. Sylora's life is preserved by the power of the Dread Ring but before she can do anything, Jestry returns as an undead under the control of Valindra and kills her. Effron and Herzgo contemplate Dahlia and share a mutual hatred of her, even greater than their hatred of each other.

Anxious Nation

Walker's premise is that Australian culture did not develop in isolation from Asia; Australians, while often considering themselves to be living in an outpost of Britain, have always had a fascination with the nations to their near north. Walker argues that many of the perceptions that Australians had of Asia were negative and that the Chinese, in particular, were feared because of the size of their population and the proximity of their homeland to Australia. Australians worried that their society would be overrun by the Chinese and contaminated by their supposed vices; exotic diseases, industrial “sweating”, gambling, sexual deviation and opium abuse. Japan was also feared because of its apparent imperial ambitions and the strength of its military forces. Walker illustrates these fears by analysing the neglected literary genre of invasion narratives. These novels, of which William Lane's White or Yellow? is characteristic, were popular in the 1890s and 1900s and described the enslavement of white Australians by invading Asian armies. Further images of the Chinese as a cunning but cruel race appeared in the Fu Manchu novels and films of the 1920s and 30s. Walker argues that "Australia came to nationhood at a time when the growing power of the East was arousing increasing concern". Consequently, Anxious Nation places popular perceptions of Asia within the context of the political and cultural changes that led to the development of a distinctive Australian nationalism and the implementation of the White Australia policy. This inevitably leads to an analysis of Australian contributions to the philosophical and scientific theories, particularly Eugenics and Social Darwinism, that underlined concepts of race during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Within this setting a peculiarly Australian concern was whether white men could perform manual labour and prosper in the tropics. If they could not then the concept of a "White Australia" was doomed and the "Asianisation" of Australia was likely. Australian politicians and medical scientists spent significant time and resources in attempting to resolve this question. Crucially Walker shows that Australians were fascinated by the people and cultures of Asia. He argues that, while negative perceptions of Asia were common, they were not universally held nor uncontested. The currency of the Japonisme and Chinoiserie aesthetic movements and the warm welcome given to a Japanese Naval Squadron in 1906 show that at least some Australians were willing to consider the positive aspects of Asian culture. In particular, Walker shows that Prime Minister Alfred Deakin had a comprehensive knowledge and interest in Indian religions and philosophies. Walker also argues that, despite the isolationism implied by the White Australia policy, Australia developed trade, cultural and diplomatic ties with the emerging Asian nations during the period studied. Professor Walker is currently working on a follow-up volume which continues this work into the present day.

The Dead-Tossed Waves

Gabry (Gabrielle) lives a quiet life in the town of Vista. She lives with her mother, Mary (the protagonist in Forest of Hands and Teeth), in a lighthouse isolated from the rest of town. Her best friend is Cira, and she is beginning to fall in love with Cira’s brother, Catcher. Cira pressures Gabry to sneak over the wall protecting them from the Mudo to an abandoned amusement park with other teens from Vista. Gabry is afraid that Mudo will get through the un-cared for wall surrounding the park, but she goes when Catcher asks her to. On the other side, she and Catcher go off by themselves to talk and Catcher kisses her. A Breaker Mudo attacks the group, and Catcher is infected while trying to protect her. He tells Gabry to run before the Militia comes and arrests them, and she escapes over the wall, leaving Cira and Catcher behind. The city decides to send Cira and the others who weren’t Infected to the Recruiters. Gabry visits Cira in jail and Cira asks her to sneak over the wall and make sure Catcher is okay. Later, Gabry asks her mother about her past and her father, and Mary accidentally slips and admits that she is not Gabry’s real mother. She found her in the Forest when she was very young. Gabry sails a small boat around the walls to the amusement park. She is attacked by Mudo and rescued by a stranger named Elias. Elias knows where Catcher is and leads her there. She promises to keep coming back until he turns, despite both boys saying that he is too dangerous. Elias sails back to the lighthouse with her to help her escape a Breaker. The next morning Mary says that after their conversation she has decided to go back to the Forest. Gabry refuses to go, but stays in the lighthouse and takes over Mary's duties, telling everyone Mary is sick. She finds Elias took the boat to prevent her from returning to Catcher, so she swims to the park. She can’t find Catcher but sees Soulers, a cult that worships Mudo. She realizes that Elias is one of them because he has a shaved head and white tunic like they do. She watches as they purposefully infect a little boy due to their belief that being Mudo is a chance at eternal life. Elias sees her and chases after her but she calls him a monster and runs away. When she swims back, Daniel is there. He is suspicious about Mary’s ‘sickness’ and about the knife Gabry carries, which she got from Elias and has Souler inscriptions on it. A storm comes the next few days, and the Militia hangs around the lighthouse to help her kill the extra Mudo washing ashore. Daniel follows her around and when they leave she goes to visit Cira for the last time. When she tries to sneak over the wall to Catcher, Daniel catches her. She stabs him to escape and leaves him, and later finds that he died from the stab wound. She eventually finds Catcher, expecting him to be Mudo. Surprisingly he is still human. Elias and Catcher tell her that he’s immune, which is rare to the point that Gabry didn’t think it was possible. Elias says that he’s not really a Souler, but he tags along with them because it’s the easiest way to travel from city to city, which he does because he’s looking for his sister, Annah. Catcher insists that they rescue Cira, so he releases harmless Souler Mudo in Vista. In the chaos, Elias and Gabry break out Cira and the others. Cira tried to commit suicide by slitting her wrists because she thought that Catcher was Mudo, and even though Gabry binds her wounds she is very weak. They make it to a gate and since Catcher is immune he scouts ahead and finds where the gates start up again. They make it safely to the paths, but the Recruiters build walls out to the gates so they don’t have to risk the Forest, which buys Gabry, Elias, Catcher and Cira time. The Recruiters are following because they figured out that Catcher is immune and know he would be a tremendous resource for the Recruiters because he could fight the Mudo with no danger to himself. Gabry uses clues from Mary to get them on the right path to Mary’s old village. On the way she gets closer to Elias and farther from Catcher (who still thinks he can infect her), and Cira develops a blood infection in her wrists. They make it to Mary’s old village, where they find Mary and Harry. Harry explains that he, Cassandra, and Jacob (Mary’s friends from The Forest of Hands and Teeth) went back to the village after Mary left them and helped to reclaim the village from the Mudo for the few survivors. Harry and Cass got married but had no children, and Jacob married a girl who died having twins. The twins were Abigail and Annah, and they grew up friends with Elias. When Elias was seven and the girls were five they explored outside the gates, and when Abigail fell and skinned her knee Elias got scared that he would get in trouble. He and Annah left Abigail behind, planning on returning later, but got lost. Abigail was found by Mary a few days later and was so weak and tramutized that she couldn’t even remember her name. Mary named her Gabrielle and took her to Vista, claiming her as her own. Annah and Elias ended up in the Dark City, where they pretended to be siblings and lived together until Elias had to join the Recruiters to get money. When he returned Annah was gone, and he was looking for her but found Gabry instead. Gabry is furious with Elias for not telling her but she forgives him. Cira asks Catcher to infect her since she is going to die anyway, but he refuses. Gabry is so upset when she hears this that she runs off to be alone, but Elias finds her and kisses her. She is upset because she thinks he only likes her because she is so similar to Annah. Meanwhile, Cira climbs the wall and tries to get infected, but Catcher chases after her and gets her inside the gates before she’s infected. The recruiters finally catch up, and when they break through the gates Mudo get through too. Cira lets herself get infected and when she turns she attacks a Recruiter, and Gabry watches him kill her. She, Elias, Mary, Catcher, and Harry get into the fences on the other side of the village and keep going. On the journey, Gabry gets more and more depressed because they don’t even have a destination and she is thinking that Mudo aren’t really any different than her. Her mother talks to her and convinces her to just accept life the way it is and keep living fully. Gabry and Elias talk and Gabry realizes that she’s still has feelings for Catcher even though he is much different now than he used to be, and isn’t right for her. Elias kisses her and they realize they love each other, and Gabry wants to start something new and good with him instead of hanging onto her depressing past. Soon after, while they are walking in the dark, there is a section of fence that collapsed down a hill. Elias doesn’t see it and falls over the side, getting stuck on a piece of fence just above where the Mudo can reach him. Catcher gets him up, but Elias’s leg is badly broken. The Recruiters are about to catch up, and Elias makes Gabry and Catcher leave so that they can’t capture Catcher or make him join the Recruiters by torturing Gabry. Gabry promises to wait for him in the Dark City so they can find each other again. Gabry and Catcher run away and climb a wall to get away. On the other side there is a big bridge covered with crashed cars and Mudo that goes over a valley filled with a hoard. Gabry knows she has to cross to escape, so she walks sideways along the tiny ledge on the outside of the bridge, holding onto the gate. There is a section that is almost all the way broken, and when the Recruiters follow, Catcher rolls cars to shift the weight of the bridge and eventually it crumbles so that the Recruiters can’t follow. Gabry and Catcher continue on, hoping to get to the Dark City.

Matadana

S.L. Bhyrappa

The novel starts in a village Rangapura near Tumkur in Karnataka. It uses the Tumkur dialect of Kannada language. Its about Doctor Shivappa, medical graduate from Mysore Medical College, who is keen to help society and his village people. Shivappa gains immense popularity among the people across the villages. The story revolves around the politically influential people who uses Shivappa in the upcoming election for their benefit. * Dr.Shivappa * RangaLakshmi (Shivappa's Love interest) * Ramalingappa Gowdru * S R Saadaravalli * Minister Naagaravalli/ Appaji * Prakasha Kumara Saadaravalli * Putta Tammaiah * Kallamma (Shivappa's Mother) * Puttakka (Shivappa's elder sister) * Sannaiah (Shivappa's brother-in-law)

Kashmir Udaas Hai

This book is autobiography of Mehmood Hashmi. It consists of incidents he witnessed in Kashmir during India Pakistan Partition of 1947.

The Bridge to Neverland

Ridley Pearson

It all starts when the two find an old document in a secret compartment in their father's desk. Strangely enough, the document seems familiar to Sarah. After much thinking, she realizes she has seen a name on it from the Peter and the Starcatchers series. The document is much older than the books, and of course the books are just stories... Right? Wrong. Soon, the two Cooper children become entangled in an adventure straight out of the pages of the book!

The Roving Party

John Batman, ruthless, singleminded; four convicts, the youngest still only a stripling; Gould, a downtrodden farmhand; two free black trackers; and powerful, educated Black Bill, brought up from childhood as a white man. This is the roving party and their purpose is massacre. With promises of freedom, land grants and money, each is willing to risk his life for the prize. Passing over many miles of tortured country, the roving party searches for Aborigines, taking few prisoners and killing freely, Batman never abandoning the visceral intensity of his hunt. And all the while, Black Bill pursues his personal quarry, the much-feared warrior, Mannalargenna.

Woman in the Mists

Farley Mowat

Dian Fossey worked in the United States in a children's hospital until she decided to become a field anthropologist in Africa. Mowat says this decision illustrates the strength of character that made her famous and that may also have led to her death. In 1960 she gained an interview with Louis Leakey, the famous anthropologist, who encouraged her to study the mountain gorillas of Central Africa at first hand. She accepted this advice against the wishes of her friends and family. At first, it seemed that she was following the path defined by Jane Goodall, and would become a successful scientist. However, she soon became passionately interested in the cause of preserving the mountain gorillas. An outspoken woman, she made no attempt to disguise her hatred and contempt for poachers and hunters. In December 1986 she was murdered in her African camp. Although the book does not delve into the subject in depth, Mowat speculates that a disgruntled poacher may have been hired to kill her by people opposed to her crusade to preserve the gorillas.

The Heart of a Sunburned Land

Tara Killain is assaulted on the family estate in Ireland and runs off with gypsies. Through a twist of fate she finds out an aunt in outback Australia needs her help. When her ship sinks off the coast she becomes responsible for two orphans. They reach Tambora to find the property is almost bankrupt. With the help of the enigmatic local camel driving hero, Tara does all in her power to save the cattle station.

River of Fortune

Joe Callaghan is in trouble so his daughter Francesca, returns to the river port of Echuca, determined to help him. Three men vie for her attention, but it’s a lovable river captain who captures her heart. However, to save her father losing his paddle steamer, she becomes engaged to the unscrupulous Silas Hepburn. When Regina Radcliffe tries to stop her son pursuing Francesca, she discovers Francesca is the daughter she secretly gave birth to on the river bank and set afloat in a bath tub. Worse, Silas is the man she had a brief affair with, Francesca’s real father.

The Moth

Helena Maria Viramontes

The story is a first-person narrative of a Latina granddaughter reminiscing about her relationship between her family, most especially her grandmother, when she was a teenaged girl. She speaks about the indifference she felt among her sisters because she was not “pretty or nice” and could not “do the girl things they could do”. She was constantly in trouble, saying she was “used to the whippings” and spent her time watching over her grandmother since her grandmother always watched over her. Throughout the story, the grandmother becomes more and more ill, while the narrator becomes more and more responsible. When the cancer finally kills the grandmother, the granddaughter continues to take care of her, undressing her and cleansing her in the tub, as she holds her and rocks her back and forth saying “there, there abuelita”. At this point the moths are released from the grandmother; the moths which the grandmother told the narrator “lay within the soul and slowly eat the spirit up.” The narrator cries and sobs in the tub with her grandmother until her sadness transformed into relief.

The Buddha in the Attic

Julie Otsuka

There is no plot in the usual sense of specific individuals going through particular events. The novel is told in the first person plural, from the point of view of many girls and women, none of whom is individualized as a continuing character, but all of whom are vividly described in a sentence or two. The first chapter, "Come, Japanese!" describes a boatload of Japanese picture brides coming to California to marry men they have never met. The next chapter, "First Night", is about the consummation of their marriages with their new husbands, most of whom are nothing like the descriptions they had given. The third chapter, "Whites", describes the women's lives in their new country and their relationship with their American bosses and neighbors. Some of the women become migrant laborers living in rural shacks, some are domestic workers living in the servants' quarters of suburban homes, and some set up businesses and living quarters in the "Japantown", or "J-Town", area of big cities. "Babies" tells about giving birth and "Children" about raising American-born children, who want to speak only English and are ashamed of their immigrant parents, but are discriminated against by most of their classmates, neighbors and merchants. "Traitors" describes the effect of the Pearl Harbor attack and World War II on the families: the rumors and increasingly the reality of Japanese men being arrested without warning, the fear and eventually the reality of entire families being sent away to parts unknown. "Last Day" tells of the departure of the Japanese from their homes, jobs and schools. The final chapter, "A Disappearance," is told from the point of view of the white American families left behind, who at first miss their Japanese neighbors but gradually forget about them.

You Have To Stop This

Pseudonymous Bosch

The story begins with a picture of The Oath of Terces. There is a quick preface concerning an ibis bird that stands for a moment, but then crosses the River Nile. Then the story moves to an event happening at more or less, the same moment. An innocent man is being executed moments after inscribing a fateful secret on a piece of papyrus in hieroglyphics. The story then moves forward in time with Cass and Max-Ernest heading to a garage sale Larry and Wayne are having. Cass tells Max-Ernest that she hid the Jester's trunk in a pit behind the firehouse. They lug it out, open it, and discover that it contains a blue ring with a picture of an ibis and a scrap of linen. She discovers that they contain hieroglyphics meaning either "because what Ibis" or "because what Thoth". In the next chapter, Cass and Max-Ernest are on a bus, with Yo-Yoji, discussing their field trip to the Egyptian section of the museum with classmates, Glob and Danielle who is known for his dreadlocks. They meet Danielle's father, Albert 3D (cause he has 3 degrees in different subjects) who shows them a handsome mummy who was executed for some strange reason. Cass reasons that it is the physician from hundreds of years ago, who was executed because of discovering The Secret. Cass, Yo Yoji and Max decide to hang back and examine the mummy. She notices that the blue ring that she found in the Jester's trunk matches an imprint on the mummy's finger. Principle Johnson startles Cass when she scolds them for not staying with the group. Cass's jacket gets caught on the finger and she accidentally breaks it off. Later, as punishment, Albert 3D (who is actually pretty cool about what happened) makes them sort some museum shards, or "sherds" as the scientific community calls them. While sorting, Cass convinces Yo Yoji and Max-Ernest to come with her to examine the mummy. When they do, they discover it is gone. Later, Albert3D meets with their parents and tells them that if the kids are hiding the mummy, they should give it to him. When the kids and their parents return home late, the kids virtually chat. They watch the surveillance video and notice a shadowy figure exit the museum before they do. They also notice that the man's leg has a piece of cloth trailing behind him and realize the figure IS the mummy. The story then moves to a luxurious hotel where Ms.Mauvais is talking to Amber, who has developed acne that horribly disfigures her face. She begs Ms. Mauvais to help her. The next day Cass and Max-Ernest meet Amber, who is a bit more prettier than usual. That night, they have a TERCES meeting with Luiciano as a special guest. He tells them that The Pharoah wants Cass's ring and will get it from her, in addition to the mummy's missing finger. The trio decides to steal the finger from the museum. Cass wears a dress and her hair long. Max-Ernest and Yo Yoji simply wear sunglasses and Yo wears a camera to pose as a tourist. The trio find the finger to already have been stolen and the monocle is found in its place. Suddenly, they hear voices and hide in a crate outside, that is eventually shipped to Las Vegas. In Las Vegas, the trio discover that The invisible Pharoah is posing as a magician and playing at a nearby theatre. Cass buys tickets to his show using some gold coins she saved from the Jester's trunk. She sells just one coin, and gets one tenth of its value, which is a sizable amount in cash. They spend the next two hours having fun. First, they get sundaes. Then the boys go to adventure land and record their own rap video after 18 rides on a zip line. Case goes to a nail salon and is pampered. While she is there she sees a hieroglyphic, from the papyrus in the trunk she could not translate, on the window. The spa worker says it means "running water". Then, Yo Yoji and Max-Ernest come meet her, and addresses her as "Your Royal Hotness". They go to the theater, and Cass is tricked into handing over the ring onstage. While trapped in The Pharoah's dressing room, Max-Ernest and Yo Yoji discover some time travel chocolate, from the chocolate plantation, which is in the closet and invisible. They also discover a golden cape. They reason that the mummy didn't really walk by itself out of the museum, but was carried out by The Pharoah who is invisible, so it looked like it was walking by itself. The duo runs onto the stage and throw the cape over The Pharoah so he is visible. They force feed him the chocolate so he is transported to another era for good and becomes someone else's problem. The Skelton sisters, who were also present at the show, leave with Ms. Mauvais. Then, Cass impulsively puts the ring on the mummy's finger. It comes to life and Cass remembers the hieroglyphics from the papyrus and pieces together what they said, using knowledge form her Egypt class and what the spa worker said. She realizes the key to the secret is a question: Why did the ibis cross the river? And she asks the mummy this question. The mummy then speaks The Secret: "TO GET TO THE OTHER SIDE". The fact that The Secret that Terces society were protecting for years was a joke, is too much for Cass to handle, and for the first time in her life, she faints. When she wakes up, Max and Yo are crouched over her. After finding out she is okay, Max realizes that they need some means of escape. He charms the crowd, and runs out of the theater and meets a so-called cult that consists of people who claim to be the priests of Amun. They reveal themselves to be the members of Terces. Cass and Yo Yoji are already riding with them. When the trio return home, they are treated as heroes. Everyone they know, including Albert 3D and Danielle. Albert and Cass's mother seem to be hitting it off and getting closer. Even Ms. Johnson welcomes them and gives them the Tuning Fork. Later, Cass confides in Pietro about the secret, who explains that the real secret is "The Other Side". He also explains that his brother died that morning. When Cass goes into his trailer again, he has disappeared. The story then moves to graduation, where Max gives a speech, and makes everyone cry.The story ends, as the entire auditorium begins to clap and Amber, quietly exits the edge of the bleachers. No one (especially her parents) notice her get into a limousine with Ms. Mauvais and drive slowly into the sunset, in search of a never setting sun. The epilogue reveals Mr. Bosch to be Max-Ernest. He does not reveal what happens to Cass or Yo Yoji, or anyone else. He says that the Secret itself is a secret that opens up more secrets and warns the reader to not let anyone give away the ending.

The Lady With the X-Ray Eyes

Mimi Trompeeva is a young woman who suffers from severe strabismus. She decides to treat her condition by visiting a "beautification institute" headed by Chezario Galfone, a brilliant surgeon capable of turning "even the most disgusting freak into an angel". He manages to cure her crossed eyes, but also gives her the ability to see through materials, including inside people's bodies. However, Mimi does not use her new gift for good - instead, she begins to seek the physically perfect male, without regard for intellect or talent. The story follows Mimi's evolution into a slave of her own looks and social environment - a hollow person whose feelings of love are a mere infatuation with the trends of the modern era.

The Emperor of Portugallia

Selma Lagerlöf

The novel takes place in 1860 or 1870 in Lagerlöf's native Värmland and is about the tenant farmer Jan in Skrolycka and his daughter Glory Goldie Sunnycastle. He loves his daughter more than anything else, but after she moves to Stockholm at age 17 and becomes wealthy and well-known, she stops sending letters home. The father sinks into a dream world where he imagines she has become a noble empress of "Portugallia", and he thus also a great Emperor himself. His whole life is dominated by thoughts of her return, and what then will happen. In his role as Emperor residing in the poor countryside, he can challenge the area's social hierarchies: wearing his imperial regalia, he sits at the front of the church, takes place at the head table at parties and tries to socialize with local landlords.

Judgment Day

James T. Farrell

This novel begins in 1931, a few years after the conclusion of The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan,. At the close of that novel, an intoxicated Studs had been beaten up by old rival Weary Reilly, and left on a snow-covered sidewalk overnight. Studs contracted pneumonia that night and has been in ill-health ever since. Several of Studs' old friends have already died, due to venereal diseases or excessive drinking, and Weary Reilly himself is in prison for rape. Studs is beginning to sense his own weakness and his own mortality, and continually makes vain promises to change his ways. Studs' young brother Martin, now known as "Husk," is very much like Studs himself was a decade earlier. He's a drinker and brawler who openly disrespects Studs, and even inflicts a severe beating on his older brother. Studs begins dating a sweet, innocent Catholic woman named Catherine Banahan. He seems to love her and even asks her to marry him, but remains obsessed by sexual thoughts, and looks constantly for chances to cheat on her. Studs is incapable of being true to her, but feels strong guilt about his lust and infidelity. The Great Depression is wreaking havoc on Chicago. Studs' father's painting business is failing and the family home may soon be repossessed by the bank. Studs' father hopes that Studs can provide the family with some financial support, not knowing that Studs has foolishly lost most of his savings after investing in a worthless stock, in yet another vain attempt at getting rich and becoming a big shot. Studs gets Catherine pregnant, and must desperately seek a job. After job hunting all over the city on a rainy day, Studs contracts pneumonia again, and dies after falling into a feverish coma.

Realize your potential

Pekelis starts by defining talent and what is genius, and provides numerous examples. He continues by showing techniques how to achieve various skills like speed reading, becoming a polyglot or fast calculations. The book ends with ideas on organizing work and working better.

Outlaw

Angus Donald

The plot centres around a character named Alan Dale, based on the historical Alan-a-Dale. When he's caught stealing by the Sheriff of Nottingham, Sir Ralph Murdac; the possible actual sheriff of the time, Alan flees into the company of Robin Hood, notorious and infamous outlaw.

Mother of Storms

John Barnes

In the early 21st century, the earth suffers from a giant hurricane spawned by the release of clathrate compounds, as the result of a nuclear explosion. While the hurricane spawns hundreds of progeny, which by novel's end kill at least 1 billion people, two massively computer augmented human intelligences, both of whom witness their organic bodies die, race to corral a comet from beyond Pluto's orbit. They use the ice from the comet to reduce earth surface temperatures, and quell the mother of storms.

Wonderstruck

Brian Selznick

Ben’s story starts in Gunflint Lake, Minnesota in June 1978. He was born deaf in one ear. Ben’s mom, Elaine, was the town librarian, but died in a car crash a few weeks before. He now lives with his aunt and uncle next to the house he grew up in. Ben has never known his dad, but feels a pull to find out who he was. Ben discovers a bookmark in his mother's book, Wonderstruck inscribed to his mother that ends with the words "Love, Danny." Ben thinks Danny must be his father and proceeds to call the number listed on the bookmark. As he is calling, a bolt of lightning hits his house, travels through the phone line and causes him to lose his remaining hearing. He wakes up in the hospital, unaware of where he is. A short time later, he decides to run away from the hospital and journey to New York City, eventually hiding out in the American Museum of Natural History. While at the museum, he meets Jamie, whose father works at the museum. Jamie takes him on tours of the back areas of the museum and helps him to hide in an unused storage room. Ben is still determined to track down his father, so he leaves the museum to locate the bookstore listed on the bookmark he found in his mother's book. Once there, he encounters Rose and they try to piece together how they might be connected. Rose’s story starts in Hoboken, New Jersey in October 1927. She is kept at home with visits from a tutor because she is deaf. Unhappy and lonely at home, she runs away to New York City to see her idol, actress Lillian Mayhew. In New York, Rose travels to the theater where Lillian Mayhew is performing. She sneaks in and is found by the actress herself, who we learn is actually Rose's mother. Mayhew is furious, despite Rose telling her that she came because she missed her. Mayhew threatens to send Rose back to her father, so Rose runs away again. This time she goes to the American Museum of Natural History. She is found there by her brother, Walter. He takes her back to his apartment and promises to speak to their parents. At this point, Rose's story skips forward 50 years, and we see her as an older woman entering a bookstore. It is there she meets Ben. It is then revealed that Rose is Ben's grandmother, and Danny was both Rose's son and Ben's father. Rose takes Ben to Queens and leads him into the Queens Museum of Art where she tells her story and explains how Danny met Ben's mother, Elaine, and how Ben's father died from a heart disease. The book ends with Ben, Rose and Jamie (who followed them to Queens) looking at the stars waiting for Rose's brother, Walter, to pick them up.

After the Fire, A Still Small Voice

The story is set in Queensland on the East Coast of Australia and concerns two men from different generations, as described in the blurb on the back cover of the 2010 Vintage edition :- *Frank is trying to escape his troubled past by running away to his family’s beach shack. As he struggles to make friends with his neighbours and their precocious young daughter Sal, he discovers the community has fresh wounds of its own. A girl is missing, and when Sal too disappears, suspicion falls on Frank. *Decades earlier, Leon tries to hold together his family’s cake shop as their suburban life crumbles in the aftermath of the Korean War. When war breaks out again, Leon must go from sculpting sugar figurines to killing young men as a conscript in the Vietnam War.

Children of Paranoia

Since the age of eighteen, Joseph has been assassinating people on behalf of a cause that he believes in but doesn’t fully understand. The War is ageless, hidden in the shadows, governed by a rigid set of rules, and fought by two distinct sides — one good, one evil. The only unknown is which side is which. Soldiers in the War hide in plain sight, their deeds disguised as accidents or random acts of violence amidst an unsuspecting population ignorant of the brutality that is always inches away. Killing people is the only life Joseph has ever known, and he’s one of the best at it. But when a job goes wrong and he’s sent away to complete a punishingly dangerous assignment, Joseph meets a girl named Maria, and for the first time in his life his singleminded, bloody purpose fades away. Before Maria, Joseph’s only responsibility was dealing death to the anonymous targets fingered by his superiors. Now he must run from the people who have fought by his side to save what he loves most in this world.

Holy Warrior

Angus Donald

This novel continues the story of Alan Dale, based on the historical Alan-a-Dale; warrior and troubadour in Robin Hoods band of outlaws. The novel takes place during the Third Crusade, an attempt by European leaders to reconquer the Holy Land from Saladin. In the novel Robin is forced to join Richard the Lionheart on his crusade and during which learns he is the target of an assassination attempt; Alan is tasked with discovering the origins of the attack.

King's Man

Angus Donald

This novel continues the story of Alan Dale, based on the historical Alan-a-Dale; warrior and troubadour in Robin Hood's band of outlaws. This novel centres round the capture and ransom of Richard the Lionheart; (loosely based on the actual events) and the subsequent effort to release him.

Darke

Angie Sage

While Simon is being reunited with the Heaps, the witches of the dangerous Port Witch Coven try to kidnap Princess Jenna so they can rule over all other witch covens. Meanwhile, Marcia Overstrand and Alther banish Tertius Fume who is located in Dungeon Number One, but Overstrand accidentally banishes Alther as well. So Septimus, who is approaching his Darke Week, decides to rescue Alther from the Halls of Darkenesse for his Darke Week challenge. While this is happening Merrin Meredith, with his small army of Things, creates a Darke Domain which threatens to engulf The Castle and all its residents. Furthermore, to add to Septimus' troubles, Meredith engenders a ferocious Darke dragon.

Wildwood

Colin Meloy

In Wildwoods backstory, Alexandra is exiled from South Wood for "criminal black magic" to the no man's land of Wildwood. In revenge, she plots to kill every living thing in The Wood. She strikes a deal with Prue's parents, who are desperate to have a child. Alexandra promises to use magic to help them conceive, but in return they must give her their second child. After Prue is born Alexandra spends the next ten years raising an army of coyotes. She then causes Prue's parents to conceive a second child, Mac. Her plan is to make a blood sacrifice of Mac to Wildwood's Ivy, a dangerous, supernaturally invasive plant. This will give her control over the Ivy, allowing her to choke all life in The Wood. When Mac is one year old, Alexandra sends crows to kidnap him. Prue is in a park with Mac when crows swoop in and carry the baby off. Prue goes after Mac, followed by her classmate Curtis. Prue does not want Curtis along, but before she can send him back, they are separated while fleeing from coyotes. Curtis is captured and taken to Alexandra, while Prue rides a mail truck to South Wood. There, Prue finds a Kafkaesque bureaucracy and dysfunctional government. Police state tactics and paranoia over foreign threats are used to keep the regime in power. Prue eventually meets the Crown Prince Owl Rex, of the Avian Principality, who reveals how Alexandra came to be exiled, and suggests Prue cross Wildwood and seek help from the Mystics of North Wood. Meanwhile, Alexandra is flattering Curtis with a fancy uniform and commissions him into the coyote army as an officer. In a battle against bandits Curtis destroys a howitzer by dumb luck, becoming a coyote war hero in the process. He then stumbles upon Mac in Alexandra's headquarters and she reveals her plan to sacrifice the baby. Alexandra offers to share the power with Curtis, but he refuses and is imprisoned with some captured bandits and treasonous coyotes. Prue flies to North Wood on the back of an eagle sent by Owl Rex, but is shot down by a coyote archer. She is found by Brendan, the Bandit King, who offers to help. However, they are captured in a coyote attack and Brendan is imprisoned with Curtis while Prue is taken to Alexandra. Alexandra promises her that she will find Mac, convincing Prue to leave The Wood. In prison, Curtis reveals Alexandra's plan and then leads an escape, gaining the trust of the coyote and bandit prisoners. Prue returns home, and learns of her parents' bargain with Alexandra. Realizing that she was tricked, she decides to return to rescue Mac. Back in the Impassible Wilderness, Prue travels to see the Mystics in charge of North Wood. Meanwhile, Curtis and the other escapees rejoin the bandits and set out to stop Alexandra. Prue alerts the North Wood Elder Mystic, Iphigenia, to the danger and the citizen militia gather farming implements and kitchen utensils for weapons and march south. Prue rides her bicycle ahead and convinces the bandits to join forces. Just as the sacrifice is about to occur the armies meet in an Ivy filled ruin. Brendan gives a speech to inspire his forces, christening the combined army the Wildwood Irregulars. A raging battle ensues, and the Wildwood Irregulars are near defeat. As Alexandra prepares to carry out the sacrifice, Iphigenia confronts her. Curtis and the remnants of the army make a final push, expecting to be cut down, when above them the sky is filled with an army of eagles from the Avians. The battle turns against the coyote army and Iphigenia uses her control of plants to make the tree boughs snatch Mac from Alexandra. Brendan shoots Alexandra with an arrow and the Ivy consumes her. The victorious Wildwood Irregulars regroup and press on to the gates of South Wood and demand that the corrupt government resign. As a new, peaceful order begins among the factions of The Wood Prue and Curtis part ways as new friends, she goes home and he remains behind to start a new life as a bandit.

The Luck of Ginger Coffey

Brian Moore

The Luck of Ginger Coffey is about an Irishman named James Francis Coffey. He is called 'Ginger' because of his reddish hair and moustache. He is unfulfilled career-wise, no matter which job he takes on. After his release from the Army, he and his wife Veronica, together with their daughter Paulie, move to Montreal. In Canada, Coffey still has trouble finding work. Veronica gets very upset when she finds out that Ginger is still unemployed and has spent their ticket money home. However broke and empty-hearted they may be, they do have one friend to count on in Canada: Gerry Grosvenor, who helps Coffey get a job working as a proofreader at a newspaper. Coffey is unimpressed once again and continues to tell Veronica it will all get better, but Veronica has her own plans for improving her life in Canada. She leaves Coffey for Grosvenor and takes Paulie with her. She also takes all of Coffey's money and most of his belongings. Coffey gets a small place at the YMCA, and during his stay there he encounters a man who offers him a diaper delivery and pick-up job. Coffey finds this job even more repulsive than his current one but takes it anyway, with a plan in mind: To get back at Paulie and impress Veronica with his selflessness. Veronica is still unconvinced, but Paulie turns to her father's side and they get a flat of their own. Coffey is obsessed with Veronica and begins to get sick from lack of sleep and food and an excessive work schedule. He is also obsessed with being promoted to reporter so that Veronica will take him back, but unfortunately she only brings up the topic of divorce. After many drunk excursions, fist fights with Gerry, a run-in with the police and promotion battles, Veronica finally sees how hard Ginger is working and fighting for her, and at the moment when he finally decides to let her go she sees just how much he really loves her.

The Half Brother

Lars Saabye Christensen

Vera Jebsen is raped in Fagerborg in Oslo, on liberation day 8 May 1945. She does not say a word during the entire pregnancy, not until she gives birth in a taxi. She names the child Fred. Arnold Nilsen from Røst in Lofoten, a circus artist and salesman, known as "The Wheel" after rolling spectacularly down a slope as a child, is allowed to move in with Jebsen's family, thanks to his self-confidence and his yellow Buick. Other than Vera and Fred, the family consists of Vera's mother, Boletta, and grandmother, known as The Old One; all in all four generations. Soon Vera has another child, whom they name Barnum Nilsen, after the master scam artist P. T. Barnum. Barnum is sharp but very short and therefore lacks confidence. He is impressed by Fred's rebellious attitude. He attends a dance class where he meets Peder and Vivian. After being sent out from the first lesson, the three meet and hang out every time their parents thing they are dancing. The three become close friends and stay by themselves for the most time. Vivian becomes a kind of girlfriend for both of the boys. Fred and Barnum share the same bedroom. They often have confidential talks at night. Fred tries to influence Bernum to become tougher and go his own way. He hates Arnold, the stepfather, and tells Barnum that he rather would have been Barnum's father. Once, The Old One received a letter from Wilhelm, her fiancé, who disappeared while hunting in the Arctic Ocean and Greenland. The letter means a lot for everybody in the family. Barnum often reads it to Fred, who is dyslexic. Fred begins to show more respect for Barnum and his ability to write down his dreams, and gives him a typewriter as a birthday gift. Fred's recognition means a lot to Barnum. Fred attempts at a career as a boxer. Barnum adopts a motto from his father: "The important is not what you see, but what you think you see". Barnum wins a writing competition in school which stimulates his desire to write. After coming in contact with the production of the film Hunger, based on Knut Hamsun's novel with the same title, Barnum decides to become a scriptwriter for film. Peder becomes his agent after returning from the United States. As a consequence of his grandmother's drinking habits, he develops an uncritical attitude to alcohol, which eventually leads to alcoholism.

Insurrection

The novel is based around the Scottish Wars of Independence and in particular the actions of Robert the Bruce, set in the late 13th and early 14th centuries.

The Whale Road

Robert Low

Orm Rurikson joins the crew of a Viking longship, whilst still a child. The novel follows the "Oathsworn", the brotherhood who crew the boat, as they hunt for relics, including the secret burial horde of Attila the Hun, their journeys taking them through a treacherous maritime area known as "The Whale Road".

The Wolf Sea

Robert Low

The story revolves around Orm Rurikson, a young man who joined the crew of a Viking band as a child in the previous novel and is now their reluctant leader. This novel centres around the band pursuing Starkad, a villain based on the historical figure of legend, in an effort to reclaim their magical sword "Rune Serpent", which Starkad has stolen.

The White Raven

Robert Low

The story revolves around Orm Rurikson, a young man who joined the crew of a Viking band as a child and is now their reluctant leader. This novel centres around the oathsworn band returning to their quest for Attila the Huns legendary lost hoard of silver. A number of their band have been kidnapped by Prince Vladimir and face impalement should Orm fail to bring them the treasure.

The Prow Beast

Robert Low

The story revolves around Orm Rurikson, a young man who joined the crew of a Viking band as a child and is now their reluctant leader. This novel centres around the oathsworn band attempting to protect the pregnant Queen Sigrith from the combined forces of their old enemy Sterki and Styrbjorn, nephew to King Eirik, who is seeking to claim the throne by ridding himself of the current heir, Sigrith's child.

The Lion Wakes

Robert Low

The story revolves around the fictional character of Hal Sientcler of Herdmanston. Hal owns a minor holding in Lothian and the novel describes Hal's problems regarding the appointment of John Balliol by Edward I of England as the King of Scotland. The book follows the beginning of the story of William Wallace and Robert the Bruce, culminating in the Battle of Falkirk, during the Wars of Scottish Independence.

In Search of My Father

In 1944, Drexler and his family were taken by The Gestapo to a labor camp in Sereď. The family was separated a few months later when Drexler and his mother were sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Drexler never saw his father, Eugen again. The family had evidence that Eugen died on May 3, 1945 in a death certificate, but knew no details. They soon immigrated to Australia. In the mid 1990s, Drexler was presenting his story to Steven Spielberg's Shoah Foundation. It was during this recounting of events that Drexler realized he wanted to research and discover what happened to his father. His research took him throughout Europe, where he discovered that Eugen was killed in the Bay of Lübeck only a couple days before Germany surrendered.

Bro

The protagonist is a young boy named Alexander growing up with a well off family in the Ukraine. Around 1918 when he turned 10 the Russian civil war forced him and his family to leave their home in hopes of trying to escape to Warsaw but they were hit by artillery fire and killed his father, brother, and uncle. The protagonist ends up living with an aunt in Moscow and attending college there. His aunt ends up being arrested at which point the protagonist abandons the apartment they were living in and has already dropped out of college. The protagonist decides to go on a expedition to find the Tungus meteorite which happened to strike earth the same day he was born. During this expedition the protagonist abandons the group and makes a spiritual connection with the meteorite which he describes as "Ice". The Ice tells the protagonist that he is a member of the brotherhood of the light, his name is Bro,and he must go out into the world and find the rest of 23,000 members.The brotherhood of the light created the universe but made one mistake which was earth. People and animals are disrupting the universe and the 23,000 want to come together to destroy the earth and restore order to the universe. The protagonist immediately sets out to accomplish this goal.

The Cathedral Clergy

Nikolai Leskov

Priest Savely Tuberozov, a spiritual leader of a small Russian Orthodox Christian community (sobor) in a provincial town of Stargorod, who firmly believes in his spiritual and social mission, but not in making compromises of any kind, comes into conflict with his church bosses and the local authorities. His seniors expect him to "eradicate raskol" (schism), and expect him to report to them on dissenters, he refuses to comply and criticizes instead the destruction of the old believers' church as barbarism. As the Governor comes to town, he comes up with a speech complaining of local masters exploiting peasants, making them work on Sundays and religious holidays; describes devastation local rural areas were being submerged into. The Governor doesn't want to listen, and protopope Tuberozov, reprimanded for such an audacity, gets demoted in rank. His mission ends after he summons the whole of the local authority figures to a moleben and makes a sermon which sounds more like a political speech, promising dires to leaders who treat their people in an inhuman way. Tuberozov gets fired, goes through numerous humiliations, falls ill and dies.

The Death Cure

James Dashner

After the events in the Scorch, Thomas is locked up for solitary confinement for 26 days. He is released and Assistant Director Janson(Rat Man) admits to him and the other Gladers (including ones from Group B) that there is no cure for the Flare and that they were lying to them about it. He then announces that some people, including Newt, are not immune to the Flare. Everybody else, though, is immune. He also warns them that many people in the outside world hate them because of their natural resistance to the Flare and that if they escape they will probably be in more danger. Janson then gives the Gladers a chance to get their memories back. Even though Minho, Newt, and Thomas say no to it, they are forced to. Luckily Brenda, who Thomas met in the Scorch, helps them escape. They discover the Gladers who wanted their memories escaped too. Before leaving, Newt gives Thomas a note that he can't read until "the time is right". Shortly after that, Thomas, Newt, and Minho help the other remaining Gladers - about half are missing - to escape onto a Berg, a massive VTOL aircraft. Jorge reveals himself to be a pilot, and that Teresa, Aris, Frypan, and the other Gladers who are not with Thomas have escaped on one of the 3 Bergs. Some guards break into the hangar, wielding Launchers (which fire electrical stun grenades) and pistols. Jorge manages to get all of them into the air, but both Thomas and Brenda are struck by Launcher grenades. They fly to Denver, where Teresa and the others have escaped to. They pretend to be people looking for a job when really they are there to see Hans, a former WICKED neurologist who has escaped. While they are on their trip, they meet up with Gally, a previous Glader who tried to kill Thomas, and now a member of the Right Arm, an underground organization dedicated to destroying WICKED. Hans performs an operation on Thomas, after a brawl with Thomas due to WICKED's attempt to control him, removing the implant in his brain that allows him to telepathically talk with Teresa and Aris and that lets WICKED monitor where he is. When the operation is completed, Brenda, Jorge, Minho, and Thomas go into a coffee shop to eat. When an infected man is discovered in the coffee shop, Thomas decides to stay and watch what is happening so he is kidnapped by the coffee shop guard. When he is about to get in his car, a flying law enforcement vehicle shoots the man down, and on the screen is Janson, who tells Thomas to come back to WICKED for Phase 3 of the Trials. When the group arrives back at their Berg, they discover that Newt is missing. They find a note from Newt which states that some people found him and took him to a Crank sanctuary, where Cranks live before they go crazy. Thomas attempts to persuade Newt to come back but is forced to leave at gunpoint (because Newt is holding a Launcher). The entire visit Newt claims that Thomas failed him. A riot breaks out and a massive Crank escape occurs, with Thomas, Brenda, Jorge, and the others narrowly getting away in the Berg. After the Berg lands back at the airport, Thomas reads the letter that Newt gave him while they were escaping from the WICKED complex. It says, "Kill me. If you've ever been my friend, kill me.". Thomas realizes that Newt forced them to leave because Thomas had not followed the letter's directions. Once they open the Berg's bay door, the group are captured by 3 bounty hunters who are wielding Launchers and pistols. Bags are put over their faces and they are driven to an unknown complex. There, the group overpower the guards, and at gunpoint, they tell that they work for the Right Arm. There, they also meet Teresa and the other subjects who were also captured by the same bounty hunters. Minho demands that they take Thomas and Brenda to their headquarters, where they want to speak to the leader of the Right Arm. A captive named Lawrence drives them there in a van. After a ride through a Crank-filled city, they reach the Right Arm headquarters. At the Right Arm's headquarters, they meet Vince, the leader of the Right Arm, and a friend of Gally, whom they also meet. The Right Arm and Thomas plot an infiltration plan to get the Right Arm into the WICKED base. They plan to plant a device in WICKED's headquarters, which is just outside Denver, which will disable their soldiers' weapons (pistols and Launchers), allowing the Right Arm, trained heavily in CQC with traditional weapons (knives, swords, etc.) to gain the upper hand. Thomas volunteers to plant the device because WICKED wants him back for Phase 3 of the Trials. They agree on the plan and Thomas, along with a strike team of 80 men, are driven toward the Berg hangar. At one point while driving, Thomas sees Newt. Lawrence is forced at gunpoint to stop the van as to let Thomas get out and shoot Newt in the head, fulfilling his friend's last wish. They continue on, and Thomas is dropped off a few miles away from the base. He hikes in and is greeted by Janson. Thomas plants the device immediately and has to wait for 1 hour for the device to finish working. During this time, Janson tells Thomas that he is the Final Candidate, and that WICKED needs to perform a fatal brain operation on him to finish the blueprint of the brain, ultimately leading to a vaccine and/or a cure for the Flare. Thomas tries to put off the operation for as long as possible but it is too late. While trying to buy time for himself, he discovers that Janson has contracted the Flare and that he is planning to do anything to complete the brain blueprint. Thomas is eventually saved by Chancellor Ava Paige, head of WICKED, who calls off the operation in favor of a different plan involving the Immunes to restart civilization after the Flare disappears. Chancellor Paige also gives Thomas a map to escape from the Maze to the place she wants him to go to via Flat Trans. Thomas discovers that the 500-600 Immunes that WICKED has gathered are being hidden inside the Maze. He plans on rescuing them when the Maze starts to collapse from the explosives that the Right Arm planted.They flee the maze, losing Immunes in the process due to falling debris. In the underground compound, where the Grievers were kept, Grievers come to life and start killing the Immunes, but Thomas and Teresa manage to put a stop to it, both narrowly escaping death. They make it to the maintenance room with the Flat Trans that Paige mapped out; where they meet the Flare-infected Janson and 6 other WICKED security guards. The Immunes manage to overpower the guards and Thomas strangles Janson. When the maintenance room starts to collapse, a large piece of stone from the ceiling is about to crush Thomas when Teresa tackles him and gets crushed instead. Thomas knows that Teresa cannot survive the massive internal organ damage and is forced to go through the Flat Trans before the whole WICKED complex is destroyed. The Immunes are transported to "paradise", somewhere unspecified. Only some of the original Gladers survived, such as Frypan, Minho, and Gally. While pondering the events that had occurred, Thomas talks to Brenda, and she tries comforting him by describing a bright future. The conversation ends with them hugging, and eventually kissing. In the final WICKED memorandum by Chancellor Paige, she reveals that WICKED released the Flare from a quarantine zone as an attempt to control world population after the sun flare catastrophe and that they have tried to right their wrong by trying to create a cure and a vaccine. She also tells how in a last attempt to save mankind, she transported several Immunes (the Gladers) to a safe area, where they can begin to rebuild mankind. It ends with the quote: "As we tried to instill in each of our subjects over and over, WICKED is good."

Between Shades of Gray

Ruta Sepetys

Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they've known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded and filthy train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother slowly make their way north, crossing the Arctic Circle, to a work camp in the coldest reaches of Siberia. Here they are forced, under Stalin's orders, to dig for beets and fight for their lives under the cruelest of conditions. Lina finds solace in her art, meticulously-and at great risk-documenting events by drawing, hoping these messages will make their way to her father's prison camp to let him know they are still alive. It is a long and harrowing journey, spanning years and covering 6,500 miles, but it is through incredible strength, love, and hope that Lina ultimately survives.

The Queue

Vladimir Sorokin

A man is waiting in a seemingly endless line, but for what? The Queue begins with a cacophony of voices and the protagonist, Vadim, encountering a lady named Lena. As the day progresses the queue-goers realize that they have no choice but to come back the next day to finally receive their items. A woman comes along handing out numbers so that the next day there will be limited chaos. Vadim and Lena end up spending the night in the park on benches along with other members of the queue. And again the same process begins all over again; people sharing their speculations of what’s being sold, others trying to figure out the rate that the line is moving, and the occasional break from waiting in the queue to get food or drink—essentially waiting in other queues. After this ensues yet another roll-call emphasizing just how many people are waiting for unknown objects. Finally after two days of waiting it appears that the end of the line is in site, but suddenly it begins pouring and Vadim seeks shelter. He is taken into an apartment owned by a lady named Lyuda. After a simple meal and an intelligent discussion, the two of them make love and fall asleep. The next morning Lyuda reveals that she works at the store everyone is queued up for, and that his days of waiting were in vain.

The End: Hitler's Germany 1944–45

Ian Kershaw

The book begins with an example of the German refusal to surrender, and how this refusal by the Nazis to accept defeat would eventually lead to the deaths of millions. With American troops on the outskirts of Ansbach, the local commandant, Dr Ernst Meyer, an ardent Nazi, insisted on fighting to the end. A student, Robert Limpert, having seen the destruction wrought on Würzburg, took action in an attempt to prevent the same happening to his own town. He was seen in an act of sabotage by two members of the Hitler Youth who reported him to the police. He was arrested, and after a trial lasting a few minutes the commandant sentenced the young man to death by hanging. As the noose was placed around Limpert's neck he broke free but was recaptured quickly. No one in the crowd watching tried to help and some kicked and punched him. On the second attempt the rope broke, and on the third he was finally hanged. The commandant ordered the body to remain where it was "until it stinks" and shortly after he fled the town. American troops cut the body down four hours later when they entered the town. Chapter three covers the fall of East Prussia and the attack on Memel. The Soviet army launched their attack on 5 October. The German commandants did not order the evacuation of the civilian population until 7 October, which resulted in fully one-third of the population being captured. There were widespread reports of mass rape and murder by the advancing Red Army. A letter from a German officer, Colonel-General Georg-Hans Reinhardt to his wife is used to show one reason the Wehrmacht refused to surrender to the advancing Soviets. Having visited an area retaken and seen for himself the atrocities carried out he wrote "Hatred fills us since we have seen how the Bolsheviks have wrought havoc in an area we have retaken, south of Gumbinnen. There can be no other aim for us other than to hold out and protect our homeland." Chapter four begins with the thoughts of a German soldier who questions why they continue the fight when it is obvious all is lost. The Ardennes Offensive is looked into in detail. The German High Command hoped it would be a turning point in the war. The chapter also covers the lack of basic supplies such as steel and coal. Massive drops in production were caused by destruction of rolling stock in heavy bombing raids; canals and road networks were also targeted to disrupt the Nazi supply lines. In chapter five Kershaw touches on the loss of civilian life caused by the Soviet advance, such as the 7,000 who drowned with the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff and also an estimated fifty-thousand people dead fleeing the Warthegau region.

Queen Of The Falls

Chris Van Allsburg

Queen of the Falls is about a 62 year old woman named Annie Edson Taylor who remembers getting closer and closer to Niagara Falls with her father entranced by the sight and sound of the water. Finally, as a 62 year old, she goes over the falls in a wooden barrel, seeking fortune and fame.

Death of Kings

Bernard Cornwell

Alfred the Great is said to be dying. Rivals for his succession are poised to tear the kingdom apart. The country that Alfred has worked for thirty years to build is likely to disintegrate. Uhtred, a Saxon born warrior, who has been raised by the Danes, wants more than anything else to go and fight to reclaim his stolen Northumbrian inheritance. But he knows that if he deserts the King's cause, Alfred's dream - and the very future of the English nation - will vanish imminently.

Deerskin

Robin McKinley

Although Lissar is the daughter of the most beautiful queen and most handsome king in all the land, she is a lonely child whose only true companion is her dog, Ash. She is mostly ignored during her childhood due to the fact that her parents were the two most splendid people in all the seven kingdoms. Lissar's mother falls ill and starts to lose her beauty. This causes her to lose her will to live, because she wants to be remembered as the most beautiful person, and nothing less. She sends for artists from all the kingdoms, and eventually one is chosen to paint a portrait of her as she was before her illness. He works nonstop, as if driven, for a fortnight until the painting is completed and shown to the queen. After looking at the painting, she forces the king to swear that he will only remarry if he can find a bride more beautiful than she, and after he acquiesces, she dies. This seemingly impossible condition is not, however, insurmountable: as Lissar matures, she becomes not just very image of her mother, but more beautiful than her parents. The king becomes obsessed with his daughter, and insists that he will marry her. Lissar refuses him and locks herself in a room. Eventually the king finds a way into the room and rapes Lissar and almost kills Ash. Lissar and Ash escape from the king and find their way to a cabin in the mountains. Lissar, impregnated by her father the king, miscarries and nearly dies. Lissar is saved by a moon goddess, who gives her a white deerskin dress (referenced in the title) and alters both Lissar and Ash so that they are unrecognizable; Lissar's hair changes from black to white, and Ash grows a coat similar to that of a borzoi. As another gift the goddess gives Lissar time to heal and makes her forget what happened to her. Lissar travels to a different kingdom and offers to work for the king. The prince, Ossin, assigns her to raise a litter of puppies whose mother had died. The goddess's alterations, however, were more than physical. Lissar, now identified as Deerskin, discovers that she has supernatural powers, including the ability to find lost children and objects. She falls in love with Ossin and he with her, but, still burdened by her past, she flees when Ossin proposes to her at a ball and returns to the cabin in the mountains with Ash and the puppies. After spending the winter recovering, Deerskin feels compelled to return to Ossin's city, following an urgent call. As she nears the city, she hears about a wedding and assumes that it is Ossin's. She realizes to her horror that the king, her father, is going to marry Ossin's younger sister. Deerskin reveals her true identity as the bridegroom's daughter and calls her father to account for his actions, using the goddess's powers to punish him for his crimes. Confronting her father finally frees Lissar to accept Ossin's love. The story ends with Lissar tentatively coming back to Ossin's arms, offering to give their relationship a chance.

M. Butterfly

David Henry Hwang

The play was inspired by Giacomo Puccini's opera Madama Butterfly. The first act introduces the main character, Rene Gallimard, who is a civil servant attached to the French embassy in China. He falls in love with a beautiful Chinese opera diva, Song Liling, who is actually a man masquerading as a woman. In traditional Beijing opera, females were banned from the stage; all female roles (dan) were played by males. Act two begins with Song coming to France and resuming his affair with Gallimard. They stay together for 20 years until the truth is revealed, and Gallimard is convicted of treason and imprisoned. Unable to face the fact that his "perfect woman" is actually a man, that has been posing as a woman for 20 years to be able to spy, he retreats deep within himself and his memories. The action of the play is depicted as his disordered, distorted recollection of the events surrounding their affair. The third act portrays Gallimard committing seppuku (also known as harakiri, ritual Japanese suicide through self-disembowelment) while Song watches and smokes a cigarette.

Debt: The First 5000 Years

Graeber lays out the historical development of the idea of debt, starting from the first recorded debt systems that existed in the Sumer civilization around 3500 BC. In this early form of borrowing and lending, farmers would often become so mired in debt that their children would be forced into debt peonage, though they were periodically released by kings who canceled all debts and granted them amnesty under what later came to be known, in ancient Israel, as the Law of Jubilee. Throughout antiquity, the author identifies many different systems of credit and later monetary exchange, drawing from historical and also ethnographical records evidence for his argument that the traditional explanation for the origins of monetary economies from primitive bartering system, as laid out by Adam Smith, doesn't find empirical support. One feature first observed in this period, though - that of popular indebtedness leading to unrest, insurrections and revolts - will accompany the narrative of the whole book as it deals with the origins of the state, money, interest, taxation and slavery. The author supports that originally credit systems developed as means of account much before the advent of coinage around 600 BC, and can still be seen operating in non-monetary economies. The idea of barter, on the other hand, seems only to apply for limited exchanges between different societies that held no frequent contact and often were in a context of ritualized warfare, rendering its conceptualization among economists as a myth. As an alternative explanation for the creation of economic life, the author suggests that it originally related to social currencies, closely related to non-market quotidian interactions among a community and based on the "everyday communism" that is based on mutual expectations and responsibilities among individuals. This type of economy is, then, contrasted with the moral foundations of exchange, based on formal equality and reciprocity (but not necessarily leading to market relations) and hierarchy, based on clear inequalities that tend to crystallize in customs and castes. With the advent of the great Axial Age civilizations, the nexus between coinage and the calculability of economic values was concomitant with the disrupt of what Graeber calls "human economies," as found among the Iroquois, Celts, Inuit, Tiv, Nuer and the Malagasy people of Madagascar among other groups which, according to Graeber, held a radically different conception of debt and social relations, based on the radical incalculability of human life and the constant creation and recreation of social bonds through gifts, marriages and general sociability. The author postulates the growth of a "military-coinage-slave complex" around this time, through which mercenary armies looted cities and human beings were cut from their social context to work as slaves in Greece, Rome and elsewhere in the Eurasian continent. The extreme violence of the period marked by the rise of great empires in China, India and the Mediterranean was, in this way, connected with the advent of large scale slavery and the use of coins to pay soldiers, together with the obligation enforced by the State for its subjects to pay its taxes in currency. This was also the same time that the great religions spread out and the general questions of philosophical enquiry emerged on world history - many of those directly related, as in Plato's Republic, with the nature of debt and its relation to ethics. When the great empires in Rome and India collapsed, the resulting creation of a checkerboard of small kingdoms and republics saw the gradual decline in standing armies and cities, as well as the settlement of the lower classes through various hierarchical caste systems, the retreat of gold and silver to the temples and the abolition of slavery. Although hard currency was no longer used in everyday life, its use as a unit of account and credit continued in medieval Europe, against popular claims among economists that the Middle Ages somehow saw the economy "revert to barter". In fact, it was during the Middle Ages that more sophisticated financial institutions like promissory notes and paper money (in China, where the empire managed to survive the collapse observed elsewhere), letters of credit and cheques (in the Islamic world) developed and spread. According to Graeber, it was the Islamic "western" tradition of free market and commerce outside of governmental intervention that inspired the original formulation of Adam Smith, whose writing seems to repeat ipsis litteris the words of Persian scholars like Al-Tusi and Al-Ghazali. It took the emergence of the Atlantic slave trade and the massive amounts of gold and silver extracted from the Americas - most of which ended up in the far East, specially China - to see the reemergence of the bullion economy and large scale military violence. All of which, according to Graeber, directly inter-wined with the earlier expansion of the Italian mercantile city-states as centers of finance that defied the church ban on usury and led to the age of the great capitalist empires that endured and prospered for the next 500 years. As the new continent opened new possibilities for gain, it also created a new area for adventurous militarism backed by debts that required the economic exploitation of the Amerindian and, later, West African populations. As it did, cities again flourished in the European continent and capitalism advanced to encompass larger areas of the globe when European trade companies and military outposts disrupted local markets and pushed for colonial monopolies. This age would have come to an end with the abandonment of the gold standard by the U.S. government in 1971 and a return to credit money, opening up uncertainties and possibilities yet unclear as the dollar stands as the world currency largely based in its capacity to multiply itself through debts and deficits as long as the United States maintains its status as the world only military power and client states are eager to pay seignorage for its government bonds. By comparing the evolution of debt in our times to other historical eras and different societies, the author suggests that modern debt crises are not the inevitable product of history and may be changed.

The Accident Man

Tom Cain

The novel proposes a fictional account for the events surrounding the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, based on some of the conspiracy theories in subsequent circulation. The central character, Samuel Carver, is an ex-marine, now assassin, who is tricked into committing the act. The story focuses on Carver's efforts to avoid his ex-employers' attempts on his life, whilst he tries to discover the origins of the "kill order", and bring those involved to justice.